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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-fey, kuh-, ka-fey] / 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-fey, 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

Inflected Forms

noun

• cafés
  plural

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)

Compare meaning

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

• bistro vs. CAFE
• CAFE vs. coffee shop

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

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 Leacock, Stephen