Café Olimpico

Café Olimpico has been part of Mile End since 1970, when Rocco Furfaro, an immigrant from Italy, bought a coffee machine, a satellite dish and a pool table and opened a café where people could watch Italian football. It grew into a neighbourhood meeting place, and it is still run by the family.

The focus is traditional Italian espresso, made the way the café's first customers expected it. Order an espresso or a cappuccino, which is what the café was built around. The café sells its espresso beans and coffee capsules, so you can take the taste home.

The original café is at 124 rue Saint-Viateur Ouest and opens every day from 6am to midnight, which makes it as useful for an early start as for a late coffee after dinner. Football has been part of the café's identity from the start, so big matches are part of the atmosphere.

Olimpico has grown beyond Mile End. There are branches in the Old Port at 419 rue Saint-Vincent, which keeps the same 6am to midnight hours, downtown on boulevard Robert-Bourassa and on avenue Victoria in Westmount, so you can find one close to most parts of the city. The Old Port branch is convenient during a day in Old Montreal, and the downtown branch opens from 6am to 10pm most days, closing at 9pm on Fridays. The Westmount café opens from 6am to 9pm daily.

It suits solo travellers, couples and anyone who likes a no-fuss coffee in a place with a long local history. A stop can be five minutes or an hour, depending on how long you want to linger.

Rue Saint-Viateur Ouest is also home to St-Viateur Bagel, and Fairmount Bagel is a few streets away, so a classic Mile End morning combines a bagel from one of the bakeries with an espresso here. For questions, call (514) 495-0746 or email [email protected]. The Old Port café has its own number, (438) 386-9071, and the Westmount branch can be reached on (438) 380-6658. Beans and capsules are also sold through the website if you want to keep drinking Olimpico coffee once you are home.