Coffee

Equator and Ma'velous Team Up for Glimpse at Best Coffee in America

Ma'velous, that glimmering trove of coffees and gorgeous gizmos by Civic Center, is bringing in an extra special bounty to its already very special menu. But if you blink, you'll miss it. The goods? Granja La Esperanza Geisha, a lot of a rare and celebrated varietal roasted by Caitlin McCarthy-Garci ... More >>

Saint Frank: Bringing the Story of Coffee to Russian Hill

Saint Frank to Bring Story of Coffee to Russian Hill

The past two years have proven San Francisco to be fairly fertile ground for craft coffee. Armfuls of small roasters and "Third Wave" cafés are popping open monthly, and their missions are clear: to teach us to love coffee as we love wine -- to care about where it comes from and the prolific subtle ... More >>

Coffee Culture Will Combine Fro-Yo and Espresso in the FiDi

If you've been part of the daily midday mass exodus to the Curry Up Now truck in the FiDi, you've probably passed a mysterious and jazzy storefront on Bush Street with the name "Coffee Cultures" stamped across the front window. The upcoming café is a new venture from Jason Paul, former co-owner o ... More >>

James Freeman, Blue Bottle Coffee Founder, Just Wrote the Book on Coffee

Any good San Franciscan knows how to muse over a cup of coffee. We can't help but remembering fondly the coffee drinkers at Four Barrel who continued sipping obliviously as two burglars used this hipster hotspot as an attempted escape route last November. I've sat in many a coffee shop, eavesdr ... More >>

Ritual's Tex Bohlin Talks Competitive Coffee and Raw Steak Whip Cream

​​​​In an effort to chart the ever-expanding specialty coffee scene in the Bay Area, we've been engaging a selection of local coffee personalities to pick their brains about why coffee and why now.  With the 2012 Regional Barista Championship occurring this past weekend, we spoke to Rit ... More >>

Boot & Shoe Service's Jim Seishas Talks About the Other Side of Restaurant Coffee

​ Boot & Shoe Service is respected in the coffee industry as a restaurant that avoids the usual scenario of fantastic food and poor coffee. SFoodie spoke to Jim Seishas, coffee manager at Boot & Shoe Service and sister restaurant Pizzaiolo, about what makes coffee important to his establi ... More >>

Blue Bottle Unleashes Bottled Iced Coffee

​It's a big year for high-grade iced coffee. Portland's big-and-getting-bigger Stumptown unleashed bottled "stubbies" of cold-brewed goodness in May. La Colombe followed suit in August with iced coffee encased in elegant containers, and Grady's large bottles of New Orleans Cold Brew showed up seem ... More >>

The Blue Bottle Coffee Cart Finds a New Home in the Castro

neilconwayA Blue Bottle latte​The Blue Bottle Coffee Cart has had a long and rocky journey to its newfound location. Originally slated to be a part of the all but aborted Dolores Park food cart project, Blue Bottle's attempt at mobile coffee brought a hailstorm of criticism from local business ... More >>

De La Paz Roasters Cafe Promises a Four-Item Menu and Baristas as Bartenders

​Jason Benford's De La Paz has existed only in bagged-bean form since 2006. Now the scrappy coffee roaster is making its way into the chaos of the San Francisco roaster-retailer scene with a new cafe set to open sometime in February on 7th and Mission. To test out each week's beans as well as ... More >>

Ecco Coffee's Andrew Barnett Explains Why Restaurant Coffee Is Rarely Good

​​In an effort to chart the ever-expanding specialty coffee scene in the Bay Area, we've been engaging a selection of local coffee personalities to pick their brains about why coffee and why now. Today we talk with Andrew Barnett of Ecco Caffe. As a coffee aficionado and a thirty year vet ... More >>

Illy's Espressamente Cafe Opens Downtown

Johnny O./YelpThe new downtown Illy Espressamente. ​International coffee powerhouse Illy is stretching its espresso-tinged fingers in to the heavily populated world of San Francisco cafes with Espressamente Illy, a high-end cafe now open at 123 Battery. It is Illy's ninth Esspressamente to ope ... More >>

Verve Coffee's Colby Barr on How to Help People Discover Richer Coffee

​​In an effort to chart the ever-expanding specialty coffee scene in the Bay Area, we've been engaging a selection of local coffee personalities to pick their brains about why coffee and why now. Today we talk to Colby Barr of Santa Cruz's Verve Coffee. Can you tell me a little bit about h ... More >>

Beijing's FishEye Café Serves Ritual Roasters Coffee

Ben Kaminsky of Ritual Coffee Dreams of Life After Latte

Scott Beale / Laughing Squid​SFoodie is on a mission to sit down with the city's most intelligent, influential, and experienced coffee folk to pick their brain about what makes our city such a hot bed of coffee trends.Today we speak with Ben Kaminsky, Ritual Coffee's quality control expert and ... More >>

Sightglass Coffee's Archie Archer on the Future of Your Cups of Joe

Confusedbee​​SFoodie is sitting down with the city's most intelligent, influential, and experienced coffee folk to pick their brain about what makes our city such a hot bed of coffee trends.Today we speak with Archie Archer of Sightglass Coffee about his dedication to discovering the beauty ... More >>

Nine Reasons Your Barista Hates You

I've been a barista for almost a decade and I've seen the best and worst customers have to offer. Caffeine can be nasty: Deprived people do crazy stuff. Here's a list of activities that draw the ire of the person behind the espresso machine. Print it out, keep it in your pocket, learn it and be sec ... More >>

New York Times Gets Huffy At SF Weekly

The Slayer. Would you call it "beautiful?"​We got an email earlier this week through the "feedback:" portion of our website, where Letters to the Editor are sent. The writer objected to a March 2010 blog post in which Jonathan Kauffman wrote in part, "Sightglass is one of the first cafes in S ... More >>

San Francisco's Top Five Coffee Shops

Photos by W. Blake Gray​Coffee is such a personal thing. If I like cappuccino, you like drip coffee black, and Bill Cosby likes a triple-tall nonfat extra-hot no-foam latte (apparently true), we're not going to agree on what the best coffee shop is. But I'm the guy with the pen keyboard soapb ... More >>

Latte Art Competition to Determine S.F.'s Best

INeedCoffee/ CoffeeHero​Dolores Park Cafe's Latte Art Throwdown Where: Dolores Park Cafe, 501 Dolores (at 18th St.) When: Thu., July 7, 7-10 p.m. Cost: Free The rundown: Be it free flowing forms of espresso and foam, or detailed depictions of animals, scenery and faces, all latte drinkers ... More >>

Ritual Takes Sixth Place in National Barista Contest

Ritual Coffee RoastersRitual barista Kevin Bohlin, left, and Ben Kaminsky, Director of Quality Control.​There may be no ticker-tape parade through the FiDi, but Ritual Coffee Roasters just made San Francisco proud at the United States Barista Championship in Houston this weekend. Cutely, the i ... More >>

Brown Owl Brings Microroasting to Parkside

Lolia S./YelpBrown Owl Coffee's woodshop interior.​Ariana Akbar originally wanted to open a flower shop. But even as the trained florist was working out the plans, she was roasting her own coffee and making a lot of espresso at home. Soon the project became a combination flower shop and cafe, then ... More >>

Disloyalty Card Rewards Restless Coffee Addicts

​A few weeks ago, eight local cafes quietly began setting stacks of a promotional card out on their counters. It's the kind of thing coffee shops have been giving customers for years ― buy X drinks, get one free! However, this new "disloyalty card" adds a novel twist: It rewards shopping around. ... More >>

Caffe Pascucci: A Cure for San Francisco's Italophilia?

Caffe Pascucci's pistachio cappucino.​Devoted Italophiles, San Franciscans tend to think of Italy in its most pastoral guise, a country filled with artisans passionately crafting humble, exquisite food that sings with innate simplicity and good taste. Our idealization doesn't just apply to pasta, ... More >>

Sightglass Brothers Offer a Window on the Microroastery

Catherine ColeSightglass Coffee owners Jerad and Justin Morrison hope to open the cafe portion of their tri-level SOMA warehouse this spring.​It's been a little less than a year since Sightglass Coffee owners (and brothers) Jerad and Justin Morrison flipped the switch on their beloved cast-iro ... More >>

Afternoon Coffee at Ma*Velous

Yes, you sip it like tea.​ I first heard of the idea of a distinction between morning coffee and afternoon coffee a few years ago, when a barista at a Seattle coffee shop was describing the shop's array of beans on offer. The cafe's Central American and Indonesian beans, he told me, were straightf ... More >>

Fresh Eats: Our weekly roundup of SFoodie news

Sightglass Coffee Readying Roastery, Café Expansion

Soon to be an oval coffee bar.​Over the past six or so months, Sightglass Coffee, Jared and Justin Morrison's coffee roastery and cafe on Seventh St. and Folsom, has been selling coffee from a kiosk set inside an old warehouse they're renovating. Tarps separate the espresso machine from the constr ... More >>

Ritual Ditches the French Press ... and the Clover, Too

Ritual's V60 Pourover Station​On Monday morning, a slightly flustered cashier at Ritual Roasters on Valencia had to tell customers in line, over and over again, that they could no longer just get a cup of coffee. "We have a new pour-over system called the V-60," he'd say, nodding at a new station ... More >>

No, the Whole City Hasn't Surrendered to Starbucks: Ingleside Cafe is Neighborhood Sweet

emanistan Cute 'n' cottage-y, and a great place to waste time. With independently owned neighborhood coffee shops going the way of the dodo, students and work-from-home warriors are finding it increasingly difficult to find local cafés to call home.  CCSF students and Ingleside resident ... More >>

The fight for the bohemian soul of North Beach's Caffe Trieste

Ritual Roaster Barista Named The Best In The West

Starbucks Smackdown: Judge Orders $100,000 In Back Tips To Baristas

Too-Much-Coffee Man: San Franciscan’s Java Obsession Has Led Him to Rate Every Last Cafe in The City (From 1 to 587)

SF's $12 Cup of Coffee at Blue Bottle Cafe

Starbucks Saves Life of Michael Gates Gill, Tom Hanks To Play the Barista

Philz Coffee Moves Down 18th, Bean There, Brew That Moves In: Where's The Love?

Philz Coffee Moves Down 18th, Bean There, Brew That Moves In: Where's The Love?

Starbucks the Great Satan?

Starbucks Art in SF

Raising the Barista

The Mission's Ritual Coffee Roasters takes its java very seriously

Best Hot Chocolate

Billy, Do Be a Hero

Reverend Billy & the Stop Big Boxes Gospel Choir hits the Castro

The Dog Bites Interview: Barista Champion

Latte art: cappuccino that a barista draws a milk design in

Full of Frappé

The only folks who should drink tea-as-milkshake are microwave-challenged Eskimos

Best Coffee Beans

Graffeo

Best (and Freshest) Gourmet Coffee Deal

Café Abir

Leftovers

Invasion of the Coffee Shops

Forgive and Remember

Dish