Cafés in San Rafael & Santa María la Ribera

Getting to Santa María and San Rafael

Buenavista, on the eastern edge of Santa María along Avenida Insurgentes, is the transport hub: a Metro station, the Metrobús stops Buenavista, Chopo and Revolución, and the Buenavista terminal of the Tren Suburbano.¹ San Rafael is boxed in by the Circuito Interior to the west, Insurgentes to the east, Avenida Sullivan to the south and the Ribera de San Cosme to the north.⁴

The Kiosco Morisco and the Alameda

The Alameda’s centerpiece is the Kiosco Morisco, an iron pavilion designed by the engineer José Ramón Ibarrola for the 1884–1885 World Cotton Centennial in New Orleans, where it was called the Palacio de la Alhambra. Its pieces were cast and assembled in Pittsburgh and shipped to New Orleans by sea.⁵

Back in Mexico it stood in the Alameda Central for 25 years and hosted lottery draws for most of that time. In 1910 its site was needed for the Hemiciclo a Juárez, the neighbors of Santa María asked for it, and it has stood on Calle Salvador Díaz Mirón ever since; the city rehabilitated the whole park in 2010.⁵ The café called Alameda is on the same street, at Salvador Díaz Mirón 96, and The Latte Café is at Dr. Atl 141.

The Chopo and the Museo de Geología

The Museo Universitario del Chopo, at Dr. Enrique González Martínez 10, occupies a prefabricated Jugendstil iron hall designed by Bruno Möhring for a German steel company and shown in Düsseldorf in 1902. The engineer Luis Bacmeister assembled it in Mexico City; it reopened on 18 May 2010 after a renovation that began in 2005.⁶ It became the national natural history museum in 1910 and a university museum in November 1975.¹ Banúsach, on the same street, opens daily from 08:00 to 22:00.

The Museo de Geología, at Jaime Torres Bodet 176, was inaugurated on 6 September 1906 to coincide with the 10th International Geological Congress. Its main hall holds a reconstructed mammoth skeleton, and five stained-glass windows by the painter José María Velasco show Mexican landscapes.⁷ Bodet Bistro is on the same street, at number 115.

Café Moka and Santa María’s main street

Café Moka, at Santa María la Ribera 6, was opened in 1930 by Ovidio Rodríguez Fonseca and keeps its original 1930s signs and furniture. It serves espresso drinks, americanos, capuchinos, lattes and hot chocolate.³ Its hours follow an old pattern: Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 14:00 and again from 16:00 to 19:45, Saturday until 15:45, and closed on Sunday.

Further up the same street are Café con Arte at number 91 and Café The News at 111. For a later cup, Bello Café on Calle Sabino stays open until 22:00 every day.

San Rafael’s theaters and galleries

San Rafael began as the colonia de los arquitectos, laid out for architects of the Academia de San Carlos, and its streets carry 19th-century names such as Gabino Barreda, Ignacio M. Altamirano and Guillermo Prieto. Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo lived here, and Time Out put it on its 2024 list of the world’s coolest neighborhoods, sending readers to Estridente for morning coffee and to Calle Manuel María Contreras for galleries.⁸

The theaters are the landmarks: Teatro San Rafael, opened in 1977, and the Art Deco Cine Ópera on Serapio Rendón, opened in 1949, closed in 1998 and still empty after its handover to the INBA in 2012.² Estridente opens Monday to Saturday from 08:00 to 20:00, and VD Cafetería, at Manuel María Contreras 10, from 09:00 to 20:00.