Best Coffee Shops In Siem Reap

Although we have our own Gaafay.com we can recommend 6 of the best coffee shops in Siem Reap. If there are other coffee shops in Siem Reap that should be on this leats, please let us know.

The Covid-19 pandemic shut the tourist industry in Siem Reap. A city that once abounded with great coffee venues, now has very few still operating. Those who have survived have done so because they were among the best, all are unique local businesses, and they continue to serve fabulous coffee to Siem Reaps locals and ex-pats. Along with great coffee, most of these businesses have a social conscience and give back to the community while reducing their carbon footprint as much as possible.

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Old Market

Sister Srey Café, Riverside

The long-established Sister Srey Café is a local Siem Reap institution, a favourite meeting point for ex-pats and tourists alike. Situated on the river near the Old Market, it is in a fantastic location with a lovely view overlooking the sacred Bodhi trees lining the river.

This unique little café is perfect for working or people watching and serves some of the best coffee in the city. The coffee comes with a complimentary biscotti.

Sister Srey Cafe specializes in healthy delicious breakfast and lunches inspired by both Asian and western favorites, plus a few decadent cakes and biscuits. Meals range from $3-$6.50 and are generous servings. The drinks menu is charmingly presented in a Little Golden Book. All their ingredients are organic, fair trade, and locally sourced where possible.

Sister Srey Café was opened by two sisters from Melbourne with a passion for coffee in 2013. Now owned by the Apopo Visitors Center, where land-mine detecting Rats are trained.

The service here is outstanding. The staff is always friendly and ready to help out with recommendations on things to see or do, and essential local advice. Nothing is too much trouble for them.

They are delightful and a wonderful introduction to the Khmer people for visitors to Cambodia. Some of their staff have remained with the café for years. This is rather unusual in a tourist town with a transient population and it demonstrates a well-run, fair business.

A business with a social conscience, the café is an outlet for NGOs, charities and provides great responsible tourist advice. The café is proud of its long-running eco-friendly practices and its contributions to the local community in sustainable and responsible ways.

Sister Srey is one of the best cafes in Siem Reap and comes highly recommended.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2.75

Coffee type: Organic, specially blended for Sister Srey, beans sourced from Laos and Vietnam and prepared in Cambodia. Coffee Supplier, Feel Good Coffee is a social initiative specializing in regional coffee purchased directly from the growers. Organic, chemical-free, and fair trade.

Wifi available

Power outlets available for some tables and can be provided for the rest.

Kandal Village

Little Red Fox

The Little Red Fox nestled into the prettiest street in the city in Kandal village, is a gorgeous, and well-thought-out, little café with awesome coffee. Opened in 2014 by Australians David and Adam who wanted to bring a trendy Brisbane café to Siem Reap and introduce amazing coffee styles as well as being beneficial for the community with the least environmental impact possible.

The menu features the best of local, organic produce, not only to ensure everything is as fresh as possible but also to lower their carbon footprint and support local farmers and producers.

The staff are wonderfully trained in not only all aspects of running the café, food management and reduction of wastage, eco-friendly practices, and amazing customer service, but also in life skills to enhance their quality of living. It shows, the staff are friendly, efficient and fun, whilst being a great face of the business. The owners credit their staff with keeping their business open during the Covid 19 pandemic due to their friendly welcoming manner which brings ex-pats and tourists back again and again. It is not unusual to hear people say: “See you at the Fox” in Siem Reap.

The Little Red Fox were pioneers in bringing eco-friendly practices to the café scene in Siem Reap. They were one of the first to introduce bamboo straws and continue to strive for a plastic-free environment. Their takeaway coffee cups, bags, and other packaging are made from biodegradable materials. Food management and the reduction of wastage is also very important and they send all food waste possible to composting and used cooking oil to be turned into biofuel, soap, and other products.

The recycling ethos is evident in the café’s fittings and furniture. The bars and other wooden features use recycled timber from a demolished wooden house. Some of the furniture was sourced from the Angelina Jolie movie “First they killed my father”.

The café is also a showcase of interesting Cambodian artefacts with a history behind them. Don’t miss the cow sculpture made from former Khmer Rouge weapons, or the copies of album covers from the Cambodian golden age of music and arts in the 1960s.

These albums were buried during Cambodia’s dark years to preserve them. You will often find this classic Khmer music being played in the café.

Upstairs the café features an ever-changing gallery of art about Cambodia. One day you may see amazing wildlife photographs and the next time murals painted of Siem Reap Street scenes.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2.75

Coffee local or imported. Feel Good Coffee, Phnom Pehn based fair trade coffee sourced from regional SE Asia and Cambodia. Plus two single-origin coffees from SE Asia, ethically grown, fair-trade, and working conditions.

Wifi available

Power outlets available

Wat Damnack

Kroursar Café

Kroursar Café is a lovely family-run café serving delicious home-cooked meals that was also set up as a social enterprise. Opened in 2019 by local Tola and his Aussie partner Jason, the café supports the LGBTI community through providing revenue to APTBY and providing employment.

The café support’s its staff with counselling, training, and life skills. The café also makes quiet donations to various charities but doesn’t advertise it.

Krousear café specializes in great meals and beverages; besides their excellent coffee, they also offer specialty latte blends that are caffeine and gluten-free and suitable for vegans. They can tailor-make meals to suit customers, perfect for anyone with food intolerances. The prices are amazing, they range from $1 to $7.50 (for the Keto Pizza), most meals are under $5.

The managers believe they have remained open because they are a family and community café which provides great wholesome meals at a fantastic price, and because of their charming staff. Meals are wonderfully home-cooked and are so great that some customers order two weeks of meals specially cooked and delivered. The café offers menu planning and provides meals for those with special dietary or other needs. Keto and other special diets can be catered for.

Krousar Café also believes in lowering its carbon footprint and impact on the environment as much as possible. They have reusable takeaway coffee mugs, recycle everything they can, and also provide reusable containers for customers who take advantage of their long-term home-delivered meals.

The café is comfortable and perfect for working or just reading over a book. They have a small library and lots of toys for children. It is a lovely place for family and friends.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2

Coffee local or imported: Feel Good Coffee, specially blended for the cafe

Wifi available

Power outlets available

Kandal Village

Common Grounds Cafe

Common Grounds is the social enterprise of People For Care and Learning (PCL), 100% of profits go to community projects and improving the life of Cambodians.

The American-style café, which opened in 2008, is one of Siem Reap’s longest-running establishments and has a great reputation among NGOs as a place to meet. It was begun to help train up disadvantage young people to help them break the cycle of poverty, and they now have many success stories.

One of the first employees is now the manager, and others have gone on to great careers in the hospitality industry. They were one of the first establishments in the city to pay fair wages, educational and occupational training, and health care to their employees.

The café is air-conditioned, with lovely café jazz playing quietly in the background and it is set up for work. Power outlets are near many of the tables and fast free Wi-Fi is available. Upstairs is dedicated to digital nomads and others who need a quiet, hassle-free workspace with great coffee.

Prices are a little higher than most other cafes in town, but the servings are absolutely enormous, think Texas-sized meals. The menu is extensive with Cambodian, Western, Tex-Mex, and Asian fusion offerings. They offer monthly specials and some very decadent cakes and pastries. They also have available some very healthy offerings such as Kefir Probiotic Water and fruit smoothies.

They have different styles and blends of coffee to suit the most discerning caffeine addict. You can choose between expresso, drip, or French press in a variety of blends.

They use a special blend from “Feel Good Coffee” in Phnom Penh, plus “Rumble Fish”, the house blend of beans from Southeast Asia, and “Three Corners” a blend of coffee from Northern Cambodia and southern Laos. All blends are fair-trade and benefit their communities.

The café also sells handicrafts made by local disadvantaged women, beautifully made bags, wallets, jewelry, and more. On offer are also biographies of those who survived the Khmer Rouge, for a heart-breaking glimpse into the dark years of the 20th Century.

When you arrive, you are greeted with a large, cool glass of water, delivered with the menu. A lovely touch is the little choc-chip cookie that comes with their excellent coffee.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2.50

Coffee local or imported: Three blends of mainland SE Asian Coffee beans from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, prepared in different methods; expresso, drip, and French Press.

Wifi available

Power outlets available

City Center

New Leaf

New Leaf Café, established in 2013 was set us as a social enterprise to improve the lives of Cambodian people. Serving fantastic healthy meals and ethical, fair-trade coffee produced by Cambodia’s Indigenous Mountain tribes.

A lovely touch is the delivery of cool, damp, lightly scented facecloths to your table to refresh yourself. In the heat and dust of Siem Reap, this little consideration is gratefully received and very much appreciated, it really does give you a lift.

The café is not for profit and all profits go towards educational and other community advancement projects. They support SeeBeyondBorders and PEPY Empowering Youth. The café is eco-friendly and with sustainable practices; so important to the café is this ethos that as of writing, their Wi-Fi password is “sustainable”. They comply with two of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; 4, quality education, and 17, Partnerships for the Goals.

The café supports other social enterprises and has products from NGOs and community organizations that specialize in eco-friendly handicrafts and products. Here you can find locally produced insect repellant or a wallet made from used truck tires, all produced locally. It is a great first stop for someone coming to the city for the first time to see what is and can be done to lift Cambodia out of poverty.

You will come back for the food, coffee, and charming service.

New Leaf Café sells reusable drinking equipment, like metal straws, reusable takeaway coffee mugs, and water bottles to encourage others to consider their impact on Cambodia’s environment; plastic pollution is a huge problem here. They also have a range of used books in several languages, and this makes it one of the few places a popular novel can be found in Siem Reap these days.

The staff are all Khmer and are wonderful. The amazing Khmer hospitality is on show here. Combined with their delicious well-priced food and drinks, the New Leaf Café is a favourite among tourists and ex-pats. It is well respected in Siem Reap for the community work they do and the advice they offer. Newcomers to Siem Reap who see something they are unsure of are often told to go to New Leaf and ask about it. Personally, they have advised the writer who was then able to pass it on and potentially prevent several young Khmer girls from being trafficked.

The café specializes in vegan meals, but they are not exclusively vegan with a great range of meals for the vegetarian or complete carnivore. The servings are generous, absolutely delicious, and presented beautifully.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2.75

Coffee local or imported. Locally produced coffee from the Annamite Mountains of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri Provinces of Cambodia. The producers are indigenous highland tribes that have lived in the area for thousands of years.

Wifi available

Power outlets available

Wat Bo

Footprints Café

Footprints Café is an initiative of Cambridge University’s Social Ventures with seed funding provided by Carpe Diem, CR Lowe Enterprise, and opened in 2016. Within a year they were financially self-sufficient, had a runner-up in the Cambodian National Barista competition, won the Kate Gross Award for Social Enterprise, and began to donate books to local schools. The café is now run completely by local Khmer people who were trained up through the café.

This is a great café to work or meet friends over coffee. Upstairs is a huge co-working space with an enormous balcony and day bed to relax on. The industrial décor vibe combined with traditional black and white Khmer floor tiles is wonderfully done and conducive to working.

They source their coffee from a local source, as well as all their ingredients where possible to support local businesses and farmers. The food is delicious and comes in generous servings, many meals are vegetarian or vegan, but the carnivores are also catered to with delicious local fish, chicken, and steak dishes.

Two walls on the ground floor of the café are covered in bookshelves selling fairly contemporary titles for sale. At the time of writing, this makes it the biggest bookshop in Siem Reap. They also sell other local handicrafts and lotions and potions from Cambio, an organic, fair-trade producer of personal products.

A few local NGOs used to use the café as their meeting space. Now, it is a great place to go for local advice on how you can help out, or how you can lower your impact on the environment and community.

Standard Cappuccino cost: $2.75

Coffee local or imported. A local blend made by The Coffee Embassy, Siem Reap

Wifi available

Power outlets available