Callao Cafe and Market

Tucked away on Martin street, this is a small coffee shop with a surprisingly large menu. Many crepes and lunch items are available and most are in the $ 6-​$ 9 range. The crêpe I had was freshly made and fairly good. Coffee was about average. Coming here on a Saturday it was the only coffee shop in the area that wasn’t completely mobbed with students. Unfortunately they do not have wi-​fi so this isn’t a great place to lounge with your laptop. Also, they close at 3 pm.

Callao is a nice, small, locally owned café that has a great ambiance and nice folks working there. They have a lot of gluten free options for nibbles which is almost a necessity for this day and age. Their ice tea is really good and I hear positive things about their coffee too.

Great food and a pretty kickass mocha!

Callao’s Café is an excellent State College café with an emphasis on locally sourced organic foods. With an eclectic yet soothing atmosphere, it is fast becoming a staple eatery for the area. Fast and friendly service accompanies great food, and there is unique selection of hot sauces that they will personally recommend to go with any dish they serve. Do your tastebuds a favor and go check it out! One small word of caution to the Unilocalers with a big appetite: portion size is a little small, so you may want to order extra food or don’t go when you are famished.

I ordered a pumpkin spice white mocha latte with a gluten free chocolate chip pumpkin muffin. Total was under $ 9. The coffee was really, REALLY good! They said to heat the muffin for 30 seconds and they were right… yummy! It was busy when I got there and I thought I would have to wait for a long time. NOPE! A very nice young lady saw that the gentleman in front of me could not decide what to order because everything looked delicious and said she could get started on my order while I waited. I will definitely be going back!!!

I was helping drop off my sister at Penn State, so I was exploring State College for the first time. This is a cozy little café with very friendly service. I tried their daily coffee special, the Bob Marley mocha. It was basically a banana flavored mocha latte– very tasty! Sadly I could barely even finish it because I was so full from my giant crêpe. I tried the souie souie breakfast crêpe. I picked it because it was labeled as spicy… the menu definitely did not lie. The chipotle sauce on top had such a heat to it but I loved it. Will have to come back and try more of their savory and dessert crepes!

So I’m staying with a friend that lives right by this place, and I went in thinking it was a small café for me to get coffee only to find that it’s actually a small café restaurant. I was waiting in line to order, and then I saw them bringing out huge crepes, salads, and sandwiches. I thought to myself immediately that this was a pretty awesome place and decided to have lunch there. They have a huge assortment of crepes to choose from (dessert, breakfast, savory, etc.); I got the Piledriver, and it was absolutely amazing. The portion was perfect, the taste was okay, but like what the other reviews, the wide variety of hot sauces that you can choose from truly makes it much better. The atmosphere was great and there is both outdoor and indoor seating (limited though, so you might not find enough seats if there is a huge crowd). I had an iced coffee, and that was also ok (not great, but not bad). The service was great, too! They bring you your food, and everyone who works there was so friendly. I would definitely recommend this to a friend. It’s very much a very nice hole in the wall that many people do not know exists in State College!
Pros:
Crepes & Hot Sauces
Service
Atmosphere
Cons:
Small location
«Hidden» location away from where people are usually at
Possible long lines depending on how many people there

Come for the awesome mocha and then leave. Do not get the crepes they are spongy and the filling is deli meat and flavorless. The reason there are hot sauces everywhere may be to help. Service was awesome and the Bob Marley Mocha was really great.
Definitely check out the cute pet nutrition store next door and play with some very adorable kitties. But if you have ever had a crêpe or never have this is not where to get one in state college.
Worst crêpe I’ve had in my life.

I like their crêpe. They’re nice people, nice staff. Tried almost all their kind of crêpe it was good. I think if they can do better crêpe bread it would be good. Otherwise all good, along the good spicy sauces they have.

I came here for lunch. I liked my lemonade and crêpe. I got the veggie veggie veggie. The ranch it came with was excellent and the crêpe was stuffed with vegetables. It was my first time here and I didn’t know what to order. I wish they would have had a menu board hanging up. Instead, I was directed to a little pamphlet menu. There is limited seating — typical of any coffee shop. The décor is nice. The service was very friendly but a little bit slow. That’s okay, as long as the food is good. I’ll be back. I can’t wait to try a Nutella crêpe. There’s a good selection of hot sauces for purchase near the cash register.

Great attention to detail of truly making something gluten free. Patient and kind with me to find what I could eat on aip low FODMAP diet. Ended up getting an off menu salad.

To eat the sweet crepes, the the milky latte is the best drink to eat with. I am here to comment the coffee/​espresso they make. Compare to other good café in SC they got the steam milk in espresso right. the latte has very thick taste of milk, which make you think the name of Latte again.

I had a scone and a cup of coffee. The place looks nice. The white chocolate and cranberry scone was amazing and the coffee was okay. I’ll definitely be back to try to try the crêpe!

Great Coffee. Fresh made crepes and ingredients. Slow-​ish service, but the food and atmosphere make up for it. Nice local business.
We enjoyed the «Lou and Grace» and bacon, egg, and cheese crepes.
Nutella and bacon crêpe was good, not too much Nutella.
Nice outdoor seating for warmer months.

Checked out Callao Café for lunch while in State College for work upon learning they had gluten free offerings and was not disappointed!
I ordered a BLT on gluten free bread and a Nutella crêpe for dessert (don’t judge). Both were excellent! The BLT was large and the bacon was just right — not too crispy and not too undercooked. GF bread slices are usually tiny too and this was not the case for this sandwich! The Nutella crêpe was huge yet left me wanting for more. I believe these GF crepes were buckwheat.
Not only do they have sweet dessert crepes, but they also have breakfast crepes, savory crepes, sandwiches, soups and chili. Also, I have never seen such a large assortment of hot sauces — impressive! Not to mention a TON of gourmet coffee options (they have soy milk!) and many specialty drinks and smoothies. Had I not felt so guilty about eating a giant crêpe, I would have ordered their Amazing Hot Chocolate or their frozen frappé.
The staff and owner were super friendly; plenty of seating indoors and also a couple of tables outside. If ever in town again, will for sure stop by and try out more of the gluten free crepes — so good!
Note: We drove past it once but found it in the strip mall-​type building — it’s there, their name is just not up on the board with all of the other businesses.

Wonderful selection of savory crepes, teas and coffee. Crepes of all types, fruit filled, salad filled the important part they are prepared to order and get this… served on real stoneware plates. Eat your heart out Panera!
Great coffee room ambiance, friendly owner and staff. While waiting your order check out the hot sauce rack. Peppers sauces of all types for sale or simply for laughs as you read out their names.

Sweet crêpe is amazing but savory crepes lack some flavor. I ordered egg and ham crêpe and had it without any sauce. I thought it was rather dry. I would go back there and tried different crepes.

This place is awesome!
Pros
A wide array of hot sauces from all over the world to try on your savory crepes and sandwiches
Yummy crepes– both savory and sweet
Has a gluten free option
Great place to work. The owner really gives it a friendly atmosphere
Cons
Location is small
Limited hours throughout the week

My favorite to go place in State College, a little unfortunate as it is closed after 4pm and on Sundays. Being an espresso/​latte lover I tend to dissect a latte and pick on every component of it, and why shouldn’t I if I am paying $ 3.50 for a single shot latte? Having said that, the espresso is ‘bite-​y’ without being bitter and the milk (organic from Bellefonte) steams very well and very thick, resulting in a latte with almost the consistency of a breve, which is espresso with cream, without the additional 1000 calories of course.
Saints used to be my favorite coffee spot until I discovered this place, and I have been a regular since. You would be hard-​pressed to find a café with more friendlier faces anywhere around here. If you like to sit down with a coffee and browse the internet, this may not be the place for you (no wifi). If you like to stare deep into the soul of the person in the next table, without any intention of holding a conversation, while pretending to take a break from playing Candy crush on your iPhone, this may not be the place for you (just kidding)

I’m willing to give this place another shot, but the «Dirty Bird» lunch crêpe is a culinary disaster.
I came here to meet a friend and have some lunch. Tucked away in the Aaron street plaza, it’s pretty easy to find (though getting the right door might confuse you at first).
Walking in, the décor is pretty standard for a coffee shop: exposed duct work, benches along the windows, surprisingly sturdy granite tables. The menu is oddly on the back side of the door, and features coffee drinks, wraps, and their signature crepes.
«When in Rome,» as it were, I decided to order a lunch crêpe. The first item on the list was called the «Dirty Bird,» and although it seemed like an unusual mix of ingredients, I was willing to take a risk if they had given it top billing on the menu. The crêpe arrived as expected: lettuce, tomato, bacon, sliced deli turkey, and cranberries, wrapped in a warm crêpe and topped with raspberry chipotle sauce.
Let me just say that raspberry and chipotle don’t go together, and neither of them go with cranberry. To top it off, the deli turkey just felt weird in this crêpe and ended up having to do too much work pulling all the disparate flavors together. It wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t eat it, but it was one of those situations where the whole meal just didn’t work.
I can’t speak to the rest of the menu, but that crêpe was an awful mess! Maybe I’ll have better luck with a dessert crêpe…