Bir is a paragliding village with a café problem, and the problem is a good one to have. A settlement of a few thousand people supports a Himachali Dham kitchen, a South Indian family cooking decoction filter coffee, a sourdough bakery doing Korean glass noodles, and a room that stays open until one in the morning. None of that should exist here.
What Bir does not have is any single page telling you which one to walk to, and — far more usefully — which day it will be shut when you get there. That is what this is.
Everything below was checked in August 2026. We take no commission from any of these places, we do not print their phone numbers because numbers go stale faster than anything else on a listing, and where the review platforms disagree with each other we have printed both numbers so you can judge.
The ten, at a glance
- Ara Cafe — 4.8 · Himachali Dham thali, main Bir, 11 am–7.30 pm · the best food in the village
- Silver Linings — 4.5 · bakery and brunch on farmland, 9 am–7 pm · closed Wednesdays
- June 16 — 4.3 · brunch and vegan cooking on the landing road, 9 am–8.30 pm · closed Tuesdays
- The Northern Cafe — 4.3 · the widest sunset view, up a kilometre of trail, 10 am–9.30 pm
- AVVAs — 4.4 · South Indian, real filter coffee, 9 am–10 pm · Thursday opens at noon
- Café Buransh — 4.6 · siddu and buransh tea on the edge of the landing field, 9 am–9 pm
- Charlie's — 4.6 · three levels and a rooftop facing the landing site, 9.30 am–8.30 pm
- Café Roam Wild — 4.8 · the night café, roughly 12 pm–1 am, delivers late
- Bhoomi Cafe — 4.4 · sourdough and Korean food beside Chokling Monastery, 9 am–5 pm · closed Mondays
- Cho Cho's — 4.7 · home food under ₹200 a head, 8 am–9 pm · usually closed Wednesdays
Best for Himachali food
Ara Cafe, without much argument. It is the only kitchen in Bir serving Himachali Dham as an everyday dish rather than festival food — madra, khatta, babru, rice and dal, in vegetarian, chicken and mutton versions. It is also the most expensive café here at ₹400–600 a head, and worth it once. Café Buransh does the cheaper version down at the landing site, and its siddu with walnut chutney is arguably the better single dish.
Best brunch, and best baking
June 16 for brunch — pancakes, shakshuka, a dessert counter that rotates, and the most serious vegan cooking in Bir. Silver Linings for baking: banoffee pie, a mango version the regulars call a mangofee, and the best room in the village to sit in for four hours with a laptop.
Between them they cover the whole week, which is the useful part — Silver Linings shuts Wednesdays, June 16 shuts Tuesdays, and they are five minutes apart. If you want the best actual baking rather than the best brunch, Bhoomi Cafe in Chaugan does real long-ferment sourdough and properly laminated croissants, but it closes at 5 pm and takes Mondays off.
Best for South Indian food
AVVAs, and it is not close. The Dikonda family moved up from Pune in 2018 to open it; the mother, Sunanda, cooks, and the café is named for her — avva means mother in Telugu. Everything is made to order, the spice powders are ground in-house, and the filter coffee is the real decoction-and-hot-milk version rather than the sweet instant approximation you get everywhere else in Himachal.
Best sunset
Two answers, depending on whether you want to walk. The Northern Cafe has the widest view — you look straight down the valley with gliders crossing in front of the Dhauladhar — but it is about a kilometre of uphill trail and the kitchen divides opinion sharply. Charlie's has the closest view, three levels, a near-360 rooftop over the landing field, and food people are happier with. If you have just landed from a flight and cannot face a climb, take Charlie's.
Best late, and best cheap
Café Roam Wild is the only serious answer after nine. It opens at midday, runs to about one in the morning, delivers late, and has a pet menu. Cho Cho's is the cheapest — home-style pav bhaji, rajma chawal and chole kulche for under ₹200 a head, cooked by a retired couple in a room with about twelve seats.
Bir vs Chaugan vs the landing site
Almost everyone arrives thinking Bir is one village. It is three places, ten to twenty minutes apart on foot, and knowing which is which saves you an hour a day.
- The landing site (Suja). Where the gliders come down and where most travellers stay. The highest concentration of cafés, the highest prices, and the ones with the runway views — Charlie's, Buransh, Roam Wild, June 16, and AVVAs and Silver Linings a few minutes up the Bir Colony road.
- Main Bir. Up and inland, around the school and the bazaar. Quieter, more residential, cheaper. This is where Ara is, and it is the reason Ara feels like a restaurant rather than a café.
- Chaugan. The Tibetan settlement, the older half of Bir, where the monasteries and the Deer Park Institute are. Fewer tour vans, more monks, and Bhoomi beside Chokling Monastery. Give yourself a proper walk over, and go in the morning — Chaugan shuts earliest of the three.
The closing-time problem
This is the thing to actually plan around, and no guide to Bir tells you. The village eats early. Five of the ten cafés here have taken a last order by half past eight, four of them take a full day off every week, and those days are not the same day.
- Monday — Bhoomi closed.
- Tuesday — June 16 closed. AVVAs shuts early at 8 pm. Some listings also show Cho Cho's shut.
- Wednesday — Silver Linings closed, and Cho Cho's on most listings.
- Thursday — everything open, but AVVAs does not open until noon, so no breakfast there.
- Friday to Sunday — all ten open. The landing-site terraces fill before sunset.
After half past eight your realistic options are Roam Wild until about one in the morning, Himalayan Pizza and Big Daddy's Shawarma until roughly eleven, and Woe Sang or Tenzin Jamdol in the Tibetan colony until about half ten. Everything else is dark. If you are arriving on an evening bus from Delhi, eat before you get off it or plan on Roam Wild.
What it costs
Bir is cheap by Indian café-town standards. Eight of these ten sit at ₹200–400 a head, which buys a main and a drink. Cho Cho's comes in under ₹200 and is the only one where a full meal for two stays under ₹400. Ara is the outlier at ₹400–600 a head, and Charlie's and Roam Wild land around ₹400–700 for two because of where they sit.
The general rule holds: the closer to the landing field, the more you pay for the view. Walk five minutes inland and the same meal costs a third less.
How we put this together
We read the current listings for every café here in August 2026 and cross-checked hours, ratings and prices across Google, Tripadvisor, Justdial and the restaurant directories, because they disagree more often than you would think. Where they disagree we have said so rather than picking the flattering number. We take no commission from any of these businesses, and none of them knows this page exists.
Staying longer than a holiday? Our Bir Billing workation guide covers where to work, sleep and wander, Bir beyond paragliding covers the monasteries, the tea factory and the Rajgundha trail, and the 30-day workation puts a room, a desk and a working connection in one booking. Flying while you are here? See paragliding in Bir Billing and what nobody tells you about it. Heading up to McLeod Ganj afterwards? We have done the same thing for the cafés of Dharamkot.
← All blog postsQuestions, answered
Which is the best café in Bir?+
For food, Ara Cafe in main Bir — it is the only kitchen serving Himachali Dham as an everyday dish, and it carries the highest rating of any serious café here at 4.8. For a sunset, Charlie's at the landing site or The Northern Cafe if you will walk a kilometre uphill. For late night, Café Roam Wild is the only real option.
What time do cafés in Bir close?+
Earlier than you expect. Five of the ten in this guide have taken a last order by 8.30 pm, and Bhoomi in Chaugan shuts at 5 pm. Café Roam Wild runs to about 1 am, Himalayan Pizza and Big Daddy's Shawarma to about 11 pm, and Woe Sang and Tenzin Jamdol to about 10.30 pm. Everything else is dark by nine.
Which cafés in Bir are closed on which days?+
Bhoomi closes Mondays, June 16 closes Tuesdays, Silver Linings closes Wednesdays, and Cho Cho's is shown as closed Wednesdays on most listings and Tuesdays on a few. AVVAs never shuts fully but closes early on Tuesday and does not open until noon on Thursday.
How much does it cost to eat in Bir?+
Budget ₹200–400 a head at eight of these ten cafés, which covers a main and a drink. Cho Cho's is under ₹200. Ara is the most expensive at ₹400–600 a head for the Dham thali. Prices rise the closer you get to the paragliding landing field.