All narratives are really one narrative. All stories converge into one story. All problems can be reduced to a single issue. Three sisters or three brothers, the gender makes little difference, though some would argue otherwise, but let's not get into that here. The same faces but different places. Just word play but it keeps it interesting. I went to the city again. This time I visited some new areas and realized I need to be careful of first impressions. I started this post a few days ago but lost the flow of thoughts and decided to let it simmer a while before coming back to it.
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| San Francisco wants to close this school... |
I started out with the intention of exploring the Excelsior district. After getting to Ocean Ave. where the BART station was located on the map, I discovered that really the only location with any commercial spaces was indeed Ocean Ave. north of the I280 freeway. City College was at the north junction and the BART and MUNI stations at the south junction where I280 meets Ocean Ave. At first I though it looked great with large numbers of students and other pedestrians walking up at down the street. But then after observing a little while I noticed few business had steady customers. Granted this was mid-afternoon but something didn't feel right about what I was seeing here. First thing I noticed was large numbers of students leaving classes from City College, but they were simply getting on public transport and leaving the area to go somewhere else. Few businesses were in place to take advantage of these packs of people except a Tapioca Express and some little print shop. Whole Foods was a block down which at a glace would seem encouraging. Walking up and down Ocean Ave. for about a mile, I counted four cafes. Two had moderate success and two were just plain empty. The worst of which was a little espresso bar directly across from Whole Foods. Peering inside, I saw a young Asian kid sitting at his laptop with no one behind the counter, leaving me to believe HE was the barista... Not good. Oddly the espresso machine was a three group Linea. Big machine to serve a little eight by twelve space. Didn't bother to remember the name of that cafe...
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| Java on Ocean |
The most interesting cafe I came across was Java on Ocean Cafe. This place had character, charm, and a cozy feel inside that looked inviting. The building architecture certainly made it a focal point in it's surrounding. I thought, "good location must be doing ok." Inside I found a few people hanging out on computers. I went to the counter and ordered a drip coffee and bought a very good raspberry pastry wrapped in saran wrap. After watching what was probably the owner, based purely on his age and demeanor, make my coffee I didn't even bother tasting it before waltzing over to the condiment bar and adding milk and sugar. It didn't help though, because the coffee tasted burnt and over extracted even through all that milk and sugar, just as I had suspected. You see, the guy used a same Curtis drip brewer to make every individual cup. Sounds like Philz Coffee in concept but the result is burnt tasting coffee that resembles something you get at Starbucks or McDonald's. Almost undrinkable. Still the location and ambiance alone will keep this guy rolling. Just think what he could do if he had the level of coffee you can get at a Philz Coffee.
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| Fog Lifter Cafe |
The other cafe on Ocean Ave. was The Fog Lifter Cafe two blocks down. It had a fair number of people inside and was clean and setup nicely. The only criticism I could give was that it felt a little generic. The location was fairly good for the neighborhood. Didn't bother trying the coffee though. I got this sinking feeling, when I saw the large numbers of empty store locations half way down the block from The Fog Lifter Cafe. Some of the retail spaces looked like they might be good location for little cafes but the sheer number of them one right after another made me think twice. What was once a large cinema half a block away on the opposite side of the road, was now a converted church. Not much happening after that. If Ocean Ave. in the direction of San Francisco looked bad, the avenue going towards Excelsior was hopeless. crossing over the I280 you run into a skate park and some dilapidated businesses. I turned to make a loop up San Jose Ave. to the bus station and saw what if you didn't know better you'd say was the perfect location for a cafe. It was a sad sight to see the carcass of a little cafe called Cafe Express on the corner that just could not make it there. Do commuters hang out? Do students for that matter hang out? Students surely do, but not these. This place has high rent and no draw. I would return later in the evening to see what changed. (tiny pickup in the evening)
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| Potrero Hill Cafe |
Next stop, was Potrero Hill. Now rumor has it that
Intelligentsia was to open a cafe here. I didn't know where I was going so the first thing I did was ride over to 3rd street in Bayview to find Ritual Coffee in the Flora Grubb Gardens which I'd came across by accident online. Now for the amount of money I have, this is the setup I should go for. Ritual Coffee created a little espresso bar in the corner of a nursery barn. It a very nice, tight, little space actually. Very stylish but I afraid it might not be all that profitable since it is totally dependent the nursery's business hours and traffic. They used a Linea 2 group EE, by the way. The espresso was OK. The lady working the plants had stunningly beautiful blue eyes, which left me pretty speechless for second when she came up to ask me if I needed any help. Nice to get these little indicators that I'm still alive sometimes. Wanted to linger a minute but had to move on. From here I meandered up Potrero Hill by way of Cesar Chavez until I got to the top of the hill. Up at the top of 20th Street it was disappointing to say the least because there was hardly anything there but a library and some nicely built modern homes. Did I mention a condo listing on the window of a real-estate office read, "2BD/2Bath condo $832,000"? Yes I did. Meager little abode I'm sure. The one cafe up there was closed early and was tiny but thoughtful.... Guess the, stay at home, wives of rich traders from the financial district don't drink much coffee. Kings live up on that hill. Kings that will assure you they are beyond all doubt "middle class". They like playing with words too, maybe more than me. Their fortress of solitude is just too quiet. One has to have a hungry soul to hang out in cafes. Potrero Hill is a nice place to live. So very very very nice...
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| View of SF from Library Window |
Then I drove back down to the Dogpatch district which is a little stretch of land along the bay just below Potrero hill that, today, acts as a transition zone between South Beach and Bayview. Being full of old industrial buildings and historic homes, made this the ideal place for artisan types and trend setters to move in a make it theirs. There's many things to like about Dogpatch. Those old dock buildings look great and have lots of character. Housing dating back to when the ship yards were much more important than they are now and a BART line right through the middle of it. Many trendy little night spots and restaurants are there with lots of good food and drinks. It's not taken over fully yet. There's and edge to the place as you get closer the the lower income Bayview area. I wandered around 22nd street to see what was there, but like most of this trip something bothered me. In the back of my mind was the cost of starting up. I like the place and if I had enough money I might give it a go there, as I would in Glenn Park. As I was leaving to get in my car, I thought, "Where to tamp? Where to tramp?" Then I looked up and saw a sign which read, "Historic Dogpatch District" and right below it read, "Dead End".
At first I thought maybe this was about the three daughters of King Lear, but then maybe this is more like the Castle Elsinore and I'm being haunted by a ghost. Better yet, this isn't Shakespeare at all, but Cervantes and my name isn't Ron, its Don, chasing windmills on a horse that's just about to fall over. Where the hell is Sancho when I need him?
PS. I edited out the part about the car with Texas tags I pasted in the Sunnyside district, around City College. I felt the reader might be distracted by the image of a guy sticking something in his arm as I walked by, only to greeted with a patch of sunflowers in the little field a couple of hundred feet up the road. I also felt it necessary to self sensor the sight of a scraggly old man sitting beneath a decaying animal sculpture smoking crack from a glass tube. This at a bus stop bench on Hunter's Points. I know what your thinking... What the hell was he doing at Hunter's Points. Well, I got there by accident while following a shipyard road that took me past billionaire Larry Ellison's dock where he keeps his precious high speed Catamaran, big monstrosity, if you ask me. Both the old man and Ellison's boat. One is addicted to influence and power, the other is addicted to escape... Go figure.
