Purpose <p>Stakeholder engagement in undergraduate engineering design education is important for developing professional engineering skills yet challenging to implement. Stakeholders are crucial in the design process, and research highlights a lack of effective student–stakeholder engagement approaches in engineering education. The stakeholder café model has emerged as a promising method for facilitating effective student–stakeholder interactions, but there is limited implementation research. This study evaluated the implementation of the stakeholder café model through student and stakeholder experiences within a multi-term capstone design project.</p> Methods <p>Qualitative and quantitative data were collected via surveys post-café, and post-capstone, including the likelihood of recommending the café. Stakeholders participated in focus groups, and the data were triangulated through statistical and thematic analyses.</p> Results <p>There were four overarching themes: (1) providing pre-café student preparation is valuable in enabling effective student–stakeholder interactions; (2) a stakeholder café combines valuable information sharing with expert and eager stakeholders in a supportive environment; (3) refining the stakeholder café combines format enhancements, stakeholder empowerment, and ongoing student–stakeholder engagement; and (4) students experience the stakeholder café as a means to enhance the engineering design process when addressing real-world problems while developing professional engineering skills. The net promoter score was 75.0 post-café and 58.3 post-capstone, although this difference was not statistically significant (<i>p</i> = 0.719).</p> Conclusions <p>The stakeholder café model enhances student–stakeholder interactions in engineering education. Future research should refine the model to support ongoing stakeholder engagement and student professional development.</p>