There is a specific hole in the middle of most days that nothing quite fills. It opens around four in the afternoon, when a third coffee has stopped being a good idea and dinner is two hours away, and in most cities the only answer on offer is a drink. For anyone who does not drink — for whatever reason, permanently or this month or today — that hour is where the options run out, and a café that closes at three does not help.
The hardest part of an afternoon that runs into an evening is what you drink after the coffee stops working and before dinner. Tell Karpo what kind of afternoon you want and get the rooms near you that handle the whole stretch rather than two hours of it.
A block from the sand in the Outer Richmond, on La Playa Street, there is a room built specifically for that gap.
A café that is also a bottle shop
Ocean Beach Cafe pours Four Barrel coffee, espresso, matcha and chai during the day, and it also runs a non-alcoholic cocktail programme and a bottle shop stocked with sober-friendly drinks. That combination is still rare enough to be worth spelling out: you can sit with a filter coffee at ten, a properly built non-alcoholic cocktail at five, and leave with a bottle of something for the evening, all in the same room.
The bottle shop element is the part that makes it more than a novelty. A non-alcoholic drinks list at a normal bar tends to be two items added reluctantly to the back of a menu. A shop that is fully stocked means somebody is tasting, selecting and restocking — that the category is the business rather than a gesture towards it — and the difference in what ends up in the glass is substantial.
Working there, honestly
There is wifi, there is a couch, and there is a parklet with real space on it. That is a good set of conditions for a couple of hours of work and a slightly optimistic one for a full day — the room is comfortable rather than large, and the couch is a single piece of furniture that somebody else will want. Treat it as a two or three hour proposition and it is one of the better options in this part of the city.
The parklet is the variable. The Outer Richmond is the foggiest quadrant of a foggy city and the weather here is genuinely different from the weather two miles east — it can be bright in the Mission and a grey wall out on La Playa on the same afternoon. When it is clear, the parklet is the best seat in the neighbourhood. When it is not, the inside is small and fills quickly, and arriving at one o'clock on a foggy Saturday expecting a table is optimistic.
The hours, and what they mean
Open from eight in the morning, closing at five Sunday through Thursday and at six on Friday and Saturday. The six o'clock close at weekends is the one that matters for the gap described at the top of this article — it means a Friday afternoon can run properly into the evening, with the drinks list shifting from coffee to cocktails as it goes, rather than ending abruptly when the espresso machine is cleaned down.
- Open 8am daily; closes 5pm Sunday to Thursday and 6pm Friday and Saturday
- Four Barrel coffee, plus non-alcoholic cocktails and a full sober bottle shop
- Wifi, a couch and a parklet — good for two or three hours, not a full day
- Check the fog before committing to the parklet; this is the greyest part of the city
One block from the sand
The location is the rest of the argument. Ocean Beach is a block away — three and a half miles of open Pacific coastline, the longest uninterrupted beach walk in the city, and a genuinely serious piece of landscape rather than a swimming beach. It is usually cold, frequently windy and almost always worth it, and the current is dangerous enough that swimming is strongly discouraged; this is a walking beach, not a bathing one.
That proximity restructures the whole visit. Two hours of work, an hour on the sand, a non-alcoholic drink afterwards to warm back up, is a considerably better afternoon than three hours in any café anywhere, and it is available on any day of the week. The Sutro Baths ruins and the Lands End trail are a short distance north if you want the walk to be more dramatic. The Great Highway edge and Golden Gate Park's western end are immediately south and east, which means the same trip can end in a windbreak of cypress rather than on an exposed seafront if the weather turns, and it usually does. Dress for a beach that is ten degrees colder than the forecast and the whole afternoon works.
Getting out there
The Outer Richmond is a long way from the centre of San Francisco by local standards and the transit is slower than the map suggests — the 5 Fulton and the 38 Geary both run out this way and both take a while. The compensation is that street parking out here is genuinely easy, which is close to unique in this city and makes this one of the few neighbourhoods where driving is straightforwardly the sensible option.
Practical notes
Ocean Beach Cafe, 734 La Playa Street, Outer Richmond, San Francisco, one block from Ocean Beach. Open from 8am daily, closing at 5pm Sunday to Thursday and 6pm on Friday and Saturday. Four Barrel coffee, espresso, matcha and chai, breakfast sandwiches, vegan wraps, salads and sourdough sandwiches, alongside a non-alcoholic cocktail list and a fully stocked sober bottle shop. Wifi, indoor seating including a couch, and a parklet. The neighbourhood is markedly foggier and colder than the rest of the city, so check before planning to sit outside. Street parking is easy; transit from downtown is slow.
Tags: #SanFrancisco #OuterRichmond #OceanBeach #CoffeeSF #SoberCurious #NonAlcoholic #WorkFromCafe #LaPlaya #FourBarrel #SFCafes #BottleShop #Parklet #ThingsToDoSF #FoggySF
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Ask Karpo first
Want a café near you that works for a long afternoon, has something worth drinking that is not coffee or alcohol, and is open past five? Ask Karpo for the rooms that fit and what the weather is doing on that side of the city today.
