Cafés in Centro Histórico

Getting around on Madero and the Metro

Madero is the spine of a Centro walk: a 700 m pedestrian street from the Zócalo at its east end to the Eje Central at its west. The stretch near the Zócalo was once Calle de Plateros, after its silversmiths, and Pancho Villa gave the street its present name on 8 December 1914. Closing it to cars was announced in 2009, against the protests of some shopkeepers, and the project won an architecture award in 2012.¹

Four Metro stations serve it: Zócalo, Allende, Bellas Artes and San Juan de Letrán.¹

Cafés de chinos and Café El Popular

The café de chinos arrived in the first half of the 20th century with the Chinese immigrants who settled in Mexico. These cafés drew customers with glass cases full of bread and low prices: a café con leche and a pastry once cost a few centavos. The café con leche comes in a glass in two pours, a coffee concentrate first and then hot milk, and the pan de chinos runs to bisquets (biscuits) and panqués (pound cakes) modeled on French baking.³

Café El Popular, at 5 de Mayo 50 and 52, was founded in 1948 by Luis Eng Fui and Felicitas Mascareñas and is known for café con leche, natas (clotted milk), tamales and enchiladas.⁴ It stays open 24 hours, every day of the year.³ In July 2020, after three months of delivery-only trade, it reopened with 130 staff at 30% capacity behind acrylic screens.⁵

Coffee by the kilo on Roldán

East of the Zócalo, toward La Merced, Café Equis at Calle de Roldán 16 has sold coffee since 1930, when Gaspar González Fernández opened it. It sells Mexican coffee from several regions by the kilo, makes hot drinks to order and keeps pan dulce (sweet bread) on the counter.⁶ Its hours are Monday to Saturday, 10:00 to 14:00 and 14:30 to 17:00, and it is closed on Sundays.

Back at Café de Tacuba, the classic order is a café con leche with a concha, the shell-patterned sweet roll, for dipping; the kitchen also does chilaquiles, chalupas and panuchos from the Yucatán.⁴

Terraces and courtyards near the Alameda

Finca Don Porfirio, at Avenida Juárez 14, is on the eighth-floor terrace of the Sears store, looking straight at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. In 2025 it opened daily from 08:00 to 21:00, and because the terrace is so popular, visits there were limited to 40 minutes. The menu runs from a Baileys cappuccino to a mazapán (peanut candy) latte and red chocolate.⁷

Cafetería del Claustro shares its address, Avenida Hidalgo 45, with the Museo Franz Mayer, which opened in 1986 in the former monastery and hospital of San Juan de Dios. The hospital dates from the late 1500s, the present building mostly from the 1700s, and the café is in its central garden courtyard.⁸ Further along Hidalgo, Café de Museo at number 85 stays open until 23:00 from Tuesday to Saturday.

Early and late in the Centro

Hours in the Centro vary from café to café. Casa Barista opens daily from 07:00 to 22:00, and Curva Café de Especialidad, which has Wi-Fi, from 08:00 to 21:00. Café de Tacuba opens at 08:00 every day. HICHA, at Avenida Lázaro Cárdenas 23, closes at 19:30, and Café Equis is shut by 17:00. After midnight the choice comes down to Café El Popular on 5 de Mayo.