Little Victories Coffee Opens Another Winner in Ottawa

Inside the new Little Victories coffee shop in Ottawa. Daily Coffee News photo by Daria Toptygina.

Ottawa, Ontario-based coffee roaster and retailer Little Victories opened its third location earlier this year, just three blocks away from its existing locus in the bustling downtown core.

With a sleek lines through the cream-colored bar, wooden furnishings and delightful pink accents, the cafe can serve as a grab-and-go option for passersby, or offer a brief reprieve from the busy city. 

Daily Coffee News photo by Daria Toptygina.

Focused on quick but quality service, the shop offers a range of Australian-inspired espresso-based drinks, such as Aussie capps and the Melbourne-inspired “Magic coffee,” a double ristretto with texturized milk. A selection of teas and a couple seasonal drinks round out the drinks menu, while the only sweetened drink is a mocha with a rich, house-made chocolate syrup.

Espresso drinks are made possible through matching pink Slayer Steam LP and V3 espresso machines, and Mahlkönig EK43S and E80S GBW grinders. The shop also offers manual brews via AeroPress or Loveramics drippers.

“[Little Victories Co-Founder Jeremie Thompson] and I have worked in coffee since we were teenagers,” fellow Little Victories Co-Founder Andrew Bassett recently told Daily Coffee News. “As a team we can then hold each other accountable to our quality standards and remain focused on what our core interest is, which is sourcing, roasting and serving the best coffee we can.”

Daily Coffee News photo by Daria Toptygina.

Coffees from various countries of origin are roasted off-site on Little Victories’ Loring S15 Falcon, becoming single-origin offerings or components in core blends. At the roastery, the team emphasizes sweetness while maintaining generally lighter profiles. A small range of high-end single-origin coffees are packaged in 180-gram tins, while the remaining coffee offerings come in 340-gram or 5-pound bags. 

“Our skills complement each other very well, which is why we’ve remained the way we have as a business,” said Bassett. “Jeremie is a genius and master when it comes to roasting and the processes involved… whereas my skills and strengths are on the barista, service and front of house operations.”

Daily Coffee News photo by Daria Toptygina.

The new shop is situated in a high-foot-traffic area at Bank and Queen Streets, offering a nice supplement to Little Victories’ larger shop nearby on Elgin St., opened in 2021, which offers more of a dine-in cafe experience. The two shops sit just a five-minute walk from one another.

Since the opening of the first Little Victories shop in 2016, Bassett and Thompson tried to promote lively atmospheres within the cafes — focusing on interactions between guests, baristas and the coffee at hand — while staying away from WiFi. 

Bassett said the new opening is something of a dream come true for the owners, who originally set their sights on the Queen St. location seven years ago. It’s also a reflection of the business’s many little victories over the years, from browsing Home Depot in the middle of the night and bootstrapping shop number one to hiring more and more people. 

“The name Little Victories was simply inspired by how we would have to approach each aspect of business and what our core fundamental values would be,” Bassett said. “It is all about chasing those little victories and over time, the little victories have added up to some huge accomplishments.” 

The third Little Victories cafe is located at 209 Queen St. in Ottawa. Tell DCN’s editors about your new coffee shop or roastery here.