The things people ask.

Yes, and a lot of people do, it’s one of the main reasons the café exists.

Sit wherever you like. If you’d like the option of company, take a seat at the long shared table in the middle and turn the little wooden marker over. If you’d rather be left alone, leave it as it is and nobody will bother you.

Yes. Children are welcome, and mornings are the quietest time if you would rather not worry about noise.

Yes, free, and nobody will move you along for staying a while. Ask at the counter for the password.

There’s street parking along 12th Street.

For one or two people, just walk in. For a group, send a request through the booking page. A group table is for 10 people or fewer. There is no room fee, we just ask that everyone orders a little something. To have the whole place to yourselves, that is on the same page.

It’s a café that’s set up on purpose so people can meet each other, through a free conversation you can order at the counter, Kindness Sleeves left behind for strangers, and events built so that turning up alone is normal.

The Humanity Café page walks through all of it.

No. There’s no minimum and no small print. You shouldn’t have to buy something to deserve a little human connection.

If you do want a coffee we’d love that, we’re still a business, but the two aren’t connected.

No. It’s one person sitting down with another person, and we’re upfront that we’re café people rather than clinicians.

It isn’t counselling, crisis support or professional mental-health treatment. If what you’re carrying is heavier than a conversation, we’ll say so kindly and we keep local service information behind the counter.

If you’re in crisis in BC right now, 988 and 310-6789 are both free and available around the clock.

Add a Kindness Sleeve to your order at the till, write a line on it if you want to, and we clip it to the board behind the counter. It stays there until someone takes it.

If you need one, point at the board. No form, no questions, no explaining yourself.

Plenty. A lot of our Indian street food is vegetarian. Ask us at the counter and we will tell you exactly what is in anything.

Oat milk and almond milk are available for a little extra.

Tell us when you order and we’ll tell you honestly what we can and can’t do.

It depends on the event. Free ones usually just want a heads-up so we can set out enough chairs; ticketed ones have a registration link on the events page.

A few are proper walk-ins with no booking at all, those are marked.

It’s the normal way to come. Most of our events were designed for exactly that, and on any given night a good share of the room arrived by themselves.

Yes, birthdays, workshops, meetups, community gatherings, team lunches, and full venue bookings outside regular hours.

Tell us what you’re planning on the bookings page and Amrin will reply personally.

We do. It is $39 a person for two hours, with sittings at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm and 5pm. You choose your sandwiches, four sweets and a pot of tea when you book.

The full tray is on the High Tea page, and you can book a sitting here.

Often, yes, chaat platters, sandwich trays, chai urns and dessert boxes. It depends on the date and what else is booked, so ask early through the booking page.