Montreal's Stylish Brick-And-Mortar Spin On The Coffee Cart

Montreal's La Distributrice is being billed as North America's smallest café. That's probably up for dispute, but the teeny storefront window, situated near a bustling subway station in the city's Mont-Royal neighborhood, certainly gives an aesthetically pleasing new meaning to the term, "hole in the wall."

Selling just three types of joe — epresso, americano and latte — the café pretty much functions like a high-end coffee cart in that there's no place to sit inside, but the cups being passed out the window contain high-caliber brew for your buck. Or should we say Loonie?

Besides the blond, wood-planked interior, which offers up a clean, high-design alternative to one's typical corner vendor, we're thoroughly impressed by La Distributrice's stylish branding and visual identity (the work of Gabriel Lefebvre at Studiopoint), which proves that small operations can make big impressions through their choice of aesthetics. Scroll down to see what we mean.

Located at 408 Avenue du Mont-Royal East, La Distributrice would be hard to miss—even standing at barely half a storefront's size.[/caption]
Gabriel Lefebvre's simple typography for the cafe's branding and packaging design.[/caption]
Given the limited operating room, the cafe only serves three types of brews. Here, the stripped-down menu gets spun into a stylish design element.[/caption]
Rather than the typical to-go tray cartons, La Distributrice enlisted Lefebvre to create a new design concept for portability.[/caption]
Design detail: Even the tip jar is cleverly good-looking.[/caption]

More Montreal? No problem!