Thousands of Reddit comments help this Ottawa cafe owner open his downtown coffee shop

When Daniyal Zafar opened his cafe in downtown Ottawa with his brother, he had what many marketers could only dream of: thousands of suggestions from local residents about what they’d like to see in a new coffee shop.

Work started last September on Zafar’s EveryPerson Café at 139 Bank St. between Laurier Avenue and Slater Street. At that time, he decided to get the community’s opinions on what they would like to see at his establishment.

“I went to the one place on the internet where I feel you get the most critical feedback, but the most honest. I went to the Ottawa sub-Reddit,” he said. 

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He was surprised at the response he got. His first post got 400 comments and almost 200,000 views. After two more posts, Zafar got more than one million views and 2,000 comments to help him prepare for his soft launch on Dec. 19.

One of the top suggestions was for EveryPerson to include art in the space, so Zafar did something unusual for a cafe. He put a part-time artist on the payroll. 

“I think the pandemic did a ringer on the art community, especially in Canada. So one of the first things we did was (bring on) one of these artists I know, Gabriel, who is @indoartamus on Instagram, to paint the entire cafe. We hired him as a part-time community artist. He just comes in 20 to 30 hours a week and paints and keeps the space kind of livened up and refreshed,” he said. 

The cafe also dedicates space to hanging pieces from local artists, thereby helping them to sell their works.

Another suggestion was dear to Zafar’s heart. In the five years he’d lived in Centretown, he said he found it difficult to find places outside of his home to get work done, especially since many places were not open late. 

“I’m in the tech world, so I like working at coffee shops and cafes, but there wasn’t any of that stuff open late into the evenings, especially in downtown Ottawa. You could only really go to the pubs and it’s not as easy to work on a laptop there,” he said. 

As a result, the EveryPerson Café is open from Monday to Saturday until 8 p.m. and until 5 p.m. on Sundays.

Other suggestions included making the cafe into a community hub, supporting local businesses, and offering more vegetarian and gluten-free options. 

“I would say we implemented a lot of those things we heard from Reddit,” Zafar said.

For example, when it came to finding food suppliers, Zafar said the goal was “to stay as local as humanly possible.”

EveryPerson sources its coffee beans from Brown Bag Coffee Roasters in Gatineau, and its lunch items from Olga’s Deli on Bank Street. 

Zafar said all the pastries are vegan and gluten-free from Little Jo Berry’s on Wellington Street West; a decision that paid off as he said the cafe sells out of pastries “every second day.”

“We were also introduced to one of the co-founders of Art House Café, Joe, who helped train our baristas and staff,” he said.

Looking to next steps, Zafar said his focus is on making the cafe into the community hub that Redditors had suggested – something that aligned with his inspiration for the cafe’s name.

“My parents came (to Canada) from Pakistan in 2000 and they always said it was incredible how every person – no matter their gender, orientation, whatever it was – was so welcoming. I think that resonated with them the past 25 years and it became part of my growing up here … Ottawa is like a big village and building a space, like a ‘third space,’ where … everyone can be welcome is one of my main motivations,” he said.

Zafar said he wants to enhance the community aspect by hosting events such as open mic nights and poetry readings.

“It just sort of happened that the community we’ve built, we don’t have to go looking for too much. We’ve had so many people (reach out to say), ‘I really want to do something here’ and be a part of this space.”

About a month since the soft launch, local response has been positive, he said. 

“People will be in here on a Wednesday at like 7 p.m. and they just can’t believe it’s open that late … The other feedback we’ve gotten is that (customers) really appreciate that it’s not just minimalism, it’s a more maximalist style of cafe where we have loads of colour everywhere,” he said.

EveryPerson is already home to Carleton University’s Poetic Society, which used to meet at Haven Books before it closed in December.  

Zafar said the Centretown BIA has also shown support and he hopes EveryPerson can reciprocate.

“Right across the street from the cafe is the Uncommon Event Space; it’s going to become their outdoor event space in the summer. We’re taking a look at seeing how we can support that as well.”