There are artists who chase grand subjects. And then there are artists like Ria Sim, who can make you emotional over a trash bin, a flowerbed, or a paper coffee cup sitting on the sidewalk.
The self-taught New York artist behind Coffee Cakes Cafe has quietly built a devoted audience by illustrating the softer side of New York City. Not the polished postcard version. The version most people miss entirely.
A dog resting on a stoop.
A manhole cover.
An Anthora coffee cup abandoned on the street.
The kind of moments New Yorkers walk past every day without noticing.
“I think many people overlook a lot of things,” Ria says. “But I think it’s not about overlooking rather it’s about not noticing. As I’ve gotten older life’s gifts are the little things…the small moments that somehow tugs our hearts.” That distinction says everything about her work.
For Ria, New York is not just a city. It is a conversation. One that slowly revealed itself over years of visits before she officially moved from the Bay Area to Manhattan in 2022. “The crush came very early on,” she says. “But I noticed a shift gradually over the years… the crush slowly became a connection. Like I’m starting to sense that I have found my soulmate.”
But what makes her relationship with New York interesting is that she does not romanticize it in the obvious way. She talks about the city almost like a quiet guide. “My sweet city shares things with me,” she says. “It purposely leads me to discover certain things. Like it has a plan. I do not know the plan… but I know just to follow it. Often I feel and I think as I’ve gotten older is that things happen not by chance but purpose. From the things we see to the people we meet… there is a purpose somewhere in the whole thing. So that how I feel about New York, this city leads me to seeing things with purpose. And it’s up to me to be open to see it. ”
That sense of purpose runs through nearly every illustration she creates. Her drawings feel deeply personal because they are tied to observation instead of performance. Before thousands of people followed her work online, drawing was something far more private.
“I started to focus on drawing because I was using drawing as a healing process from my illness,” she says. “I drew for myself… as it made me happy. It was not for followers or gains… it was a space that made me feel calm.” That honesty may explain why her art resonates so strongly. There is no attempt to force emotion into the work. It is already there.
And when nobody was watching?
“Because I wasn’t drawing for gains… it didn’t matter that the one follower I had was my son.” That mindset shaped the way she developed her artistic style. Ria is entirely self-taught, which meant learning through mistakes, frustration, and instinct.
One of her earliest challenges was something surprisingly simple: using a ruler.
“I first started to use a ruler to help me make the lines on a facade… but failed,” she says. “I did not realize I did not know how to use a ruler. The ruler actually stumped me.” Now she draws freehand instead. “I just hold my breath and try to make my lines as straight as possible.”
The lack of formal training became an advantage.
“There’s no rules to follow, there’s no guideline to have me obsessed over to make sure I follow each step,” she says. “It’s actually freeing. I feared less about having my art need to look a certain way.” That freedom gives her work its charm. Her illustrations do not feel sterile or overly polished. They feel lived in. Human. Emotional in a way that mirrors New York itself.
And while many people describe the city as aggressive or exhausting, Ria sees something entirely different. “New York shows me hope, shows me its beauty in the simplicity of life. In a city that is the hustle and bustle that fuels it… New York shows me its softer side.”
If New York were a person? “It has a kind, understanding, encouraging personality that knows how to continue to root for me to try new things and keep dreaming,” she says. “One who believes in me.”
That perspective becomes especially clear in the small encounters she chooses to immortalize. One of the most meaningful involved a woman named Jenny and her dog Buddy on Bank Street in the West Village.
“I walk this street all the time and I often see Jenny and her dog Buddy on the stoop,” she says. “She’d be knitting and Buddy just lays around enjoying being outdoors.” For most people, it would have been a passing moment. For Ria, it became art. “It was one of those treasured moments, so meaningful that I ended up drawing them both and adding it in my book.”
That is what makes her work memorable. She is documenting emotional architecture as much as physical architecture. Her art captures the hidden tenderness of New York life, the fleeting details that disappear unless someone slows down enough to hold onto them.
Ironically, her process itself is equally unfiltered.
She draws standing up in her kitchen. “I sacrificed a toaster to have the counter space for my art counter,” she says. “Haven’t made toast in 5 years.”
And if she sits down? “I’m stumped.”
There is something refreshing about an artist who approaches creativity this way. No dramatic mythology. No overcomplicated process. Just instinct, observation, and emotional honesty.
Much of her inspiration arrives spontaneously. “I see something or get inspired and that’s what fuels me to draw.”
But when new New York establishments open, she gets genuinely excited to illustrate them too. That mix of spontaneity and intentionality has made her work especially beloved among people who deeply love New York City culture, independent cafes, neighborhood storefronts, and everyday urban beauty.
Her art reminds people that New York is not only built from skyscrapers and ambition. It is also built from tiny human moments that quietly hold the city together.
And once you start seeing New York through Ria Sim’s eyes, it becomes difficult to stop noticing the details yourself.
