Felice Cafe ★9.3

Felice takes its name from a musical marking — the instruction to play happily — and the founders like to say that being felice is the point of the whole exercise. That could be a slogan, except the café was built to deliver on it in a very literal way: two floors, a shop full of other people’s products, community tables you can book, and a room that keeps going into the evening when almost every other coffee bar in the city has already stacked its chairs. It is less a café with a community angle than a small community building that happens to make very good coffee.

Highlights

• Two floors, open-plan, full of plants. Big windows and a lot of greenery make this one of the brighter rooms in a city that spends half the year short of daylight.
• A marketplace at the back. Around a dozen local makers have their goods on the shelves here — soaps, jewellery, gifts — so the café doubles as a small-scale local retail hall.
• Community tables you can reserve. Two large tables can be booked for groups, in fixed blocks, which is a rarity: most cafés make you gamble on walking in with six people and finding space.
• Open into the evening earlier in the week, with live music and events from regional performers — a genuinely unusual thing for an Edmonton coffee room.
• Local roasting, local food, local everything. The stated purpose of the business is supporting local, and the sourcing follows it: beans from a small Edmonton roastery, food from nearby suppliers.
• A mentorship programme for other small businesses, run by the owners under the café’s name — the community language here has actual machinery behind it.

What’s in the cup

Felice does not roast; it buys from an Edmonton roastery, one of the small independents rooted in the city’s downtown market scene. That is the right shape for this business. A room that runs long days, hosts events, sells other people’s soap and books group tables does not need a drum in the corner — it needs a supply it can trust and a bar team that knows what to do with it. The house approach is craft-minded without being austere: espresso and milk drinks are the backbone, tea is treated seriously, and there is a rotating list of seasonal specials that changes with what is available.

The signature drink tells you the philosophy better than any tasting note. It is a chai built on a banana syrup made in-house, engineered so that the spice and the fruit land somewhere near banana bread. That is not a purist’s drink, and Felice is not a purist’s café. It is a room that would rather delight the person who came for something warm and interesting than impress the person who came to audit the extraction. If you want the straight version, order it straight and it will be good; if you want the house to show off, order whatever is on the seasonal board.

Worth knowing: the drinks list is not caffeine-only. The café is licensed, which is part of how it manages to hold an evening crowd, and that changes what an after-work visit here can look like compared with a standard coffee bar.

Who’s behind it

Felice belongs to Michelle and Tim Brouwer, and it opened in April 2022 — which means it was conceived in the middle of the pandemic, when opening a café required a specific kind of optimism. Michelle is described consistently as the one who drove the concept: the idea grew out of a period of thinking about what she actually valued, which came down to good coffee, good food, and businesses that keep money and attention inside the city.

What is unusual is how far they took that principle past the point where most owners stop. Supporting local usually means a line on a chalkboard about the milk supplier. Here it means giving shelf space to a dozen small makers, programming evenings around regional musicians and artists, and running a separate mentorship initiative offering advice and growth support to other small business owners under the café’s own name. The Brouwers also went through a federal digital adoption programme to build out their online ordering, which is a mundane detail that says something real: this is a small independent that treats the boring infrastructure of running a business as seriously as the aesthetics.

Who it suits

Working with a laptop. This is one of the strongest laptop cafés in the city, and unusually it is by design rather than by accident. Two floors mean you can take yourself away from the counter noise; long opening into the evening earlier in the week means you are not being rushed towards an early-afternoon close; and the room’s whole identity is built around people staying rather than passing through. If you need a reliable half-day desk with coffee, this belongs on your shortlist.

Groups and study sessions. The single best reason to choose Felice over any other café on this list. Large community tables can be reserved in advance for groups, in defined blocks of time — which solves the classic problem of arriving with a study group or a project team and finding four scattered two-tops. Board game nights, club meetings and student groups use it accordingly.

Meeting someone. Easy at any scale, from a quiet upstairs corner for a serious conversation to a table on the main floor for something social. Because the room is licensed and open later at the start of the week, a coffee meeting can slide into an evening without changing venue.

Taking it away. Well handled, with mobile ordering available if you would rather skip the queue — useful on event nights and around stadium traffic.

Sitting alone. Very comfortable. A big two-storey room with plants and windows is one of the easier places in the city to spend an hour by yourself without feeling on display.

The space

The building is new and the café was designed into it rather than squeezed into an old shell, which shows. Two levels, an open-concept layout, tall windows and a serious amount of planting produce a room that reads as bright and alive even in February. The upper level does what upper levels should do in a café — absorbs the people who want to settle in, and leaves the ground floor to the counter, the queue and the market shelves.

That market section at the back is a real part of the atmosphere, not a token display. Browsing is expected, so there is a low-level circulation of people moving around the room, which makes the space feel busier than its seat count would suggest. It also means the volume varies more than in a conventional café: quiet in the middle of a weekday, considerably livelier on an event evening or when a stadium crowd is nearby. Anyone hoping for a monastic reading room should adjust expectations; anyone who finds a bit of ambient life easier to concentrate in will be happy.

Beyond the coffee

Food here goes beyond a token pastry case. The counter carries a proper range of baked goods — the viennoiserie in particular gets consistently strong notices, warmed on request — alongside savoury items suitable for a real lunch rather than a snack. The sourcing follows the same local logic as everything else, with nearby suppliers rather than a national distributor behind most of what is on offer.

Two things to note. First, the café does not present itself as a bakery, so treat the pastry as very well chosen rather than baked from scratch on the premises. Second, because there is a licensed offer and an events programme, the food side flexes: an evening here is a different proposition from a mid-morning coffee, and the counter reflects that.

When to come

Felice is one of the few coffee rooms in Edmonton where the answer is not automatically “the morning”. Earlier in the week it runs well into the evening, which makes it a genuine option for an after-work session, a group booking or a live music night — check what is programmed before you go, since the calendar is a real part of the offer rather than an occasional novelty. Later in the week and at weekends the room reverts to a daytime schedule, closing in the afternoon.

The quietest working windows are the middle of a weekday, before schools and offices break for lunch and after the morning rush has cleared. The loudest are event nights and any day when there is something on at the stadium next door — which, for a café built beside one of the city’s largest venues, is a factor worth checking against your own plans. If you want a table for a group, book it; the community tables exist precisely because walk-in groups are otherwise a gamble.

Getting there

The café sits in Stadium Yards, a new mixed-use development immediately beside Commonwealth Stadium on the near north-east side of the city centre. This is about as easy as Edmonton transit gets: the LRT station serving the stadium is right there, which puts the café a short and predictable ride from downtown and from the university side of the river. Bus service through the area is frequent, and the surrounding district is flat and walkable.

Drivers will find this easier than the downtown cafés, since a modern development comes with modern parking provision — with the obvious exception of event days at the stadium, when the entire area is given over to a crowd and you should arrive by train instead. Cyclists have good access along the corridors running towards the river valley and the north-east neighbourhoods.

Good to know

Three practical things. First, if you are coming with a group, reserve one of the community tables rather than hoping — that facility exists because the café understands its own popularity. Second, check the events calendar before planning a quiet evening: the same room that is a calm study space on a Tuesday afternoon may have a musician in it a few hours later. Third, check the stadium schedule if you are driving, because a major event next door changes traffic and parking in the whole district.

Also worth knowing: the retail market is not an afterthought and is worth ten minutes of your time even if you only came for a flat white. Buying something from the shelf is, in a fairly direct way, the entire point the owners are making.

Questions and answers

When did Felice open, and who runs it?

April 2022, by Michelle and Tim Brouwer. The concept came together during the pandemic.

Is it a good place to work or study?

One of the best in the city. Two floors, long hours at the start of the week, and a layout built around people staying rather than passing through.

Can I reserve a table for a group?

Yes — two large community tables can be booked in advance for groups, in set blocks of time, and there are larger space rental options for events.

Do they roast their own coffee?

No. Beans come from a small Edmonton roastery, in keeping with the café’s local-first sourcing.

What should I try first?

The house chai built on banana syrup made in the kitchen — it is the drink the café is known for — or whatever seasonal special is on the board.

Is it open in the evening?

Earlier in the week, yes, which is rare here and makes it viable for after-work meetings and live music nights. Later in the week it is a daytime café.

Is there really a shop inside?

Yes. Around a dozen local makers sell through the café’s retail section at the back.

Do they serve alcohol?

The café is licensed, which is part of how the evening programme works.

How do I get there without a car?

Take the LRT to the stadium station — the café is in the development right beside it.

Opening hours