Kahawa Cafe

The lunch combo here is a soup or salad plus a made to order fresh or grilled sandwich. It’s $ 7.59 ($ 8.50 with tax). It’s delicious & a better deal than the same thing for $ 10+tax at IK2GO which is a block over on Alberni.
There are 6 soft armchairs arranged around 3 tables so not a lot of seating. Most folks are getting their lunch to go.

I cannot imagine how many times I have passed by Kahawa Café without stopping here.
I was not in the mood to walk around a lot in the downtown core today, yet I wanted to try something new. Therefore, I stopped here. Upon stepping inside, I was immediately confused by the lack of a menu and/​or prices. For this reason alone, Kahawa loses a star in my book.
Moving on, there was a soup+salad option for $ 7.50 which was nice to see, but I ended up going for a full bowl (pretty good portion size) of the pasta salad as well as a couple of samosas. The samosas were only ok, but the pasta salad was extremely good. I do not eat salads all that often, but this blew me away.
Overall, a pretty good spot to grab a bite to lunch and far healthier than most of the street trucks nearby. The staff as well as the service are top notch and everyone is extremely friendly.

I’ve always passed by this place without thinking too much. Today I finally had a chance to try the food, and its’ actually not bad at all. It is in the basement of the Fortis (formerly Terasen) building.
Parking is free after 1800 across the street, but this won’t apply to you if you’re working regular hours.
The café has a coffee section as well as a hot soup/​sandwich section, and a fridge full of cold drinks and deli-​type items. Seating isn’t too bad, but the tables are freaking tiny. I didn’t have enough room to put my newspaper down.
Today I had their mushroom soup. It looked homemade but tasted just like the Campbell’s variety, but with much larger chunks of (real) mushrooms.
Their Capicola ham sandwich was a bit thin (in terms of fillings). It was literally ham, mayonnaise, and bread. With the occaional dried red thing (was it tomato or pepper?) Pretty tasty though.
My only complaint with the food is that it is waaay too salty. This goes for both the soup and the sandwich. High blood pressure is bad.

I’ve been getting coffee at Kahawa regularly for several months now, and I’m impressed with the consistency of their coffee. The beans are Intelligentsia, so the quality is excellent. It didn’t take them long to learn my order and make me welcome as a regular.
The baked goods are fresh and tasty. I haven’t had the sandwiches but look good and they have a nice looking salad bar. Had a long conversation with the owner this morning, and he seems to really care about giving good service and good food.
Because they cater to the 9 – 5 crowd, Kahawa isn’t open on the weekend.

The owner/​manager of this place is such a nice guy. I use to order catering from him frequently, at times with quite little notice — and not once did he give me trouble! He’s very reliable and friendly.
It’s never too busy in here, and they have next to everything in the way of food.