After two months of passionate voting, the global book-loving community has delivered their verdict on the world’s most innovative book-cafés—spaces that have brilliantly transformed the traditional bookshop into something our fragmented world desperately needs: the third place – welcoming public space where people can hang out with friends or alone while being surrounded by culture and community life, serving as a social anchor between home and work.
In May 2025, the 1000 Libraries Awards team nominated 16 exceptional book-cafés for their outstanding work in reimagining the bookshop as a vital community anchor. From May 15th to July 15th, we asked the 1000 Book-Cafés community to vote for the spaces that best exemplify the evolution from simple retail to essential social infrastructure.
Over 60 days of intense competition, 200,000 votes were recorded from readers, café enthusiasts, urban planners, and community advocates worldwide. The response was overwhelming—people from every corner of the globe recognized these spaces as more than bookshops with beverage and snack offerings; they saw them as the beating hearts of community life.
What makes these spaces revolutionary? They have solved one of modern society’s greatest challenges: the disappearance of the “third place”—those crucial social spaces between home and work where communities are born, ideas flourish, and human connections thrive. In our increasingly digital and isolating world, these book-cafés have become beacons of hope—spaces where strangers become neighbors, where solitude and community coexist, and where the simple acts of reading and sharing a cup of coffee create the foundation for a cultured life.
Here are the 2025 Top 10 World’s Most Innovative Book-Cafés – as voted by the largest online community of book and café lovers.
1st Place: Minoa Pera
Voted as the most beautiful book café in the world for 2025, Minoa Pera rightfully holds the top spot! Part of the Minoa Books chain, Minoa Pera has a chic style that more than earns its place on a list of the world’s best book cafés. With sleek stone flooring and crisp, modern design, it sells over 45,000 Turkish and English books across various genres, including both best sellers and indie publishers. It has an array of other goods as well, like stationery and home décor items.
The café is located on the second floor, the stairs leading up to which are embedded with books at every step. It’s just another thing that adds to the special atmosphere of the place.
Address: Evliya Çelebi, Meşrutiyet Cd. No:99, 34430 Beyoğlu/İstanbul, Türkiye
Opening hours:
– Monday to Thursday & Sunday: 8AM – 11PM
– Friday to Saturday: 8AM – 12AM
2nd Place: The Used Book Café at Merci
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This cozy book café tucks its customers into a quiet, welcoming atmosphere, surrounded by thousands of books they’re free to browse in between bites. Though most of the books are in French, there are enough in English to entertain the wayward tourist. And if nothing else, you can always enjoy the relaxed vibe in the seating area, sipping on tea or latte.
Reviewers are largely positive about the menu, which includes everything from breakfast items like croissants to lunch and desserts, with delicious pumpkin soup, cakes, and more.
Address: 111 Bd Beaumarchais, 75003 Paris, France
Opening hours:
– Monday to Sunday: 10AM – 6PM
3rd Place: Halle Saint-Pierre
Art lovers, gather round! Halle Saint-Pierre is a cultural center dedicated to outsider art, naïve, and contemporary art. It features a well-stocked bookstore specializing in art-related publications and a café serving coffee and vegetarian pastries. It’s also in a former 19th-century market hall, with distinctive iron and glass architecture.
The center also hosts rotating exhibitions showcasing paintings, sculptures, and photographs. You need to pay a fee to see the exhibitions, but if you’re a fan of avant-garde art, you’ll certainly be in for a treat.
Address: 2 Rue Ronsard, 75018 Paris, France
Opening hours:
– Monday to Friday: 11AM – 6PM
– Saturday: 11AM – 7PM
– Sunday: 12PM – 6PM
4th Place: Péniche L’Eau et les Rêves
Fancy a bite on the water? Péniche L’Eau et les Rêves is a floating bookshop and café-restaurant located on a barge moored on Paris’s Canal de l’Ourcq. Specializing in books about plants, botany, and gardening, its interior is a lush, green oasis of potted plants, vines curling over wooden shelves and hanging from the ceiling.
The café is especially nice, with glass walls that let in plenty of natural sunlight and a great view of the surrounding canal.
Address: 9 Quai de l’Oise, 75019 Paris, France
Opening hours:
– Wednesday to Sunday: 11AM – 7PM
– (Café open on Sunday from 11:30AM – 3PM by reservation only)
– Monday & Tuesday: Closed
5th Place: Cafebrería El Péndulo Polanco
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Cafebrería El Péndulo is another book café chain, this time in Mexico, and its branch in the Polanco neighborhood of Mexico City is especially famous. It offers two levels showing off a rich selection of books in Spanish and English, with a healthy amount of greenery to give the space an extra spark of life.
The café’s seating area is on the second floor, providing a restaurant-style menu as you overlook this calming, beautiful interior.
Address: Alejandro Dumas 81, Polanco, Polanco IV Secc, Miguel Hidalgo, 11560 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Opening hours:
– Monday to Saturday: 8AM – 11PM
– Sunday: 9AM – 10PM
6th Place: Ampersand Café & Bookstore
This three-story book café in the heart of Sydney houses over 30,000 used books. Here, you can find anything from crime novels to history, including a special section with rare and antiquarian texts. The furniture and decor give off a homey, vintage vibe in the way it’s mismatched but comfortable.
The menu has some standout dishes like Turkish-inspired labneh eggs, miso-glazed salmon poke bowls, and fresh baked goods, making for a pleasant break while surrounded by books.
Address: 78 Oxford St, Paddington NSW 2021, Australia
Opening hours:
– Monday to Friday: 7AM – 4PM
– Saturday & Sunday: 8AM – 4PM
7th Place: Ler Devagar
This printing warehouse-turned-bookstore/cultural hub can be found in Lisbon, Portugal, and retains much of its industrial design. With books stretching from the floor to high up the warehouse walls, it makes for a unique space, complete with a massive, old printing press and an iconic art installation of a flying bicyclist suspended in the air.
Along with the bookshop side of things, you can find vinyl records, art, and a very nice café dishing out coffee.
Address: R. Rodrigues de Faria 103 – G 0.3, 1300-501 Lisboa, Portugal
Opening hours:
– Monday to Sunday: 10AM – 9PM
8th Place: Maison Assouline
What better place to plant a luxury bookstore than inside a former bank? That’s Maison Assouline in a nutshell. A hop, skip, and a jump away from London’s St. James’s Square, this place is brimming with elegance and high class, from the sophisticated sofas and tables in the bar area to the art and antiques displayed tastefully here and there.
Inside, you can find a curated selection of art, fashion, travel, and history books, plus an impressive spread of coffee table books. If you’re feeling hungry, the Swans Bar, located right inside, serves up cocktails and light meals in a refined and cozy setting.
Address: 196A Piccadilly, London W1J 9EY, United Kingdom
Opening hours:
Bookstore:
– Monday to Wednesday: 10:30AM – 7PM
– Thursday to Saturday: 10:30AM – 9PM
– Sunday: 12PM – 6PM
Swans Bar:
– Monday to Wednesday: 12PM – 9PM
– Thursday to Saturday: 12PM – 11PM
– Sunday: Closed
9th Place: Bibliotheque NYC
Smack dab in SoHo, New York is a ritzy book café and wine bar called Bibliotheque. The interior has a snazzy, elegant style, with books of all genres and interests neatly lining the walls and sofa backs, interspersed with modern art pieces.
The menu offers a decent array of light meal items like sandwiches and pastries. During the day, its café menu of teas, coffees, and specialty lattes is on display, while at night, an extensive wine list is brought out in full force.
Address: 54 Mercer St, New York, NY 10013, United States
Opening hours:
– Sunday to Thursday: 10AM – 10PM
– Friday & Saturday: 10AM – 11PM
– Monday: Closed
10th Place: Livraria Funambule
Livraria Funambule is a charming independent bookstore and café in Brazil. It gives off a homey, almost cottage-like feel, with a color scheme of white and gentle greens painting a calming atmosphere amidst potted plants and other loving decorations.
The ambiance encourages visitors to savor specialty coffee and pastries while browsing shelves or sitting outside on its outdoor terrace. It’s the kind of place designed to nurture the soul, surrounded by nature and a quiet world of books.
Address: Condomínio Petrópolis Green Offices – R. Prof. Stroeller, 428 – loja 15B – Quarteirão Brasileiro, Petrópolis – RJ, 25680-502, Brazil
Opening hours:
– Tuesday to Saturday: 11AM – 7PM
– Sunday: 12PM – 6PM
– Monday: Closed
