Matching Half – San Francisco

Following our #5 trip last week out to Golden Gate park we traveled the route again this week to go to the 2nd of the independent cafes that we’d discovered were along the route – last weekend Velo Rouge, this week, Matching Half.

It’s in the suburbs on a cross-street – the 4 corners taken up by the coffee shop, a restaurant, a market and a craft workshop.

The cafe looks quite new inside but I’m not sure if it is. It’s a clean open spot with windows on 2 sides, a handful of tables and a bar inside and a few tables in the sun on both sides on the pavement. They had a menu offering made-to-order sandwiches, bagels, baguettes and a cabinet of baked goods. The sandwiches going past our table looked good – we ate croissants from the bakery cabinet. The cafe was full of people on their computers or studying from books. Not a kid in sight. The only slightly unpleasant side effect of grilled cheese sandwiches was that strong acrid smell of burnt cheese on the George Forman grill or whatever they were using – I’m sure my hair still smells of it!

They use Sightglass coffee (we went to their cafe/roastery not long after we got here) and the coffee had that flavor – it was well made but had that strong fruity edge that RBC NYC has too – not my favorite but a damn good cup of coffee nevertheless!

Matching Half Cafe, 1799 McAllister, San Francisco