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• café
  café

  noun

  a small, unpretentious restaurant, often with exterior seating on a patio or extending onto the sidewalk.
• CAFE
  CAFE

  noun

  a U.S. federally mandated standard of average minimum miles-per-gallon fuel consumption for all the cars produced by an automobile manufacturer in a given year.

café

¹ American  

[ka-fay, kuh-, ka-fay] / kæˈfeɪ, kə-, kaˈfeɪ /

Or cafe

noun

• cafés
  plural

1. a small, unpretentious restaurant, often with exterior seating on a patio or extending onto the sidewalk.

   Synonyms:

   tearoom, lunchroom, bistro, coffeehouse

2. coffee.

   I pick up a café and a croissant on my commute in to work every morning.

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CAFE ² American  

[ka-fay, kuh-] / kæˈfeɪ, kə- /

noun

1. a U.S. federally mandated standard of average minimum miles-per-gallon fuel consumption for all the cars produced by an automobile manufacturer in a given year.

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café British  

/ ˈkæfeɪ, ˈkæfɪ /

noun

1. a small or inexpensive restaurant or coffee bar, serving light meals and refreshments

2. a corner shop or grocer

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Spelling

See resume ².

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• cafés
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of café¹

First recorded in 1780–90; from French: literally, “coffee”; see origin at coffee

Origin of CAFE²

C(orporate) A(verage) F(uel) E(conomy)

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Compare meaning

How does cafe compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• CAFE vs. coffee shop
• bistro vs. CAFE

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Explanation

A cafe is a coffee shop, or a small restaurant where coffee is served. Your neighborhood cafe might be a good place to get a piece of pie and a cup of coffee. You could stop by a cafe for lunch, or just grab a coffee and a muffin to go. You can also call a cafe a "coffeehouse" or "coffee shop," and while the word is similar to cafeteria — and the two share a root word — a cafeteria tends to be a buffet-style restaurant or dining hall. Cafe comes from the French café, which means both "coffee" and "coffeehouse."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

café CAFE cafés

Recently, I was ordering coffee at a neighborhood café, one location of a regional chain.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, the café and a limited number of galleries will be open, but we expect the rest of the museum will be closed.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026

Staying vigilant - do you really need to leave your bag or laptop to reserve a café table or a spot in the library?

From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026

We arrived at Orikum and sat down for a caffè freddo at a café overlooking the sea.

From Slate ● Sep. 8, 2026

He came out of the square, the children following him, and piped them past the café and down a side street.

From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

As long as we’re stuck with a version of CAFE, though, there is another change needed to eliminate a distortion: Stop averaging miles per gallon and start averaging gallons burned per thousand miles.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 2025

That would be the main focus of the school’s proposed Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, or CAFE.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 20, 2022

"CAFE is not a public health regulation," said Graham, who is a member of EPA's Science Advisory Board.

From Science Magazine ● Aug. 1, 2018

The corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, program is shared between two agencies: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and EPA, which is the latecomer.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 1, 2018

You've only to step round the corner of Smith's Hotel on the side street and read the sign: LADIES' AND GENT'S CAFE, just as large and as imposing as ever.

From Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock

Chiang Mai has plenty of inviting cafés and coworking spaces to choose from.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 22, 2026

It’s set in Los Angeles but the cafés and shops are obviously not local and the worst, most dated stock L.A. traffic footage can’t cover that up.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

The Time to Talk study took into account people buying takeaways and ready meals, as well as going on trips to cafés and restaurants.

From BBC ● Jun. 3, 2026

“The hype started in Japan. In Japan there are even cafés where you have contact with capybaras. And the internet helped, and the public is always curious. They want to know about the species.”

From Slate ● May 27, 2026

His paintings, and those of the other New Dealer artists, now hung in cafés and bars all around town.

From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm

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