I'll be in San Francisco for a week, what do ya'll recommend for cafes?

Thanks in advance.

Rooster

Well it is a big city, so you should probably say where you are going to be staying at and if you have limitation on transportation. I.E. if you are there for a convention and are pretty well limited to walking, you probably don't want someone recommending a shop in outer richmond or something.

yakster, I appreciate the LMGTFY on this April Fools day. A search was the first thing I did and I've gone through all of the hits on the first few pages. The posts are either 1) a year or two out of date, 2) specify only a single shop, or 3) due to the OP's requirements are limited geographically (which is a great segue to Intrepid's question).

Intrepid, it's a vacation, I'll have a car and will be exploring the city anyway so no limitations on distance.

Thanks!

Well still good to know where you are going to be staying, but I would strong recommend getting breakfast at Blue Bottle's Mint Plaza location and getting a syphon pot. I have found if you get there at the opening on a weekend you miss the lines.

Farm : Table, 754 Post St., was the one place I went to more than once for afternoon cappas and macchiatos when I spent a week in SF. Verve coffee and real china cups as well as well-crafted shots.

I would highly recommend checking out Stanza Coffee in the Mission. They are alternating multiple roasters and offer a great deal of variety and attention to detail. They don't have lines that run out the door, since they are not as well known as bigger places like Blue Bottle or Ritual. But 3 of their baristas were in the top 6 of the Brewers Cup, which says a lot about the quality focused experience they aim to give their customers. Watching the only Slayer currently in use in SF is a treat too.

Disclaimer: I'm a little biased, one of their baristas is a friend of mine.

#1 -- Mavelous
#2 -- Four Barrel

Depending on your taste there are various other options that I'm sure others will mention (Ritual, Sightglass, etc). In most of those cases, if you get lucky you could have a good coffee experience and if you get unlucky you could have a bad one. God knows I've been served completely undrinkable coffee at almost all of the usual suspects on this list (as well as good to great coffee at almost all of them).

As a local here, let me quickly say "don't believe the hype."
There is very little great coffee here. And most of the "great" spots in town are either massively over-hyped or so inconsistent that depending on your luck they could well seem massively over-hyped.

If you've been drinking coffee in some of the truly great spots - you're likely going to be disappointed by the coffee in SF. Especially if you get unlucky at one or more of the spots. While I'd still argue that SF is one of the top food and drink cities in the US - the coffee here definitely lags.


You'll note that Blue Bottle is not mentioned. This is for a reason. If you are contributing to this site, I'm assuming you like and appreciate fine coffee and have a palate. Blue Bottle kicks ass for those whose coffee decision-making is about experience and brand rather than flavor; and who feel like Starbucks' brand has become too mass market and who want something more "faux-authentic." Great experience, great brand, great marketing. Too bad about the coffee.

Thanks for your input everyone!

Semi tangent: malachi (or anyone else) have you tried the Firelit coffee liqueur? I've only recently heard of it and it's really piqued my interest.

I've not. To be honest, while I'm a fan of what St George has done with their various distilling projects, I've simply never enjoyed liqueurs. Not my bag.