What will your life be like in 5, 10, or 15 years? And what would you like to say to your future self now? You can do all this in a very special place in Paris: here you can come in for an espresso and leave having sent a letter to your future self. It happens at Café Pli, a small place that has transformed the coffee break into an exercise in memory, imagination, and time. Here, the menu is not limited to drinks and desserts: between a steaming cup and a sheet of paper, you enjoy an experience that lasts.
A Small Table, a Coffee and a Letter to Your Future Self
The ritual begins as it does in many Parisian cafés: you enter almost by chance, order a drink, and sit down. Outside, Paris continues its incessant bustle; inside, however, someone opens an envelope and begins writing by hand, with that rare concentration that today seems a luxury. At Café Pli, you don't write a postcard for someone else, but a letter for your own future. You choose a specific date and commit to paper whatever seems important, urgent, or simply true today.
No screens, no notifications, no digital shortcuts: Café Pli builds its entire identity around a deliberately slow gesture. The letter is folded, placed in an envelope, sealed, and handed over to the staff, who will keep it until it's ready to be mailed. In an age where everything is archived and replicable, this promise of waiting has something radical.
The Café Pli experience is available at both its Parisian locations: the one on Rue du Faubourg du Temple, in the 11th arrondissement, and the one on Avenue Parmentier, in the 10th. Two different neighborhoods but close in spirit, where you can sit down with a coffee, pick up a pen and paper, and write a letter to your future, to be entrusted to time and the post.
Café Pli in Paris
The food offerings are discreet and thoughtful, as befits a place that doesn't want to distract: coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and a few sweet treats accompany the moment of writing without overwhelming it. The real protagonist remains the blank sheet of paper. The decor is reminiscent of an old-fashioned stationery shop: shelves full of paper, postcards, stamps, and notebooks. An aesthetic that invites you to pause, to take the time necessary to choose the right words.
There's something surprisingly collective about this solitary gesture: each customer writes their own letter, but they do so in the company of other silences, other stories that will remain secret. Café Pli thus becomes a place of invisible confessions, preserved between cups and stamps.
The allure of Café Pli lies in this simple yet powerful idea: transforming the future into a concrete destination, with an address and a date. No guarantees, no automatic reply. Just a letter that will arrive one day, reminding us who we were when we wrote it. And perhaps, as often happens in Paris, that memory will be enough to make even a simple coffee memorable.
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