Sanborns Plaza Cuicuilco

The chain. Sanborns combines a café, restaurant, pharmacy and shop under one roof, open long hours, with a broad Mexican and international menu. For a visitor it solves early breakfast, a predictable meal and a clean bathroom with wi-fi, and every branch takes cards.

This branch. Inside Plaza Cuicuilco, in Peña Pobre, Tlalpan — a shopping centre built in the halls of the old Loreto y Peña Pobre paper mill, with the original structure and several of the factory machines still in place among the shops.

What is across the road. The Cuicuilco archaeological zone: a circular stepped pyramid, one of the oldest monumental structures in the valley of Mexico, built before Teotihuacán and buried by the Xitle eruption around 400 CE. Entry is free and it is almost never crowded.

Practical notes. Av. San Fernando #649. No Metro immediately nearby — Universidad, line 3, with a short taxi — and the Insurgentes Metrobús runs along the avenue. The archaeological site closes on Mondays; the mall does not.