Grand Coffee – San Francisco

Yesterday I consulted the SF Best Coffee App to find somewhere new to try for coffee. With our Christmas shopping done, we still wanted to hang around town enjoying the Christmas spirit but didn’t really want to go to the shops – so we rode the BART out to the Mission to try Grand Coffee – great coffee pictures on their website and they use Four Barrel coffee.

I know many people rate the Mission but I just haven’t warmed to it. I guess I won’t be taken seriously as a real San Franciscan until I can say how much I love it – the quirky shops, independent retailers, happnin bars, street stalls, free spirits and great restaurants – right now I still feel quite unsafe going there and the streets have an interesting smell of urine and bulk packs of laundry detergent.

I thought we were lost when we were almost at the address and we were in the middle of fruit stalls in the street, 2 dollar shops and a Western store, when I saw the awning over a small window and door normally barricaded behind a metal security gate. Lovely.

We stepped into a tiny kiosk space – not what we expected at all. The barista station took up most of the space with a small bench and 3 stools for customers – except on this day it seemed to be full of staff who’d recently come off shift and were counting out their tips.

The coffee was well made, milk not expertly poured and it was too hot. But tasted OK.

We sat outside in the sun (the staff hadn’t moved by the time our individually crafted coffees were made) and watched the comings and goings – also discovered that the number 14 bus seemed to go into town every 5 minutes so we jumped on that for a ride back into the city. Bus rides are always interesting here – all manner of shopping and conversations.

Grand Coffee, 2663 Mission Street, San Francisco, @grandcoffeesf