There is a version of coffee in this city that has nothing to do with the two American revolutions that happened a few miles away. In North Beach the model is Italian and it is older than both: a room with a long bar, an espresso machine that has been running for decades, a handful of small tables, no scales, no origin cards, and no interest whatsoever in what the bean is. You order at the bar, you drink standing or you sit for an hour, and it costs a couple of dollars. It is not speciality coffee and it is one of the best things in San Francisco.
The caffès open earlier and close later than the speciality rooms, and each has a different character by the hour. Tell Karpo when you will be in North Beach.
How the model works
The Italian caffè is a piece of social infrastructure with coffee attached. Its economics are built on volume and on the bar rather than on table service: an espresso is cheap, it takes ninety seconds, and a large share of customers drink it standing and leave. That subsidises the other half of the model, which is that anyone who does sit down can stay for as long as they like on one cup and nobody will come near them.
This is the opposite of a speciality cafe, where the coffee is expensive and considered and the seating is often explicitly rationed. Here the coffee is the least interesting thing in the room and the room is the point. It is also why these places have functioned as neighbourhood living rooms for decades - as writers' offices, as where people read the paper, as where arguments happen.
Caffe Trieste, and what it actually is
Caffe Trieste on Vallejo Street opened in 1956 and is generally credited as the first espresso house on the West Coast. It became the Beat generation's living room, and its reputation now rests substantially on that - which slightly obscures the more interesting fact that it is still a working neighbourhood café rather than a monument. People come in, order at the bar, sit down and stay.
It is worth going for the room rather than for the history. There is a small stage area and a long tradition of live music at weekends, generally opera and Italian songs performed by regulars and staff, which is exactly as charming and as unpolished as that sounds. Go on a weekday morning for the working version and on a Saturday afternoon for the singing one; they are different places.
What to order, and when
The rules are Italian and they are simple. Espresso is the default and is drunk at any hour. Cappuccino is a morning drink - before about eleven - and ordering one after a meal is the classic marker of a visitor, though nobody in San Francisco will say anything. Macchiato is espresso with a spot of foam and is the correct afternoon compromise if you want milk.
Caffè latte, in Italy, is a large milky coffee drunk at breakfast, and asking for a latte in an old-school caffè may get you exactly that rather than the American version. Corretto - espresso with a shot of grappa or brandy - is a real order and a very good one on a cold afternoon, which in this city is most of them. And the pastry to have alongside is a biscotti or a cannoli rather than anything elaborate.
Standing versus sitting
In Italy there is a price difference between drinking at the bar and taking a table, and it is enforced. In North Beach it mostly is not, but the cultural residue remains: the bar is for quick coffee and conversation with whoever is behind it, and the tables are for staying. Both are correct and choosing deliberately changes the experience considerably.
If you have twenty minutes, stand. You will end up talking to someone, which is genuinely more likely at a bar than at a table, and you will see the room work. If you have two hours and something to read, take a table by the window, order one thing, and stay. Nobody will hurry you and that is the deal these rooms have always offered.
The rest of the neighbourhood's caffè layer
Trieste is the famous one and it is not the only one. Columbus Avenue and the streets off it hold several long-running Italian coffee rooms, some attached to bakeries, some to bars that serve coffee in the morning and wine in the evening. Washington Square sits in the middle of all of it and is the neighbourhood's front garden - the correct place to take a coffee and a piece of focaccia and sit on the grass.
The neighbourhood also has speciality cafes now, and they are good, and they are a different proposition. Both can coexist in one morning: a proper filter coffee from a third-wave room, then an espresso at a caffè bar an hour later. They are not competing for the same twenty minutes, and treating them as alternatives is the only real mistake available here.
Practical notes
Prices: espresso two to four dollars, cappuccino three to five, and considerably less than a speciality cafe across the board. Hours: the caffès generally open early and run into the evening, which makes them the answer when the speciality rooms have shut at four. Cash is still welcome and sometimes faster. Cappuccino before eleven, macchiato after. Sitting for an hour on one cup is normal and expected. Live music at Trieste is generally a weekend afternoon thing. Washington Square is two minutes away and free. Parking in North Beach is bad - come on foot or by Muni along Columbus or Stockton. And Chinatown starts four minutes' walk south, which is the natural next stop.
Tags: #CoffeeNearMe #NorthBeach #SanFrancisco #CaffeTrieste #Espresso #ItalianCoffee #ColumbusAvenue #WashingtonSquare #Cappuccino #Macchiato #Corretto #SFCoffee #LittleItaly #Chinatown
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Ask Karpo first
The caffès run on their own hours and the weekend singing at Trieste is not on a published schedule anyone can find. Ask Karpo which North Beach rooms are open now, whether there is music on this afternoon, and where the nearest speciality filter is if that is what you actually wanted.
