Day Dream Coffee & Boba Tea House — Restaurant in Calgary

Updated Sept 10:

Appreciated the owner's quick response, explanation & offer after my previous review. Visited Sat Sept 9, updating said review based on the owner's responsiveness to my concerns and my experience at the cafe.

Atmosphere: Agree with other reviewers wrt the cute atmosphere - it's giving Rumiko Takahashi via Wes Anderson. From the pastel colour scheme to the stuffed toys, logo & packaging, no detail was overlooked in creating a whimsical, vintage-inspired, kawaii-kitsch aesthetic. It's "homey", in a sense (if "home" is somewhere in the 80's Sanrio universe or heavily inspired by it) without being cluttered or chaotic. Thoughtfully designed without looking algorithmic, it's a refreshing change of pace from the bland minimalism most cafes and bubble tea shops offer these days.

It was pretty quiet when we visited on a Saturday afternoon. There's at least one outlet between the tables on the east-facing wall, maybe more. Will come back for a quiet study/work session.

Drinks: We ordered the puer latte and a pomegranate drink. The pomegranate drink was refreshingly sour but a bit too sweet (would ask for less sugar next time).

Glad the puer latte lacked added sugar and was strong enough to hold its own against the rich milk (a lot of tea lattes elsewhere taste too sweet and/or too diluted for my liking).

Overall I'd say the drinks were average, but this is a tentative evaluation based on our small sample size of 2 (first time visitors). B/c I'm a sucker for cute things and the quality was good enough (relative to the competition), I'm willing to try these again + other options (rose, haw latte) b/f rendering a final verdict.

Misc: Drink packaging was cute & functional. Lids were good quality, fit securely & were taped down to boot. Latte had an additional seal to prevent leakage/absorb spashes. The iridescent bag each drink comes in secures with velcro. Tho drinks would likely survive takeout/Doordash, Day Dream is about the experience as much as the drinks. Best to come here when you have time to hang out. Drinks came with heart-shaped paper clips I'll definitely reuse.

Owner comped a drink based on past thwarted attempts to visit. Glad we visited, would recommend. Suggest giving advance warning (via social media posts) and posting a sign if smth comes up that could foreseeably impact operating hrs for more than a couple days.

Original review (posted Fri, Sept 8): Been looking forward to checking this place out but probably going to give up at this point. Posted/claimed operating hours are unreliable, which makes it a pain to plan a visit here. We've arrived here three times during posted business hours only to find out the shop was closed. Every time we want to visit this place we end up wasting our time and going to a competitor instead.

On Thursday, Sept 7 posted hours indicated it would open at 2:30 pm. We drove all the way from the SW, ate at DL Eats (right beside Day Dream) hoping we could visit the cafe right when it opened. We finished our meal, walked next door (this was sometime around 2:30) only to find out Day Dream was closed. By that time Google Maps hours had changed to show it was closed on Thursdays. Checked the hours again just now, Thursday's hours have changed from 12-7 pm.

On a prior attempt I called to confirm the hours only to find the place was closed by the time we showed up (we showed up before the claimed closing time).

There aren't set operating hours for this place as far as I can tell. Really disappointing because the cute theme is different for Calgary and I'd otherwise like to support...

Randomly stumbled across this place craving a London fog and not wanting to support Starbucks... Amazing. Did not expect the cute interior at all, I felt underdressed 😂 The gentleman welcomed us in anyways and took our order (to go) and invited us to have a seat while we waited. I didn't see a London fog so I got the hot milk tea instead, and my partner tried the iced Thai green lemon tea. Just looking around is a treat. For a quiet Thursday afternoon, the drinks did take a little while to get brought out to us, but the man was so lovely and the drinks were entirely worth the wait! The iced green tea was incredibly flavorful and my milk tea really hit the spot. They were both on the sweeter side, but I find drinks like this usually are. I definitely want to come back and hang out and try more!! Just go with no plans and chill and enjoy the atmosphere (no music but maybe they wouldn't mind if we played our own at a...

the server and the place itself were super nice and cute! although i wish there were more tables for dining in. it was pretty full with people waiting and we had to sit where there’s no table. it was also super quiet despite all the people, made me afraid to say anything! which could be a good or bad thing depending on the person.

our 2 drinks took 30+ minutes to be ready which was a pretty long time for some teas… good thing we weren’t in a hurry. not sure if this is the normal wait time for a drink

you go here for the pictures and aesthetic, not for the drinks, and the only food i saw available was macarons, but we didn’t try those. overall i probably wouldn’t return, but it was fun...