Noisy, chaotic, monstrous. The good thing about living in Mexico City is that when we least expect it, something - a bar, a restaurant, a coffee shop - opens its doors with the hope that it will remain there for a long time, or at least long enough to become a classic, a must. Café Bandida, a tiny coffee shop on Pythagoras Street, is the refuge we didn't know we needed.
With just three tables inside, this place was born from the pure love of a couple, Diego and Steph, to do more than just work (although, of course, this is a job). Bandida is a little place to not live tied to an office cubicle or suffer hours in city traffic. And with that in mind, this café soon became an obligatory stop for locals and other curious onlookers. We arrived after TikTok's infinite scroll revealed a 15-second video in which the couple told us what it was like to build Bandida from scratch.
They have a short, light menu, with breakfast options such as turkey ham and gouda cheese sandwiches, molletes or avocado toasts with cherry tomatoes, but nothing more elaborate. Their coffee envies nothing to the specialty coffee shops, they have a horchata brew that is liquid delicacy, the best way to spend a midday. They also have seasonal drinks, like the pumpkin spice latte, and their matcha is sweetened with honey, which gives it an incredible and unexpected flavor. Nothing is extraordinary, but it doesn't need to be. Bandida stands out precisely because of the calm and simplicity it bestows on anyone who passes by.
But as this place could not only be a coffee shop, they also sell prints and design objects made by neighboring artists, people who seek in one way or another to survive in a city like ours without succumbing to large corporations. Sometimes, there are vinyl nights when no one has a bad time. In the evenings, on days when they are open until six o'clock, they sell craft beer to change the caffeine for something just as strong. Although we arrived almost at breakfast, we stayed long hours to write and read: you can hardly do that in other places where the noise does not allow us to listen to the voices that haunt our inner selves. At Bandida, despite being at street level, you can hardly hear the horns, the brakes, or the voice of the "old iron" that usually ruins any video call.
Café Bandida is one of those city corners that remind us that we don't need more to have a good time. You don't need a big room or such sophisticated dishes that we often pay more than three times their value. If the city is noise, it can also be silence. And Bandida can be a refuge in the city to escape from everything we don't like. We are glad that, even if it's just to order a coffee to go or to stay for hours to work, places like Bandida exist and resist.
@cafebandida
Pitágoras 439, Narvarte Poniente
Sundays and Mondays | 9:00 - 15:00 hrs.
Wednesdays to Saturdays | 10:00 - 18 hrs.