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This café is something of a neighborhood favorite for its quirky atmosphere and ridiculously cheap (though not that great) coffee. Inside there's found art everywhere - plus painted café tables, a couple of seats from movie theaters (with cup-holders), juicers on display, wine for $9 a bottle, and a few outdoor sidewalk café tables under parasols. Using a two-group La Spaziale, they pull fuller shots that sit tall in a Lavazza-branded IPA cups. It has a medium-to-dark brown crema that runs a bit thin. And given the pour size, the flavor is not surprisingly a little watery as well. But the flavor of the cup is one of the limitations here: it's more a mixture of mild pepper and a bit of water. I asked the barista what beans they used, and he noted that they use the el cheapo America's Best Coffee for espresso and the el cheapest San Francisco Bay Coffee (available at Costco) for drip - but only after a long pause. It's hard to know whether the pause reflect that he couldn't remember or if he was sheepish about the café's choices. But what do you expect for $1 espresso? Perhaps it was appropriate that I had to reach the place on foot once my 38L Geary Express Muni bus transformed into a front-seat brawl, grounding the entire bus for a long while to take down police reports.
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