Bray has a solid pub scene that mixes old-school seafront drinking with a newer craft beer sensibility. The main street and the roads running down to the seafront have a good concentration of pubs, some of which have been there for decades and have the atmosphere to prove it. The seafront pubs attract a particular kind of summer crowd — day-trippers off the DART, families who have finished the cliff walk, people who have exhausted the arcades — and can get lively on warm weekends.
The coffee scene has improved noticeably in recent years. Several independent cafes have opened alongside the chain outlets, and you can reliably get a decent flat white and somewhere to sit after the cliff walk. The seafront is not the place to look for serious coffee — head into the town centre instead.
Bray is a working town with a local pub culture that has not been entirely gentrified away. The mix of old pub and new cafe works reasonably well, and there are options for most tastes. If you are arriving from Dublin for a day walk, you will have no trouble finding somewhere comfortable to sit afterwards.