Richmond BC's Best Coffee Shops

Let me be straight about something before I start ranking anything. Richmond is not a coffee town the way Mount Pleasant is a coffee town. If your standard is a bare concrete room, a single-origin pourover on the board, and someone behind the bar who wants to talk to you about roast dates, there are only a few places here that will scratch that itch, and you will spend real time in your car getting between them.

What Richmond has instead is cafes. I think that is a different thing and, most days, a better one. A cafe here is a room you can sit in for two hours. Coffee is on the menu. So is milk tea, so is a bowl of something hot, and nobody is standing near your table waiting for you to leave. I have written more of this site from rooms like that than from my own kitchen.

So the ranking below has a stated basis, because a guide that likes everything is useless. I am ranking on whether I would go back on a Tuesday morning with a laptop, or on a Sunday with Biscuit tied up outside. Not on the espresso in isolation.

Steveston, which is where I actually sit down

Steveston is my neighbourhood, so this section is weighted and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

My default is Steveston Bakery. It is a bakery, not a coffee bar, and that is exactly the point. You go in, you get something out of the case, you get a coffee that is fine, and you take it out to the boardwalk. It is the version of a morning I have had a few hundred times. If you want art in the foam, this is not that room. If you want to be sitting near the water within four minutes, it is the best option in the village.

Diplomat Bakery is the other Steveston counter I use, and I use it differently. That is where I go when I want the European end of the shelf rather than the everyday end. I usually walk out with more than I intended to buy. Both of these are a short walk apart, which is the actual advantage of Steveston: you can change your mind halfway down the block.

When I want to sit down properly, with a plate, it is Cannery Cafe. It is a room, not a counter, and it is the sort of place where ordering breakfast late in the morning does not raise an eyebrow. Breakfast Table is the other one I rotate through, and it is genuinely better for a real meal than for a coffee alone. Neither of these is where I would go to work for two hours on a Saturday, because on a Saturday every seat in Steveston is somebody else's seat.

And then there is The Steveston Cafe & Hotel, which I mention mostly because visitors always ask about it. It is a licensed room and it looks its age in the way people hope for. I go there for a different kind of afternoon than the one this article is about.

Parking and timing in the village, since this is the actual problem

Between roughly June and Labour Day, the lots near the wharf are gone by mid-morning on a weekend, and the side streets fill in behind them. My honest advice is to park up on Chatham or further back and walk the extra three minutes rather than circling. On a weekday it is a non-issue. In January you can park anywhere you like, which is one of several reasons I prefer Steveston in winter.

The Golden Village side, where a cafe is a room

Cross the city and the whole category changes shape. Along No. 3 Road and through the malls, a cafe is a full room with a laminated menu, and coffee is one line on it. Nobody there is precious about it, and I have stopped being precious about it too.

Pearl Castle Cafe is the clearest example of the type. Taiwanese cafe, long menu, and a room that tolerates a long sit. If you come in expecting a specialty coffee bar you will be confused. If you come in expecting to order a drink and something to eat and stay put while you deal with your inbox, it works.

Little Fox Bakehouse sits in the middle of the bakery-versus-cafe line, which in Richmond is a blurry line generally. I treat it as a bakery I can also drink something at, which is not a criticism. Half the good coffee stops in this city are technically bakeries.

If you would rather not have coffee at all, that is a normal position here. Matcha Cafe Maiko is the one I send people to when they say they want matcha and mean it. And Daydreamers by Cafe 33 is a City Centre dessert room where the sweet thing is the reason you are there and the drink is an accessory. I would not rank it as a coffee shop. I would rank it highly for the end of an evening, which is a slot that Steveston simply does not fill.

How the malls actually work

The Canada Line makes this easy if you skip the car. Aberdeen, Lansdowne and Brighouse stations put you within a short walk of most of the Golden Village options, and the trains run late enough that an evening sit is not a problem. The parkades are all fine but they each have their own rules about time limits and validation, and those rules change, so read the sign at the entrance instead of trusting what someone told you two years ago.

One more practical thing. Smaller independent cafes here are more likely to be card-only than cash-only these days, but the reverse still happens at older counters. I carry a bit of cash for exactly that reason, and it has saved me twice this year.

My actual ranking, if you want it as a ranking

For a weekday morning with a laptop: the Golden Village rooms win, and it is not close. More seats, longer hours, less social pressure to move along.

For a coffee you drink outside in the first hour of daylight: Steveston Bakery, then a walk west toward the dyke. This is what I actually do most mornings, and Biscuit has strong feelings about the route.

For a coffee attached to a real breakfast: Cannery Cafe or Breakfast Table, on a weekday, before the village wakes up properly.

For the end of an evening: the City Centre dessert cafes, which is not what most people mean by a coffee shop but is the honest answer to the question.

What I am still undecided about

There are two or three small shops on the Alexandra Road and West Cambie side that people keep telling me about, and I have only been to each of them once. One visit is not enough to rank a place, so I am not going to. There are also a couple of Steveston spots I have not been into in months, and rather than write from memory I would rather say that plainly.

The broader point is that if you judge Richmond's coffee by Vancouver's standard, you will conclude that we do not have much. What we have is a large number of rooms that will let you stay a while, most of which serve a decent cup, several of which serve something better than coffee. This is the only side of the river I have ever really drunk coffee on, and the trade seems fine to me.