Molli Cafe

Absolutely fantastic and authentic. Love this place.

What a fantastic, and welcome addition to the Downtown café scene.
A Mexican coffee shop café (that’s right, not a Mexican restaurant, but café).
Great staff and inventive lunch items that lift this place above the usual sandwich and muffin Vancouver fare.
Try the delicious tacos (around $ 2.50 each). There a taste sensation and pretty damn authentic.
Working lunch just got better. Coffee and tacos? Count me in.

Delicious lattes! Friendly workers — nothing to complain about! Definitely coming back

The food here is actually pretty decent. I had the chorizo and egg torta. The avocado made the sandwich and the wait for the food wasn’t too bad.
However, the owner was adamant she couldn’t give me the wifi password when I got there at 11:06. Reason being they were usually pretty busy at that time. Never mind that I was the only person in the restaurant for the entirety of my meal. It was a huge inconvenience for a foreign visitor relying on wifi. I couldn’t plan my next stop and had to walk about a mile to a coffee shop. Would definitely never have eaten there if I knew their wifi rule before hand.
Foreign visitors beware.

I’m not a fan of doctors (no, I’m not reviewing the wrong business, bear with me). I mean, some of them are nice; but all that waiting and needles and stuff… Definitely not a fan. Yet I have to drop by St Paul’s every now and then because reasons. FML.
When I walked back home, I started seeing this place from the outside for a few weeks. «You don’t look *that* Mexican», I thought, «at least from the outside»… (Back home) «So, I’ve seen this place that supposedly has some Mexican stuff. We should check it out. Let’s hope it’s actually Mexican style and not Fakexican» I told my wife. Yes, you can post the «Fakexican» thing to /​r/​dadjokes.
Fast forward a few days and she took the initiative. I’m greeted after work with what looks like, and smells like, a Milanesa Torta on tinfoil. Milanesa? Torta? Tinfoil? Vancouver? Still hesitating a bit, I unwrap it and bite it…
You’ve got… To be… Kidding me. That bun. The beans taste like childhood. There’s a hint of mayo, or is it sour cream? Flashbacks of 10 years ago, eating Milanesa Tortas with tepache outside of a subway station after high school. I’m definitely back there on an emotional and gastronomical sense.
Ok, I may be exaggerating a little. Creative freedom if I may. Still, the Milanesa Tortas are amazing. Some friends have checked other menu items (barbacoa, chicken) and think they’re awesome too. I can’t confirm. For me, it’s Milanesa Torta almost every time I go to the doctor now. Makes it considerably better. Thank you, Molli!

Came here for tacos and had lunch. Staff was really friendly and helpful and the tacos were delicious. Pricing was also very friendly. The only thing to bump up to 5 would be not charging $ 3 for salsa and have a salsa-​bar for chips…

I had my reservations about how well Canadians could pull off homestyle Mexican food– but Molli Café is an awesome loncheria-​style spot, good for brunch. Small, quiet spot is simply decorated with a simple menu of coffees, tortas, and tacos, and all are done well.
The pico de gallo was being made fresh at the counter, and was perfect on the Mollete (open-​faced bean and cheese sandwich). Adding avocdo kicks this up to the next level of awesome. Teas are brewed in a glass pot, and limited patio seating is available.
NOTE: Lamb consommé available Saturdays only, closed Sundays.

I’m in love with this place! I am so glad i found this place and will be going often:) I tried their torta de pollo and tacos de cochinita pibil and both were delicious! Looking at the pictures other people posted from this place makes my mouth watery jeje can’t wait to go again. Next time I go I want to try their torta de milanesa and tacos de papa con chorizo. Yum!

The staff was super friendly! They had my favorite: chocolate abuelita.
The molletes and pico de gallo were delicious, just like in Mexico. Amazing place for a quick breakfast.

The food is very fresh. The pico de gallo and salsa were some of the best I’ve had in Vancouver. The mollete was delicious and especially the frijol con queso taco. I’ll have to come back on a saturday to try the consommé which looks really good.
Edit: Unfortunately, last Saturday, when I returned to try this consommé, we were turned away. Apparently if you speak Spanish you will get added perks like cutting in front of the less Spanish speaking customers. We were pulled off our table to make room for a Spanish speaking couple who were certainly not waiting in line before us. The waitress and them clearly had an understanding. Shame, because the food is good.

Big windows, simple layout with minimal seating, friendly staff, great food. The tacos were abundant with ingredients. Lamb and Chicken tacos were standout. Good horchata! Tortas were saucy and full of fillings, bread tasted nice and fresh. Good competition for the other taco places in the city.
Went in at lunch and had to wait a while for food, about 20 minutes as they were busy and a bit backed up.
Overall the place seemed quite authentic. Thumbs up!

I went on a thursday afternoon 6ish, right before they closed, the place was quiet, but i was there to try their chicken torta since friends of mine have recommended to me.
The place is a nice, little coffee shop i block away from Davie Street hidden by the gas station there on cambie st @ burrard st.
I checked their menu while i was waiting for my sandwich, and i saw they have also a variety of tacos, tortas, salads, and breakfast items as well as made in house mexican pastries.
Service: was really fast and the guys were friendly.
Ambience: it was to quiet there was no music i guess because of the time that i went. but the coffee shop is actually warm with nice high ceilings.
Food: the torta was really good the chicken was tasty and tender with a nice touch of chipotle and the bread was exactly how it is in mexico very crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, also it came with a side of corn chips and pico de gallo (salsa)
Price: It was worth it!

Thanks to Unilocal I found this great Mexican café. I was in the area and needed a lunch.
The service was fantastic, and the food was just as good. I had a soup of the day, that was cauliflower based and 2 pork tacos as recommended from the café. They have a selection of 4 tacos, they are $ 2.75 each.
From the menu it looks like the breakfast offerings are really good as well. They also have tortas which liked like to go back and try.
After lunch I had round 2 and ordered a cappuccino and a concha. The pastry was superb and paired so well with the coffee.
I have suggested this café to a few friends and will surely return!

We needed wifi to get on Unilocal to find an optician to fix my husband’s glasses. We liked this bright windowed shop and liked it even better when we found out wifi was free until 11. The best part was that the loose leaf tea was brewed in a glass teapot. While I drank tea, and a light flaky croissant, my husband wandered off a block away to get his glasses fixed. The place started filling up with locals just before 11 for their delicious sounding homemade Mexican fare. I vowed to come back for lunch tomorrow.

Run by a woman from Mexico City who brings her native cuisine to her lunch menu. Delicious! The owner and the staff are very sweet, and make you feel at home.
A great place to hang out in the morning. Great pastries and a full cappuccino machine that can brew up whatever you want, or give you boiling hot water to steep your choice of teas in. The Wifi is also free till 11am, so you can hunker down and flail away on your electronics while sipping away…

Nice little café in downtown. Coffee was good. It tasted slightly bitter and had to mix more sugar afterwards. Personally I don’t like bitter coffee. Their 8oz cup seems even smaller than Starbucks in my opinion. It was more like xs cup in Tim Hortons back then.
I was so curious of Concha and good thing I tried. It just tasted like icing sugar and cinnamon. Tasted okay. I won’t get this on my next visit though.

I used to live across the street from this little gem, and I would wake up every weekend thinking about getting breakfast from here. I could eat a mollete for breakfast every day. The homemade salsa on top of that delicious broiled cheese… mmmm. Every. Day.
To start with — the owners are some of the sweetest and friendliest people I had ever met. My first visit we had the most fantastic conversation about Mexico, Mexican food, and the best places to get authentic tacos in Vancouver. I sipped my coffee, devoured my mollete and left a happy girl.
The space they have is beautiful — bright, huge ceilings, and just looks clean and simplistic. In the summer it definitely gets scorching hot in there, but that’s cool… get your tacos to go and walk down to the beach. Problem solved.
The first time I had tacos here I tried the frijol con queso (because I was still a vegetarian) and it was delicious. Simple, yum flavours and tasted just nice and fresh. The second time I had tried the lamb (so good), and the third time I had the conceit pibil and a house special they had made for the best taco in Vancouver competition. It was a slow braised duck taco and, although not traditional of course, it absolutely blew my mind. One of the best things I’ve eaten in Vancouver.
I’m glad the reviews on here are so positive, and I’m so glad they seem to be doing well because their tacos are just phenom, their breakfast is phenom, and the owners are just really damn good people.
Give it a go — you won’t be disappointed.

This is the type of Mexican restaurants that I’d talked about. Making food by a certain type of country can be challenging, since the ingredients aren’t as easily to get. But this is not a big deal in a globalize world, specially in a multicultural city like Vancouver.
Molli Café has discover the formula of excellent flavour mix with home-​made food. For me a choice to escape from fast-​food to seat enjoying a complete meal at a good price. In addition to that, the owners, two Mexicans experienced working in restaurants at Mexico, are art lovers, so every time I’d come here I can find posters, brochures or any type of propaganda refer to arts and social events, Molli Café encourage their costumers not only to try new things but also to be involve in the culture that surrounds us.
Just one tip: are you rushing and don’t have time to seat? Get a «Torta de pierna» pulled pork with a special salsa (gravy style) and you can eat it on your way to work. For more spicy flavours ask if you can have extra «pico de Gallo»

I was staying in a hotel near Molli Café and in need of a light lunch when my trusty Unilocal app pointed me to Molli Café and away I went. So glad I did! I ordered a trio of street tacos, which each cost $ 2.50. Served on traditional corn tortillas they were exactly what I was looking for. I chose the cochinito pibil (marinated pulled pork, cabbage, and pickled onions), the papas con chorizo, and I tried to order the frijol con queso but the beans weren’t ready. Instead they gave me a different veggie taco that was made from the torta of the day I believe. Either way, it was not a disappointment to get it. Plus the salsa they sent home with me was top notch.
It’s a no frills place that’s fast and easy. I would definitely recommend Molli if you are in the area and have a hankering for Mexican food.

This is a hard review to write. I wanted to love this place more, but I just can’t.
I found the menu to be simple, which is great. The price seems to be a little high for what you get, but maybe that is the nature of Vancouver vs the highly competitive Bay Area (where I roll).
The speed of service is the place that I make the biggest gripe. I paid for two tortas only to watch them start making food for their employee before starting mine. It wasn’t just me who experienced slow food service, two more people came in and waited for-​ev-​er for their tacos. 2 stars.
The pollo torta was good, but nothing that I have not experienced before. The chicken was moist and the bread a little Bahn Mi-​like in crunch. I would have liked a little more cilantro. 3 stars.
What did I learn today? While you wait forever for your food you can watch a Ferrari, SLS AMG, and Maserati drive past.