Before the Premiere, There Was Chai: Colaba Cafés are still winning
A few weeks ago, Christopher Nolan, Tom Holland, and Matt Damon skipped the five star spread and walked into Olympia Coffee House for chai and bun maska, right before The Odyssey's Mumbai premiere. The staff didn't even realise who they were serving until the crowd started gathering outside. Photos went up, the internet lost it a little, and Colaba's oldest café had its moment.
It's a fitting reminder of something regulars here already know: Colaba's cafés have been quietly outlasting trends for decades, and they're worth the walk. Since Hour Space is right in the middle of it all, "worth the walk" usually means five minutes, tops.
Start where the trio did. Olympia opened in 1918 as a modest provisions store before evolving into the Irani café it is today: wooden counters, marble tables, and a menu of comfort classics like keema pav and bun maska that hasn't needed to change in over a century. It's the oldest name on this trail, and everything else on Colaba Causeway has, in some way, grown up around it.
Walk out of Olympia and you don't have far to go: Leopold is quite literally across the street.
If Olympia is where Colaba's café culture began, Leopold is where it got its legend. Opened in 1871 as an oil vendor's store, it eventually turned into the wide, street-facing café now known the world over, helped along by a starring role in Gregory David Roberts' novel Shantaram. Where Olympia feels tucked away, Leopold spills right onto the pavement, a front-row seat to the everyday churn of the Causeway.
Head north a couple of minutes and the street noise gives way to something more colourful.
Mondy's, as regulars call it, swaps Leopold's open street view for wall-to-wall Mario Miranda
murals and a jukebox that's been running since 1932. It was the first café in the city to feature a jukebox and draught beer, and while Olympia and Leopold lean into old-world restraint, Mondegar has always been the livelier cousin: the one where the art, the music, and the crowd all talk over each other.
For something quieter, tucked a little further off the main stretch, there's Churchill.
Where the first three cafés were built for crowds, Churchill was never meant to be big. Running since 1969 with just a handful of tables, it's the youngest of the old guard here, and the most intimate, hearty soups, sizzlers, and old-fashioned desserts served with the personal attention only a small room allows.
And if the trail so far has been all Irani and Parsi café culture, Madras Café closes it out with a different flavour of nostalgia entirely.
A modest, no-frills Udupi joint doing what it's always done: crisp dosas, soft idlis, and filter coffee poured the traditional way. It's proof that Colaba's old-world charm isn't confined to one community or one kind of café; it just shows up in different forms, a few streets apart.
A café crawl, minutes from your desk
What makes this trail special is how close it all is to home, or rather, to Hour Space. Tucked into Colaba, we're just a short walk from every café on this list, which means your coffee break doesn't have to mean stepping away from the neighbourhood at all. Take a call while you stroll to Olympia, wrap up a work session with chai at Leopold, or simply wander down for a change of scenery between meetings.
PS//Old Bombay is still very much alive in Colaba, and we're glad to call it home. If you're looking for a workspace nearby, send us an enquiry.
