Cafe Chedi is a black timber cafe on the bank of Khlong Song Phi Nong, an hour and a half from Bangkok in Suphan Buri's southern district. My wife and I stopped there on a Saturday afternoon in July 2026, on the way home from somewhere else, because we needed a drink and somewhere to sit for twenty minutes. We got both for ฿140, plus a bag of fish food. Here is what the name means, what to order and why the far end of the deck is worth a look.

The black timber front of Cafe Chedi with gold lettering, a wooden bench, a potted tree and stools under a white umbrella.
Cafe Chedi from the gravel car park. The building opened in 2019 and the canal is behind it.

What A Chedi Actually Is

The name comes from the temple next door. Cafe Chedi sits behind Wat Thong Pradit and the path to it runs past a row of white spires with gold trim, which are the chedis. The cafe took its name and its logo, a single pointed outline on a blue circle, from them.

A chedi is the Thai word for a stupa. It comes from the Pali cetiya, which describes a monument built to hold something sacred, most often relics of the Buddha, the ashes of a revered monk or the remains of a family who paid for it. The shape is a bell or a spire on a square base rising to a thin pinnacle, with the sacred contents sealed in a chamber inside. Some are the size of a house. Most are the size you see here, a few metres tall, standing in rows on temple ground. You will see the same shape in the peaked roof of every Thai temple, so once you know the word you start noticing it everywhere.

The other tall thing at a Thai temple is the prang, which is a different building altogether. A prang is a rounded tower with tiers that narrow as they rise, a shape borrowed from Khmer temples, which usually holds Buddha images rather than relics. If it looks like a corn cob it is a prang. If it looks like a bell with a spike on top it is a chedi.

A row of white and gold chedis of different heights at Wat Thong Pradit under a cloudy sky, with a temple hall roof behind.
The chedis at Wat Thong Pradit, seen from the cafe's driveway. The cafe sits at the end of the row.

Finding It And Parking

It was not hard to find. Put Cafe Chedi into Google Maps and it takes you through the temple to a gravel yard beside the canal, with the cafe at the far end under a big old fig tree. There is room for perhaps eight cars on the gravel and more at the temple if the yard fills, which on our visit it was nowhere near doing. We were the only customers when we arrived at a quarter to two and one other group turned up while we were there.

A large fig tree with hanging roots shading a gravel car park at Cafe Chedi, with a car parked under a canopy and a canal beyond.
The car park sits under a fig tree on the canal bank. The white chedis are just visible on the right.

The Deck Over The Canal

The cafe is a single black wooden room with a long deck along the water. Shoes come off at the door, so there is a bench to sit on while you untie them. Inside is a counter, a fridge of cakes and a couple of tables. Everyone sits outside.

The deck faces straight across the canal to the Saphan Khong floating market, a long covered market on stilts along the far bank. Beside it stands a giant bamboo fish trap, a dome the size of a small house that the market uses as a landmark. On a Saturday afternoon in July the market was quiet and we watched it over the water rather than crossing to it. Nothing about the view is dramatic. It is flat, green and slow, with a breeze coming down the canal, which is what you want from a place you have stopped at to rest.

A person sitting in a white rope hammock chair on a wooden deck at Cafe Chedi, beside a black net platform over a canal, with a covered market on stilts on the far bank.
The rope chair at the end of the deck. The net platform below it hangs over the water and you are welcome to lie on it.

At the far end of the deck the boards stop and a black net takes over, strung on a frame out over the water, with a plank walkway down the middle and a rope hammock chair hanging above it. You are meant to lie on the net and look at the sky. My wife sat in the chair. I looked at the water through the holes and decided the bench was fine. If you trust it, which everyone else seemed to, it is the best seat in the place.

What We Drank

We ordered at the counter and paid by bank transfer, since the till takes PromptPay. My summer tea was ฿70 and my wife's iced matcha was ฿70, both in tall plastic cups with a blue paper sleeve.

The summer tea is tea with plum in it, red, iced and served with the fruit. It was too sweet for me, which I should have expected from the name, so I would not order it again. The matcha was the better call. My wife asked for it unsweetened, which the till recorded as an option. She said it was terrific: thick, grassy and cold. Order that if you like matcha.

Two iced drinks in plastic cups with blue Cafe Chedi sleeves on a wooden table, a green matcha in front and a red plum tea behind, with a canal and a stilt market out of focus beyond the rail.
The matcha at the front, the summer tea behind. Both ฿70, both iced.

I do not drink coffee, so I cannot tell you about it firsthand. What I can tell you is that it is the reason people come. The Google reviews, over two hundred of them at the time of writing, keep coming back to the coffee. The house drink is a coconut americano, an espresso over chilled coconut water from the owners' own orchard, with beans from Mae Hong Son. Reviewers on Wongnai call it fragrant and say the coconut takes the edge off the bitterness. One review from 2020 mentions a hot latte at ฿40. If you drink coffee, order the coconut americano and let me know.

For reference, the board inside lists espresso, americano and latte at ฿50 hot, ฿60 iced and ฿70 blended, cappuccino and mocha five baht more, Thai milk tea from ฿50 and a matcha latte at ฿80. Nothing on it goes above ฿85.

Feeding The Fish

By the door is a plastic tub of small bags of fish pellets with a cardboard sign that says ฿10. Buy one. Walk to the rail, throw a handful in and wait about two seconds.

The canal is full of catfish, big ones, which know exactly what the sound of pellets on water means. Within a moment the surface in front of the deck was a boil of wide grey mouths gaping open, up to fifty fish shoving each other for the food, some of them as long as my arm. It is the same thing you see at temples all over central Thailand, where fish in the temple water are left alone and grow enormous. It was the best ten baht I spent that day. The bag lasts longer than you expect, so ration it.

A clear plastic tub of small bags of fish pellets on the deck at Cafe Chedi, with a cardboard sign reading ten baht in Thai.
Fish food is ฿10 a bag, sold from a tub by the door.
Large grey catfish crowding the surface of a green canal with their mouths open, waiting for food.
Ten seconds after the first handful. The fish are used to this.

Cakes

The fridge by the counter held a matcha crepe cake and a red velvet cake at ฿80 a slice on our visit, cut and ready to go, next to the bottled water. We did not have any. Reviewers mention a chocolate cake, a coconut cake and a blueberry cheesecake at other times, plus a blueberry cheese tart made by the owners' mother, so what is in the fridge depends on the day. If you are hungry it is coffee and cake territory rather than lunch.

A glass fridge at Cafe Chedi holding a sliced matcha crepe cake and a sliced red velvet cake on wooden boards above rows of bottled water.
The cake fridge on 25 July 2026. The red velvet was ฿80 a slice.

When To Go

Cafe Chedi opens at 08:00 and closes at 17:00 and it shuts on Wednesdays unless the Wednesday is a public holiday. The sign at the gate is explicit about the Wednesday, so do not drive out on one.

This is not a place you plan a day around. It is a place you stop at on the way back from somewhere, a dragon museum or a hundred year old market or a temple with a hell garden, when you need a drink and twenty minutes off the road. If you are anywhere in the south of Suphan Buri and the timing works, turn in at the temple, buy a matcha and a bag of fish food and go and sit on the net.