Cafe PerkoLocation: 753 Rue Villeray, MontréalMetro Station: Jean TalonHello lovely peop

Cafe Perko

Location: 753 Rue Villeray, Montréal

Metro Station: Jean Talon

Hello lovely people!!! I have finished finals and am currently in my summer semester (already, I know). I’ve been in the process of also applying to almost a 100 internship positions for Fall 2017 as a “software engineer intern”. It’s been hard. It’s been tiring. Exciting, but energy sucking. What could possibly help me in these stressful times? What could possibly fuel me up to be motivated and alert in my job application process? 

You guessed it. Coffee.

I came here last weekend and it was a true refresher. My cousin drove us in this lovely spot in Villeray since she wanted to work on her writing (she’s amazing by the way, you should check out her poetry on her account @doekent). 

In contrast to other coffee shops in Montreal, I hadn’t heard of Perko too much. I had stumbled upon it on a few posts on Instagram but hadn’t noticed any hype. So why did we go? By the time she picked me up it was around 5 and almost all coffee shops close early - except Perko, which closed at 9. So we went for it. And I’m VERY glad we did. 

This is how you discover hidden gems. And it is the best feeling. Stepping inside this relatively big coffee shop, I immediately noticed the one table that was open. The place was packed. We bolted for the one table. The picture I took and posted above is from right before their closing time and does not represent the amount of people that fills the cafe on their regular times.

The space was gorgeously decorated and felt almost home-like. There were cute signs and sayings all over the place. The baristas were very nice too. 

I ordered a latte (obviously) and my cousin ordered a chai latte. Both were very delicious and my latte definitely fuelled me up and motivated me to continue writing my cover letters. 

One thing I noticed was that there were a lot of kids and babies around. Some really loud… I wondered why there were so many babies in this one coffee shop. I got my answer when I saw that Perko had a little section for kids where they put many baby toys and couches for parents to relax on. I found it very cute and inviting for families. There were also changing tables in the bathrooms. 

Another cool aspect about Perko is that it’s a student friendly coffee shop. There are many plugs, AMAZING wifi, a room you can rent (I think for 10$/hour) to study in… and they even have a PRINTER. Isn’t that unusually cool? And very nice of them? You can donate some money if you do print but they’ve made it completely free which is… amazing. And generous. 

In conclusion: I got a lot of work done here. I loved the vibe of the cafe, I loved the coffee, I loved the people, I loved everything about it. I will definitely go back. And you should too!!!