Plural of “cafe”

The plural of cafe is cafes.

Why

"Cafe" comes from French "café," itself borrowed from Ottoman Turkish "kahve," ultimately from Arabic "qahwa," coffee. English adopted the word, along with the coffee-drinking culture it named, in the 19th century, and despite its French accent mark, it takes a completely ordinary English -s plural. Coffeehouses had already flourished across the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East for centuries before the concept, and the vocabulary describing it, spread into Western Europe through trade and travel in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The acute accent over the e is frequently dropped in everyday American English ("cafe" rather than "café"), though it's often retained in British usage and in more deliberately French-flavored branding; regardless of whether the accent is kept, the plural spelling and pronunciation stay identical, since the accent mark itself carries no grammatical function in English the way it does in French.

Usage note

"Cafes" (or "cafés," with the accent) is standard in every context; there's no meaningful difference in correctness between keeping or dropping the accent mark, though consistency within a single piece of writing is worth maintaining.

The word's ultimate root, Arabic "qahwa," also gave English "coffee" directly, meaning the drink and the establishment that serves it both trace back to the very same Arabic word through two entirely different borrowing paths into European languages, one via Ottoman Turkish and French, the other more directly through Italian and Dutch trade routes. The specific cultural institution of the sidewalk cafe, associated strongly with French and broader European city life, became a globally recognized urban fixture by the 19th century, and English absorbed both the physical establishment and its French name together as a single cultural and linguistic package. Some English writers use "café" specifically to signal a more European or upscale establishment, reserving the unaccented "cafe" for a more casual, American diner-style spelling, though this distinction is stylistic rather than an enforced rule.

Common real mistakes

There's no plural confusion with this word; the only real inconsistency is whether to keep the French accent mark, a stylistic choice rather than a grammatical one, and mixing accented and unaccented spellings within the same document is the only genuine slip worth avoiding. Writers should also avoid confusing "cafe" with "cafeteria," a separate, unrelated 19th-century American compound built on Spanish "cafetería" that describes a specific style of self-service dining hall rather than a small coffee-serving establishment.

The wider pattern

"Cafe" belongs to a small set of French loanwords that kept their accent marks optionally in English, alongside words like "fiancé" and "cliché," all of which pluralize with an ordinary English -s regardless of whether the accent is retained.

Examples

• Several new cafes opened along the main street this year.
• She spent the afternoon working from one of her favorite cafes.
• The city is known for its charming sidewalk cafes.
• Local cafes struggled during the shutdown but slowly recovered.
• They visited three different cafes before finding one with a table free.
• Independent cafes often source beans from small local roasters.
• The neighborhood's cafes were packed on Saturday mornings.
• He reviews cafes for a small food blog on weekends.
• Historic cafes in the old quarter attract tourists year-round.
• The two cafes on the corner have competed for regulars for years.
• Tourists lined up outside the popular cafes near the square.
• The two cafes split the corner lot decades ago.
• The two cafes now share a single supplier.
• Students studied for hours in the campus cafes.
• New cafes kept opening despite the crowded market.
• He met friends weekly at one of the corner cafes.
• The cafes downtown extended their hours for the festival.
• A row of cafes lined the narrow cobblestone street.