July 2025

Every now and then I work at a café in downtown Vancouver. I pick either a morning or an afternoon when I don’t have any meetings, walk over to a good coffee spot, and roll up my sleeves to get stuff done. Being in a different place with café-sounds around me helps me focus. Here’s a selection of my favorites.

When I first started looking for cafés to work at, it was a bit of a search to find good spots. By good spots I mean cafés with good coffee, WiFi, and preferably power outlets to charge my laptop. I find that it’s not that easy to find places that can tick off all three of those criteria. Nevertheless, you can find my recommendations per downtown area below. If you have any tips for me, please do share!

west end

Perfecto on Robson & Nicola

This bright spot has plenty of tables and quite a few power outlets. I’m quite critical of croissants, but Perfecto does them pretty well. It’s close to Robson’s shops and restaurants, so plenty to do after you close your laptop. You can also find another Perfecto café on Davie & Seymour.

Unfortunately, Perfecto on Robson has covered some of its power outlets, but you can still find some plugs if you sit by the window.

Fresco Cafe on Bute & Davie

Before I moved to another part of the West End, I used to walk Davie Street a lot. As I made my way up to Burrard Street for my bus, I always looked over to my left into Bute Street and saw the Fresco Café sign, but until a few months ago I never walked over to take a look. When I did, I was so pleasantly surprised! It’s a stylish, colourful, and cozy place, with a shared round table in addition to various seating options around (and outside!) the café.

downtown

FUNK. Coffee Bar on Thurlow & Dunsmuir

This has quickly become my favorite place to work downtown. It’s spacious with different types of seating areas: high long tables, low long tables, two cozy corners with couches and armchairs, and window seating. Delicious coffee and fresh pastries served by super warm and friendly staff. The first time I came here to work, I couldn’t help but smile at all the interactions happening around me all throughout my stay. Oh, and they serve dumplings and baos after noon!

Matchstick on Richards St

I knew Matchstick on Davie Street, but learned that there’s another one in Yaletown. When I went there for a coffee at the end of a run, I was pleasantly surprised by the set-up of this location. Since then, I’ve sat down to work here a few times and couldn’t recommend it more. There’s a long table with plugs, as well as little one/two person tables on the left side. When I was there last, I had a vegan BLAT sandwich which was to die for. Please try it if you’re ever there!

Indigo on Robson

I looooove the Indigo book store. There’s a café on the first floor with access to some power outlets. Past the café, just by the Fiction and Graphic Novels section, you’ll find a low long table to sit at, as well as a high colourful table by the Romance section. Both tables have power outlets within the table, including some USB-A ports.

Gastown

Nelson the Seagull

I absolutely love this place. This sourdough bakery has a delicious menu, nice coffee, plenty of shared tables to work at, AND power outlets. It does get busy around lunchtime, so I’d recommend going there early, or after lunch rush hour. Before you leave, consider buying a sourdough for tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch.

Nemesis Coffee

To be honest, this is not necessarily the best work spot because they don’t have WiFi and there’s no laptops allowed in the weekend. But if you’re okay using your phone’s hotspot for internet, or if your tasks for the day don’t require WiFi (e.g., lots of reading or writing to do), definitely go here. Plants everywhere. A big shared table. Their coffee is really nice, with a nutty flavour. Even the decaf tastes good. But the best thing about Nemesis is their food. That Bodega sandwich yuuuuum.

mount pleasant

Prototype Coffee

Prototype Coffee is a micro coffee roastery, so expect top quality coffee! You’ll find lots of people working here. The design of the back wall is gorgeous, and the coffee is great, but definitely on the expensive end, so do keep that in mind. Great for an hour or two!

Salt Spring Island is a Southern Gulf Island between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia. It’s a gorgeous and very laid-back island with an artistic community, a local food scene, and fantastic scenery. Here’s how to spend two nights on this unique isle.

Seaplane from Vancouver to Salt Spring Island

The best way to get to Salt Spring Island is to take a Seaplane. It’s an incredible experience that will get you to the island in under 25 minutes. You can book a flight on Harbour Air from Vancouver Harbour to Ganges, Salt Spring Island.

We booked the Light ticket type, which allows you to bring 10 lbs (4.5 kg) of luggage. This turned out to be very doable for just the two nights. For the two of us, the flight was $170 in total.

You can also choose to take take BC Ferries, however it can take you about 4 hours to arrive to the island. You’ll need to first find your way to Tsawwassen (45 minutese from Vancouver), arrive early for your ferry reservation, then finally sail for about 3 hours until it finally stops at Salt Spring Island. We decided the travel would be much too long for such a short weekend stay.

Rent a car

It’s a 10-15 minute walk from the Harbour Airport to Salt Spring Car Rental. I recommend booking ahead; they no longer had any $99 small cars, so we had to grab the mid-size at $110 per day. After a short check-in process, we were on our way.

Sip ciders at Salt Spring Wild Cider House

From the car rental, it’s a 4-minute drive to the Salt Spring Wild Cider House, an artisinal cidery that only sells to private local liquor stores throughout BC. They have a gorgeous spot–it’s a barn building with a gorgeous patio and a wonderful view. We ordered a full flight of ciders and shared it, along with a charcuterie board. The ciders were really nice and it did make me regret we didn’t have a lot of luggage space. Would have gladly purchased a bottle… Guess I’ll just have to go back some time.

check into a yurt

We went for a unique Airbnb experience for our stay: we found a yurt on the north west side of the island. It had everything: a king size bed, a well equipped kitchenette, a barbeque on the patio, and a bathroom and shower behind the bedroom. It even had air conditioning, which came in handy when the temperature climbed above 25 degrees.🔗 OceanView Lodge – The YurtBefore driving to our Airbnb, we paid a visit to the local grocery store and got ourselves a nice piece of trout, a bunch of Spot Prawns–in season only briefly and they were super fresh!–and some ingredients for a simple salad. Tom cooked dinner on the barbecue while two deer munched away at some leaves right behind him. Amazing.

Watch the sunset on Bader’s Beach

We were terribly lucky with the weather. The temperature was still so pleasant, so after dinner we drove south to find a nice spot for sunset. We drove down to Bader’s Beach, where a family of three and a dog were the only other people. The mom pushed a little boat into the water and paddled around with the dog swimming after her. The kid played in the sand on the beach. And the dad? He opened a little suitcase and out came a violin. He started playing and that was our background music while we sat down on some rocks further down the beach. It was so scenic out there, and we watched as the sky changed colors.

enjoy lunch in Ganges

Ganges has a bunch of nice food options. We decided to go to Auntie Pesto’s for a pasta as fuel for our afternoon activity. We sat on the patio and enjoyed the view over the water and harbour.

go for a hike

There are plenty of nice trails on Salt Spring Island. We looked for a trail around Mount Maxwell:

🥾 Baynes Peak via Rim Trail and Gary Trail Loop (4.8km, 1h5) – we did this one, an enjoyable easy to moderate hike
🥾 Girlfriend Trail Lookout (4km, 2h13) – the waitress at Autie Pesto’s recommended this one if we wanted to do a bit of a grind. At 27 degrees, we didn’t 😉

have a feast dinner

We booked a table at Feast, a farm-to-table restaurant in Ganges focused on local and seasonal-sourced food. They serve beautiful, large shareable plates. Definitely recommened!

take the seaplane back to Vancouver

Going back to Vancouver was a treat, because we got to go on the seaplane again! Flying over the Gulf Islands is gorgeous, but it was also really awesome getting closer to Vancouver. Seeing Stanley Park from this angle, and the city towering behind it, landing in Coal Harbour… Just wow! I feel like we’re so spoiled now and wouldn’t ever want to take the ferry again. I hope to have another chance to do this and explore one of the other islands in the future!

8 Vancouver cafés to work at