Cafés
An unusual pairing across from Richmond Centre: a coffee bar from the Fresh Press team sharing its floor with a travel agency. Good espresso and pastries in a bright modern room, with enough seating for a long laptop session.
A coffee bar sharing its floor with a travel agency sounds odd anywhere else and reads as completely normal in Richmond, where ground-floor units on No. 3 Road get subdivided into whatever combination pays the lease that year. This one works. Espresso and pastries from the Fresh Press team come out of a bright modern room with a travel desk in the same space and enough seating to settle in for a long session with a laptop.
The position is the useful part. It sits directly across from Richmond Centre, which puts it in walking range of Brighouse station, the library and civic buildings over on Minoru, and most of the office space at the south end of City Centre. Independent cafes along this stretch are heavily outnumbered by chains and by bubble tea counters, so a room with real espresso and space to work is doing something the neighborhood is short of.
City Centre cafes get used as somewhere to wait as much as somewhere to drink, and this end of No. 3 Road is exactly where the waiting happens: between an appointment at the mall and a bus, between the Canada Line and something further down Granville. The middle of a weekday afternoon is the quiet window. Lunchtime empties the surrounding towers all at once, and the room fills up with it.
In the Brighouse neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other cafés and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Airy independent cafe just north of Richmond Centre with hours that stretch to 10pm, which is rare in the neighborhood. Popular with students and evening study groups wanting espresso, matcha and a table long after other cafes have closed.
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A long-running Cantonese bakery near Brighouse station where you grab a tray and tongs and load up from self-serve shelves. Portuguese egg tarts, pineapple buns, pork buns and sausage rolls come out through the day, and it stays open until 9pm. Cash only.
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A genuinely small-batch roaster and tasting room off Lansdowne Road, run more like a workshop than a cafe. Limited seating, rotating single origins and staff happy to talk through the roast. Closed Wednesdays, so check before making the trip.
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A long-running Richmond independent that brews ethically sourced coffee to order and bakes its own cakes and pastries in house. Tucked into a strip mall on No. 3 Road, it keeps a steady weekday crowd of regulars who know the baristas.
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A Taiwanese cafe on Alexandra Road, family-run since 1987, serving tea and coffee alongside a full menu of rice and noodle plates. Old-school, unhurried and open late, it predates most of the Golden Village restaurant strip around it.
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A twenty-year Vancouver Hong Kong-style cafe that finally crossed the bridge to Alexandra Road, doing the full cha chaan teng repertoire of baked pork chop rice, macaroni soup and milk tea. Open past 11pm, which suits the Golden Village crowd.
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