13 posts tagged “coffeeshop”
Inspired by my experience interviewing the owners of Zadin I decided to give the ol' interrogation to Mike Delgado, the owner of Spike's Coffee and Teas on 19th Street.
I've written before about my affection for this little cafe, and I still believe that it is the best place for a coffee in the Castro. The baristas actually know how to make a good espresso drink, and Mike has managed to populate the counter staff with the largest collection of cute, fun, nice baby dykes anywhere. (Seriously, this place is like a t.A.T.u. video come to life, and then they serve you a chai latte.)
Let's see what Mike has to say:
CastroShopper: How long have you owned Spike's?
Mike Delgado: I've owned Spike's for the past 6+ years. Originally I bought it with my best friend Nick Hodges who after about a year realized that the everyday requirements of the coffee business was not his career goal. We kept the Spike's branding since Nick had a cat named Spike and we loved the logo and dog culture. It has been Spike's now for about 14 years and prior to that it was called Java Road Coffee Co. I think back in the 80's it was known as Has Beans.
CS: Why did you decide to open a business in the Castro? Did (or does) the high turnover of businesses in the neighborhood concern you?
MD: I was teaching High School in Fremont and commuting down there everyday. After 5 years of that I decided it was time to do something more locally and I'd always dreamed of having my own cafe.
The high turnover of businesses in the Castro isn't too much of a concern to me as I believe strongly in the value offered by my staff and products. We are commited to making the neighborhood more of a community by doing several things. We create a safe, welcoming environment. We donate money and services to local charities and schools. We are entrenched in the neighborhood and have a symbiotic relationship with it. My only concerns with any turnover are that since we are so commited to customer service, training becomes very important.
CS: Do you feel that the busines climate has changed since you've been operating Spike's?
MD: We definitely have more young parents in the neighborhood than before. Lots more strollers in a small shop! People have gotten used to our exemplary service and have come to expect hearts on their lattes, etc.
CS: What has been your reaction to the opening of Starbucks? Have you taken specific steps in order to compete better against such a powerful chain?
MD: Again, I think our neighborhood embraces the small businesses that provide a unique "home base" and character to the hood. While Starbucks has certainly done a good job educating the masses about the industry, Spike's continues to perfect the craft of espresso beverages and not mass producing them.
CS: What is the most difficult thing about having a business in the Castro?
MD: A lot of people have their own ideas about how one should run their business. It is important to be able to listen to suggestions without becoming defensive. Another difficulty surrounds the homeless and balancing being kind with providing a safe environment for customers.
CS: If there is something you would change about the way the city deals with small businesses such as yours, what would it be?
MD: I think the city is very supportive of workers and this is great. It can be challenging when small businesses such as mine is required to offer benefits slightly beyond our means such as sick time, etc. There is no question that my employees deserve any and every benefit offered by the city. The challenge is just finding the budget when we're already so limited.
(It was hard to hear Mike's comment that "A lot of people have their own ideas about how one should run their business" and not interpret it as "Some pushy, semi-literate poof starts writing a blog and suddenly he's the queen of retail." But I soldier on.)
Thanks for the insight into running a small business in the Castro, Mike!
I reported previously about the transformation of our neighborhood location of the local Philz chain into the clumsily-name Bean Here, Brewed that!, as well as the disappearance of the cafe from the front of Sit 'n' Spin laundromat. Now those two stories collide as Philz reenters our local coffeeshop market by moving into that empty storefront.
I snapped the photo above last weekend. A man with a fedora who looked like an extra from the Turkish production of The Sopranos asked me why I was taking photos and whether I was a fan of Philz. I told him that I track businesses in the Castro, and I was excited to see them move back into the market "after the drama with the other place." He put up his hands and said with perfect old-world flair, "No drama! What drama? No drama!" and then encouraged me to come back for "the best cup of coffee [I] will ever have." I think I'll go just to see if this character is behind the counter.
By the way, I really enjoy the alternation between "Coming Soon" and "Come In Soon" on the banners above, but my guess is that this in not intentionally witty wordplay, but just two different people ordering signs and hearing the intended wording differently.
Also on the subject of the signs, both Philz and Bean Here, Brew that! tout their single-cup-brewing cred. I smell a coffee war!
Observant Castro Street walkers may have noticed that the empty cafe space at 476 Castro recently got a fresh coat of powder blue paint. Then last week a help-wanted sign went up in the window looking for a few good counter-jockeys, while also announcing that the name of the new cafe is "A Bon Port," a soi-disant French-Belgian cafe.
Finally, this past weekend the advertising cards below were taped up on the front case, announcing that the grand opening is tonight, May 30th, from 6pm to 10pm! That's pretty darned fast, and such a relief too! This is one less empty storefront greeting our summer visitors, and in a high-traffic, high-visibility space.
The theme is a throwback to the first shuttered cafe here, Le Bon Gateau, which would seem like throwing good cake after bad until you realize that of the 3 closed businesses that occupied this space, Le Bon Gateau was the only one which was closed by choice. Let's hope the combination of Frenchy pretensions and carbohydrates works its magic yet again.
Wow, the coffeeshops are dropping like flies. Tully's, Likewise Cafe, Sit and Spin, and now Philz, a budding San Francisco institution. But visitors to the 18th and Sanchez location were greeted with this sight this weekend:
The signs on both sides of the building blotted out, although interestingly it was bustling as usual inside.
A little background: This location used to house an antique-ish business that a letter-writer in the B.A.R. called "the perpetual garage sale." We have a lot of those around here. Anyway, after the garage sale finally ended, the location then stood empty for a while before being renovated as a coffeeshop. At the time Samovar across the street had opened, and was thriving with its exotic teas, its stylish presentation, and its overall air of lesbian-chic, and meanwhile the new coffeeshop had the aesthetics of a freezer case at Safeway. Needless to say it couldn't handle the competition and quickly closed.
In its place opened this monstrosity, painted like a drunk Brazilian soccer fan's face, and we guessed that it would similarly fail. But no. Apparently the new store moving in was a local mini-chain, Philz, and it came with a built-in fan base and was soon crowded with coffee drinkers. According to their website, Phil is pretty hardcore about his coffee, and the store brews each cup order one-at-a-time, by hand.
So why is the shop closing? It's hard to say. An oblique message from Phil himself on the website offers this non-explanation:
I want extend with all of my heart a big thank you to all my friends and customers from the 18th at Sanchez street location, which is no longer a Phil’z Coffee location. It was an extremely difficult decision to sever a less than perfect business relationship. It was definitely in the best interest of Phil’z Coffee ...
The letter then goes on to announce a new location opening in SoMa.
I popped in, and according to the people behind the counter the store is running exactly the same as before, and they are even still using beans from Philz! They were very insistent that nothing in the shop had changed other than the name -- so insistent that it made me a little nervous. So I guess I shouldn't say that the coffeshop had closed exactly, just that it had been severed mysteriously from its Phil.
BTW, (and this is where the grammar queen in me comes out) -- note that in Phil's letter he spells the name of his shop as "Phil'z" but elsewhere on the website (and in the signs) the store is called "Philz." Why does the apostrophe mean nothing in America anymore?! Grrrr.
OK, let me know if I'm really late to the game with this post.
An operative emailed me that Sit 'n' Spin, the cute, clean laudromat-slash-cafe on 18th, was now out of the coffee and crumbs business and had essentially become a laundromat with a very large seating area. As proof of this, there is a large, hand-written sign in the window explaining the change in business plan. No more consumables, but they are selling internet access and renting computers.
This was a big shock to me,since I always thought this business idea was pretty brilliant. First of all, we are lacking in cafe space in the Castro, and second of all, a clean, welcoming, burrito-free laundromat is a rarity around here. How could it not work? After all, Brain Wash on Folsom St. has an identical business plan and they're an institution.
I was excitedly telling a friend about this new development when he gleefully informed me that actually this change had happened many months ago (his estimate was eight months ago) and suggested that if I wanted to stay up-to-date about the Castro I should read one of the many informative blogs which are out there now.
(*cough* Bitch. *cough*)
So what's the story people? Is this change new, or did it happen months ago? If it did happen way back in 2006 when people still thought Borat was funny, why is the sign still up in the window?
If what my friend says is true, apparently the cafe didn't exactly fail. The owner of Sit 'n' Spin is supposedly also the owner of the building, and he simply decided to get out of the grind of serving coffee. Furthermore, he has allegedly turned down multiple offers from people who wanted to let the front space to open their own coffeeshop. Interesting story if it is true.
Last month I wrote about a new cafe that I noticed on a walk down 16th Street -- Sixteen Sweets. At the time I noted that the place looked occupied, but was in disarray and was closed on a Saturday afternoon, and generally looked bad. I wondered if the store was still about to come, or if it was on its way out.
Well, a couple weeks back I paid another visit, and the store is open now. I guess it was in the final stages the last time I saw it, because it at least looks like a functioning business now.
Not that it looks particularly great, though. On the day I visited the place was empty during the entire time I was there, this in spite of the fact that it was a sunny, warm day and plenty of foot traffic was going by. Somehow I think the store's generic-looking ice cream cones, uncomfortable sandwich-shop seating, and sullen counter service isn't quite the perfect combination for the neighborhood.
Speaking of Starbucks (see the comment in the Ritz Camera thread), a few months back they did some interior remodeling. This furtively snapped photo shows that the interior cubby area which originally housed a banquette (with seats that were perpetually stinky and, yeah, that's something you don't want to think about too much) and then later two tables with chairs, has been walled over and now holds a storage area.
The store was never that large to begin with, and considering that the typical Castro Starbucks customer is 20% larger than the neighborhood average, the loss of this seating space has made it even more brutal to get a table in here. I've heard that the company has an unofficial, unspoken policy of subtly encouraging table turnover -- by making the seats less comfortable, by making the interior visually busy, etc. -- but it's hard to see how losing probably a fifth of your seating space can be good for business.
This Starbucks also has the least floorspace devoted to retail (coffee beans, CDs, Mitch Albom books) of any Starbucks I know, so I'm very curious to know what calculus went into determining whether this space should be used for tables, storage, or French presses. Interesting to ponder...
Walking along 16th Street the other day, I ran across two cafes that opened just recently.
At 3463 16th Street where the old (very old) Anniversary Flowers & Gifts stood, there is now a bright and shiny new cafe called Kapé. From the outside it looks quite nice -- big overstuffed sofas and chairs, marbled-topped cafe tables, and big glass windows. At risk of sounding offensive, it definitely looks like an older gay man designed this, and I swear I mean that in a positive way. (But come on, you know what I mean.)
Here's a photo of what the space looked like just a couple months ago:
That's the "sweet" in the blog title. The "sour" part is just a block away at 3506 16th, another new cafe which seems much less put-together. Cutely named Sixteen Sweets, it was oddly shut on a weekend afternoon last week. At first I assumed it was still under construction, but looking through the windows it looks like it is in business already, with the refrigerator case stocked with soda cans and a full set of furniture. But the inside was a dump, dirty and cluttered, so I'm still unsure of the store's status. Can anyone tell me if this cafe is still coming, already going, or just always a mess? Here's a picture of the place today:
It didn't help that there was a homeless encampment right in front of the store. Two people, sleeping bags, multiple shopping carts, various detritus of urban life. I half-expected them to have a welcome mat and mailbox.
Like Kapé above, this coffeeshop is fairly new -- no more than a couple of months old. On the same day that I took the "before" picture above, I took this photo of the failed store which used to be in this space:
Mak's Gifts was a strange gift shop which specialized in cute tchotchkes and stationery goods direct-imported from , most of it apparently pirated in the most obvious and gross way imaginable. I mean, I'm no fan of piracy in general, but if you are going to do it, at least be a little clever. This shop featured what appeared to be pirated Mickey Mouses, Snoopys, and Hello Kittys that were so misshapen and grotesque they would have done Dali proud. At that point, why bother pirating? If your drawing barely looks like Tweety Bird, then just make up some other name and call it an original. That's what most drag queens do, isn't it?
A few quick updates on cafes in the Castro:
- As surmised earlier, Likewise Cafe is definitely gone. The space is now completely emptied out and dark.
- In the space formerly occupied by Tully's there has been a lot of activity. Some new refrigerated cases were delivered, and renovation work is in full swing. The windows are papered over, but I was lucky enough to walk by when the workers had left the front door open, enabling me to get this shot of the progress:
- The Gold's Gym on Market has cleared out the space by the front window and now signs are up announcing the coming of the Power Up Cafe. This large space was formerly used for clothing sales, but after the check-in desk was reconfigured the clothing was reduced and moved to the smaller space in front of the other window.
- And last but not least, the Subway sandwich shop had a legal notice in the window a month or so back advising the public of their intent to put tables in the public thoroughfare. I wondered if that meant they were going to have cafe tables on the sidewalk, and sure enough the tables have arrived! I don't think this is going to encourage me to eat at Subway, but I'll admit that it looks nice and helps soften the transition from the gas station to the rest of the block.
It seems that the end may be here for the Likewise Cafe, which would make it the third coffeeshop in a row to fail at this new retail space created from the old Valley Pride Market just a couple of years ago. This week, the furniture is partly gone and partly pushed to one side, and the counters are piled high with kitchenware.
Looking at the scene, it's possible that they are getting ready for a remodel or for a large reception, so until I know for certain I won't declare Likewise dead. But it's not looking good.
My favorite part of this picture is the teddy bear lying discarded on the floor in the foreground. It's so symbolic!
Update: Well there is still no definite "we're closed" sign up, but the dismantling of the space continues. The ceiling fans and projector have come off the ceiling, and more of the kitchen goods are out in big stacks. It definitely looks like it is headed for a store fixture sale.
