The Mercado do Café, also known as the Mercado Municipal do Café, sits on the waterfront beside the old customs house. The 19th-century iron-and-tile building was once Paranaguá's coffee-export warehouse — coffee shipped from the Paraná plateau came down by the Serra do Mar railway and was loaded here for the world.
Today the inside is a row of simple seafood stalls and lunch counters. The barreado is here — the traditional Paranaense beef stew cooked for hours in a sealed clay pot — and so is fried fish, shrimp pastel, and ice-cold beer. It is one of the most reliable cheap lunches in town and a fine place to watch the harbour through the open arches.