Cafe Villaggio — Restaurant in Vancouver

A very well rounded, well priced (for downtown location pricing standards), central cafe located right by the waters of Coal Harbour and directly across the street from Cardero’s. The perfect location for moms to grab a coffee and delicious snack or breakfast/lunch while waiting to pick their kids up from the Coal Harbour community centre two blocks away which is why I love this place! I enjoy grabbing a coffee and a pastry and sitting by the bench to enjoy the scenic harbour views.

The only problem? The lineups are extremely long here and the staff are working extremely hard already but since this is the only cafe in the area, they get super overloaded. Watch out for seasoned line budging here; many of the regulars will step into the front to pretend to look at the case of pastries and when you’re a tourist you are chatting away and the next thing you know they are in front of you. There is a dark haired Caucasian lady that I see every weekend that budges in line in front of chatty tourists that don’t notice her slipping in. She’s always 2+ people ahead of me or else I would speak sternly to her about her terrible behavior.

Anyway, there is free wifi here and I love the outdoor patio seats. Even if you don’t get to sit outside, you can sit anywhere along the Sea Wall as there are benches. The bathrooms are large and spacious and wheelchair accessible; the women’s bathroom has a baby changing table too, which is amazing! There is also ample indoor seating and a table for you to add your milk and cream (did not see soy or other milk alternatives on the table but I think you can order it); both white and brown sugar were available as well.

Recently I ordered a jumbo iced coffee and it was only $3, while the almond croissant was $5 and very tasty. I can’t tell if they bake in house or if they get their pastries/desserts externally directly from bakers at Doe Cafe (my favourite almond croissant place!), but the almond croissant here was flaky but not super soft on the inside. Still excellent and very...

Coffee is decent and some pastries are excellent. The croissants are flaky on the outside and soft on the inside. Location is across the street from the harbour so you get views of the boats and mountains. There is ample seating, though the ambient music is quite loud. Free wifi is appreciated. Despite all the good qualities, the staff are not among them. They can be quite noisy and can be too preoccupied with talking to each other. Their boisterous laughter can overshadow the volume of all the patrons inside. Also, the way treat patrons leave a lot to be desired--particularly female ones. Some of the girls are blatantly obvious in being "too friendly" with male customers that it's embarrassing. Also, it's better they spend that time talking too much and put that into cleaning the tables and restroom--it can get filthy at times, even when it's not too busy. And I am one of those customers who actually clean up...

This place made the worst Ruben sandwich I've ever had. Ruben, properly made, is one of my favorites. When I'm paying over $10. For a sandwich (12 + change after taxes) my expectations are high, either great amount or great quality. This was neither. I've had better at the Safeway deli counter fit less. It was so bad it's hard to know where to start. The meat should be shaved not the horrendously thick slices they used. The cheese should be Swiss. I think they used processed slices. The stuff that barely qualifies as cheese. They used to much mayo and whatever they used was horrid. I prefer mustard as a condiment but it wouldn't have been so bad if there hadn't been so much of it. The sauerkraut was virtually non-existant. By comparison I think there was more mayo then sauerkraut. In a perfect world the bread would be rye. I mean for the price I would have expected rye. This was such a...