Rcaffe is a funky and quirky café on busy Long Street serving up coffee and pastries as well as a wide selection of breakfast and lunch options. Long Street is party-central of Cape Town. It’s lined with night clubs and pubs mixed with backpacker hostels and curio shops. It’s a nice place for shopping and people watching during the day, and at night, it’s where students go to cut loose.

Rcaffe has a distinct shabby-chic feel to it as all the décor is made from recycled items. One wall is decorated with old neck ties, another with vintage squash rackets, and others with old magazines, books, and record covers. Even the lanterns appear to be made of up-cycled paper muffin cups.

The menu offers a wide variety of option and has a bit of a Mediterranean flair. Breakfast choices include traditional egg and bacon affairs, plus a few breakfast sandwiches, omelets, and French toast. Lunch offers up sandwiches and wraps, salads, pastas, quiches, soups, burgers, steak, schnitzel, and even Thai curry. So there’s definitely something for everyone. They’ve also got a wide variety of coffees, smoothies, shakes, juices, beer, wine, and cocktails. Like so many places though, it seems they do it all but don’t do any particular thing spectacularly. I tried a cappuccino and an English muffin with streaky bacon, sundried tomato spread, scrambled eggs, and cheddar cheese. It was tasty, but the English muffin was soggy—I couldn’t tell if it was undercooked or just absorbed too much moisture from the sundried tomato spread. The coffee was great though.

Rcaffe has a real Long Street feel to it—busy and a bit grungy—a café for backpackers perhaps. If Long Street is your scene, you’ll be happy with Rcaffe. Service was very friendly and efficient, and the atmosphere was nice for people watching, although the dining room was very warm.