Fellow PhoLister Shannon Clark from San Francisco just wrote Ignore the Critics, go see the movie ‘Across the Universe’…
His take on the film brought back to mind a dormant project of mine which would have people Across the Universe or more accurately Around The World share their favorite places in their native city or their adopted home.
So let’s start today, Tells Us what your favorite Cafe, Bistro, Juice Bar, Tea Salon or Coffee Shop is and why?
Tells us a bit about the area where it is located, their specialties. A picture of that special place would be nice.
Thank you?
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Serge,
Thanks for the link.
In San Francisco I have a bunch of favorite cafes – Ritual Coffee Roasters makes incredible coffee (literally has nationally award winning baristas, roasts the coffee fresh onsite) + lots of big tables and great wifi = reason why it is full, nearly from open to close with one or more laptops out at most tables. Geek/Tech central to a degree in SF.
As an alternative I have a bunch of other cafes I love in SF.
Cafe du Soleil is a french cafe in SF (on Filmore just below Haight). Great food, good coffee, free wifi, large tables (limited power) but it is the wine & beer list which means this is a place which caters to an older crowd. If other cafes have a high portion of an undergraduate clientèle, Cafe du Soleil gets a more grad student one.
Just opened, so they are still working out a few kinks, but SoCha on Mission St (near 28th) is a new cafe in a very large, well lit space (with plenty of power & free wifi). The coffee is just okay (they need to work on it, though at least the beans are fair trade) but the food is what is over the top. Everything is made fresh on the premises, including all of their baked goods (something which almost no other SF cafes make onsite). This makes for great sandwiches and even better baked sweets. In a few weeks when they get their beer & wine license, extend their hours to 11pm most nights, and take advantage of their public performance license to book live music & performances in their back room I expect this to be a very regular hangout for me (doesn’t hurt them that is just down the hill from my home either).
For pure coffee SF has two other really amazing cafes. Philz (three locations in SF with more to come as well as non-SF locations) blends their own coffees, then makes each cup one cup at a time – this is a $3+ cup of coffee unlike any you have ever had before – strong, smooth, rich and intensely flavorful with a blend to suit everyone’s tastes (including a mocha which if you like chocolate is quite incredible).
And the other is almost not a cafe, but is very serious coffee. Blue Bottle Coffee is a local coffee roaster (roasting in Oakland) which many of the best restaurants around San Francisco use for their coffee. They operate a small, tiny kiosk in Hayes Valley, literally down a small street which would be considered an alleyway in many cities. Behind the kiosk is a pottery studio. In front, there is almost always a line of people waiting for single cups of drip coffee or amazing espresso beverages. Each prepared with care from amazing small batch, freshly roasted beans by baristas with serious skills. They also have a kiosk at the Ferry Plaza Farmers markets (actually two kiosks on Saturdays) and there too the lines are long but the coffee is amazing.
And SF is blessed with a bunch of other great cafes. Good local chains and neighborhood places seemingly on every block, each with their specialties and advocates. Ocean Beach Cafe is just across the Great American Highway from Ocean Beach, Coffee To the People is a Haight/Ashbury landmark and a great cafe, Sugarlump is a recently opened place with great, eclectic furnishings and lowkey, productive vibe deep in the Mission, and thankfully the list keeps growing…
Shannon