Lumaca | Casco Antiguo — Local services in San Felipe

A very hip and fun social-media-savvy cafe & Panama gift shop in the heart of Casco Viejo. I have visited this place on two different trips and left with unique Panama-made goods to bring home as gifts. And had a lovely experience with the helpful store employees both times as well. They all spoke English very well, (although I do prefer to speak Spanish, I mention for practicing Spanish speakers,) and they are eager to answer questions about their coffee and other products in the store.

I have never eaten in the cafe, but the coffee looks good. And the atmosphere is very Casco Viejo with the original restored Spanish tile from pre-1900’s. And the mural on the wall is an Instagram must have.

I forgot to take photos of the great finds; coffee, chocolate and this gorgeous scarf while inside the store. So some of the photos are from when I got home to show the great items. All reasonably priced and how fabulous is that scarf?!

If walking around Casco Viejo, make time to pop in. You...

Very strange and uncomfortable experience. My partner and I stopped in to try Geisha brew today (Thursday, October 5 - morning) and very quickly felt unwelcome. When ordering coffee, the barista kept laughing at my husband. Our Spanish is certainly not perfect, although we have managed over the last few weeks in Colombia and Panama City. It just felt like we were being spoken and laughed about. The bathroom sink was also not working and there was no sanitizer in sight. I asked the barista for sanitizer and both baristas began giggling and provided me with alcohol cleaning spray. I noticed the barista kept wiping her nose and wiping her hands on her clothes. Overall, very strange and felt like we had burdened...

I didn’t think it was possible to have waffles, guava bread, and black coffee all score a 5/5 in one sitting but here we are… Lumaca was so good That it’s unfair I can’t experience this until I come back from the states. The only con is that this will ruin it for you when your try food at other places bc of how hard it is to find food this good lol. I will say I wasn’t a fan of the empanada but it was ok. But then again I tried like 4 empanadas at different places and didn’t love any of them. Maybe I just don’t like Panamanian...