Little Victories Coffee Roasters – Elgin ★9.1

A café a few minutes from Parliament Hill that refuses to offer Wi-Fi is either badly run or making a point. Little Victories is firmly the second. The downtown flagship of a roastery that began in the back of a bicycle repair shop is built around a deliberate decision: no network, no wall of laptop screens, no one nursing a cold cup for four hours. You come here to drink coffee that two former teenage baristas have spent a decade learning how to make, and to talk to whoever came with you.

Highlights

• No Wi-Fi, on purpose. The cafés are run as destination rooms rather than as offices, and the absence of a network is policy, not oversight — which makes this the anti-laptop address in a downtown full of laptops.
• It started in a bike shop. The founders began selling their beans from the back of a bicycle repair workshop in Hintonburg in 2016, opened their first café the following year and this downtown room in 2021.
• Australian coffee culture, imported deliberately. The house style follows Melbourne rather than Seattle, which is why the board carries drinks that barely exist elsewhere in Canada — the magic and the Aussie-style cappuccino among them.
• A Loring Falcon, the first in the city. The roastery works on a machine known for consistency and for burning a fraction of the gas of a conventional roaster; the company says it was the first in Ottawa to install one.
• Direct trade, and open skepticism about labels. The founders buy through farmer relationships rather than through big importers, and say plainly that they consider the usual certifications closer to a marketing trademark than a benefit to small growers.
• On the world list. The roastery appeared at number seventy-one on the debut World’s Best Coffee Shops ranking — one of only three Canadian entries, and the only one in the capital.

What’s in the cup

This is a roaster’s café, and everything in the cup follows from that. The green coffee is bought through direct relationships with farmers rather than through the large importers most cafés depend on, and the company is unusually blunt about why: it regards the familiar certification schemes as having drifted into marketing rather than delivering much to small-scale growers. Whether or not you share that view, it produces a buying model where the roastery has to know its producers personally, which is a harder and more expensive way to run a coffee business than ticking a box on an invoice.

The roasting is done on a fifteen-kilogram Loring Falcon — a machine chosen for repeatability and for burning a fraction of the fuel of a traditional drum roaster, and reportedly the first of its kind in the city. In practice, that equipment choice matters because it lets a small team roast a light, clean profile consistently. If you have wondered why coffee from some roasteries tastes different every month and from others does not, the answer usually lives in the machine and in who is standing at it.

Where the café is genuinely distinctive, though, is in the drinks list. The founders took their cues from Melbourne, and Australian coffee culture is built on a much finer set of milk-drink distinctions than North America uses. The magic — a short, milk-forward drink almost unknown in Canada — is on the board, alongside an Australian reading of the cappuccino. Ordering one is the fastest way to understand what the café is trying to do, because these are not novelty items; they are the everyday vocabulary of a coffee city on the other side of the world, transplanted intact. Filter coffee is taken as seriously as espresso, and the company has since opened a separate downtown bar dedicated entirely to hand-brewed methods — a fair indication of how far the obsession runs.

Who’s behind it

Little Victories was founded by Andrew Bassett and Jeremie Thompson, who had both been working as baristas since their teens before deciding to build their own thing. The division of labour is clean: one is the roaster, the other the barista, and the company describes itself in exactly those terms — owned and operated by two coffee professionals rather than by investors with a concept.

The origin story is a good corrective to the idea that specialty coffee arrives fully formed. In 2016 the pair were selling beans out of the back of a bicycle repair shop; the first café followed in the Glebe in 2017; this downtown room opened in 2021, in the middle of a period when the safest business decision would have been to open nothing at all. During the lockdowns the company kept going by turning itself into a bean delivery service — an unglamorous detail that says more about the operation than any award does.

The attention to detail extends past the coffee into things that most roasteries treat as an afterthought. The branding is hand-drawn, the retail bags are compostable and printed on a vintage Heidelberg press from the 1950s, and wholesale coffee goes out in reusable pails rather than in single-use packaging. None of that changes how the espresso tastes, but all of it tells you what kind of business is behind the counter.

Which kind of visit it suits

Start with what this café is not for: working. There is no Wi-Fi, and that is a stated position rather than an accident of an old building. If your plan involves a laptop, a charger and three hours of email, choose one of the larger downtown coffeehouses — several are within a short walk and they will be glad to have you. The policy is not hostile; it is simply a decision about what the room is for, and it is the single most important thing to know before walking in.

What the room is for is the conversation, the short break and the properly made cup. It is exceptionally well placed for the meeting between two people who work in the surrounding offices — close enough to Parliament Hill and the government district to be a plausible mid-morning escape, small enough that the visit stays a coffee rather than becoming an occasion. For a solo visit it works best as a pause rather than as a settling-in: a drink at the counter, a few minutes, back out into the city.

The takeaway scenario is central rather than incidental here, because a downtown flagship in a city of civil servants lives partly on people passing through. And there is a fourth reason to come that a network café cannot offer: to taste something you cannot order anywhere else in the country, ask what it is, and get an answer from people who chose it deliberately.

The room and the mood

The atmosphere follows directly from the no-Wi-Fi rule. Rooms full of laptops are quiet in a particular, slightly sterile way; rooms without them sound like people. Here the noise is conversation and the machine, the turnover is faster than in a study café, and the mood is closer to a European espresso bar than to the North American coffeehouse-as-office model.

The café is not a large sprawling space and does not try to be — the format is compact and downtown, positioned for a district where the traffic is constant and the rent reflects it. That has consequences worth planning around: at the busiest points of the working day, seating is a competitive sport, and a visit at peak may well mean standing or taking your cup outside. Given the location, outside is not a bad option: the park and the open ground around the arts complex are steps away.

What the room does have is the seriousness of a place run by people who care about the details. The design language is consistent with the packaging and the branding — hand-drawn, restrained, unfussy — and the counter is the centre of the room rather than an obstacle in front of the seating. It is a coffee bar in the true sense of the term.

Beyond the coffee

Food here is deliberately secondary. This is a roastery café, not a kitchen: expect a pastry counter to accompany the coffee rather than a menu to build a meal from, and do not plan lunch around it. In a downtown location surrounded by places to eat, that is a reasonable division of labour rather than a gap in the offer — the café concentrates on the thing it does at a world-listed standard and lets the neighbourhood handle the rest.

The other thing to take away is the coffee itself. Beans are sold retail in the compostable, hand-printed bags the company is proud of, and if you brew at home this is the most direct route to what the roastery is doing. For anyone who has enjoyed the cup and wants to understand it, buying a bag and asking how they would brew it is a conversation the counter will happily have.

When to come

The rhythm here is dictated by the district. A downtown flagship a few minutes from Parliament Hill and the surrounding offices runs on the working population: an early rush of people collecting coffee on the way in, a sharp mid-morning peak, another around the lunch break. If you want to sit, taste properly and talk to the staff, come between those waves, when the counter has time.

Weekends change the character entirely, because the office crowd is replaced by people walking the downtown core, the park and the canal. If your visit is about the experience rather than about caffeine on a schedule, that is often the more pleasant version of the café — the same coffee at a slower pace.

The seasonal dimension is worth a thought too. This corner of downtown is where the city stages its winter festival on the canal and its summer events on the open ground nearby, so the surrounding streets swing between deserted and packed depending on the calendar.

Getting there

The café sits in the downtown core, a short walk from Parliament Hill, the National Arts Centre, City Hall and the park that anchors this end of the centre. It is one of the easiest addresses in the city to reach without a car: light rail stations serving the core are within a few minutes on foot, and effectively every downtown bus route passes nearby.

Cycling is straightforward thanks to the canal paths, which run within a couple of minutes and connect the whole city to this part of downtown. Driving is the least sensible option — this is the densest, most restricted parking area in Ottawa, and the surrounding blocks are built for pedestrians. If you are visiting several places in the core, do it on foot.

Good to know

The essential point, again, because it defines the visit: there is no Wi-Fi and the café does not want to be your office. Arriving with a work plan and discovering this is the most common disappointment, and it is entirely avoidable.

Second, this is one of three rooms under the same name, and they are not interchangeable. The first café is a neighbourhood room in the Glebe; this is the downtown flagship; and a third bar downtown serves only hand-brewed coffee. If someone recommends the brand, it is worth asking which room they mean, because the experience differs substantially.

Third, calibrate expectations about scale and comfort. The seating is limited, peak hours are genuinely busy, and the café’s priorities are the cup and the counter rather than lounge furniture. Set against that: this is one of three Canadian entries on the debut World’s Best Coffee Shops list, roasting on equipment it brought to the city first, buying through relationships it maintains itself, and serving drinks you would otherwise have to fly to Melbourne to order. For anyone who cares what is actually in the cup, that trade is not a close call.

Questions and answers

Is there Wi-Fi?

No, and that is deliberate. The cafés are run as places to drink coffee and talk rather than as workspaces, so plan a conversation rather than a working session.

Do they roast their own coffee?

Yes. The company is a roastery first, working on a fifteen-kilogram Loring Falcon that it says was the first of its kind in Ottawa.

What is a magic, and why is it on the board?

It is a short, milk-forward espresso drink from Australian coffee culture, rarely found in Canada. It is here because the founders built the house style on Melbourne’s café tradition rather than on the North American one.

Who founded the company?

Andrew Bassett and Jeremie Thompson, both baristas since their teens — one now the roaster, the other the barista. They began selling beans out of a bicycle repair shop in 2016.

How is this location different from their others?

It is the downtown flagship. The original is a neighbourhood café in the Glebe, and a third downtown bar is dedicated entirely to hand-brewed and AeroPress-style coffee.

Is the coffee certified fair trade or organic?

The company works through direct relationships with farmers instead, and says openly that it considers the standard certifications to have become more of a marketing trademark than a benefit to small growers.

Is there food?

Only in a supporting role — pastry alongside the coffee rather than a menu to eat from. Plan lunch elsewhere in the core; there is no shortage of options nearby.

Can I buy beans?

Yes, in compostable bags printed on a vintage press, and the counter will tell you how they would brew whatever you pick.

Is it worth a detour for a visitor?

If you care about coffee, yes: it is one of only three Canadian cafés to appear on the debut World’s Best Coffee Shops list, and the only one in Ottawa.

What is nearby?

Parliament Hill, the National Arts Centre, City Hall, the canal and the park that anchors this end of downtown — which makes the café a natural stop on any walk through the centre.

Opening hours