A tea stall that opened in New Delhi in 1927 now has a counter on Robson Street.
Chaiiwala of London soft opened at 1478 Robson Street last week, in the Landmark on Robson development, with a sandwich board on the sidewalk and a chaii brewing now decal across the window.
It is the brand’s first shop inside Vancouver proper, after years of building out the suburbs.
Like the new Mello shop, on the same block, the majority of the seating is on the second floor.
The family behind it revived the 1927 stall in 2016 and turned it into a chain, keeping the original recipes and putting a modern shop around them.
They call themselves the King of Karak, which is a claim, but the drinks are the reason to walk in.
Karak chaii is the house signature, the thick spiced milk tea boiled rather than steeped, alongside karak coffee and a plain English chaii.
The food menu runs in two directions at once.
There is the breakfast side, an English-ish Breakfast and Sweet Bombay Toast, and there is the snack side, butter chicken rolls, masala chips, and chilli paneer.
Desserts stay traditional with gulab jamun and gajar halwa.
The Robson opening is only half of what the brand is doing downtown.
A second Vancouver location at 952 Granville Street is still listed as coming soon, with no opening date attached.
The growth around the region has been fast enough to be worth stating plainly.
When we first wrote about the brand coming to Vancouver in October 2025, it had six British Columbia locations.
The brand’s own site now lists a dozen open across the province, from three in Surrey to New Westminster, Langley, Abbotsford, White Rock, SFU Burnaby, and a Metrotown food truck, with Kelowna and Sullivan still to come alongside Granville.
Chaiiwala Robson joins a run of recently opened Vancouver spots like Mello on Robson, Viethaus, and Unscripted Coffee.
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Address: 1478 Robson St, Vancouver, BC (Landmark on Robson)