Sightglass Coffee SoMa

Sightglass Coffee describes its 7th Street café in SoMa as the place where it all started. The building is the company's flagship and original location, and it houses a production roastery, the company headquarters and a community gathering space as well as the café itself. All of Sightglass's coffee is roasted in small batches in California, and much of it is roasted right here.

The space is built around an open floor plan. The coffee bar is on the ground floor, with the large Probat roasting machine visible behind the counter, and there is space upstairs where customers sit and talk. Watching the roaster at work while you wait for your drink gives a good sense of how the coffee goes from green beans to cup. A sample roaster in the training lab is used to evaluate each green coffee before it is bought and roasted.

The menu changes with the seasons, with seasonal coffee drinks and the Single Origin Series alongside classic espresso drinks such as lattes. If you want to understand more about what you are drinking, Sightglass educators run barista training, and each Friday they invite the public to taste coffees, which is a free way to learn from the team. Barista classes and coffee education sessions can also be booked through the website.

The café opens at 6.30am on weekdays and 7am at weekends, and closes at 5pm every day, so it works well for an early breakfast coffee or a mid-morning break. You can skip the line by ordering ahead online, or order in the café as usual. If you plan to join a Friday tasting, ask the staff for the time before you go. The café suits coffee enthusiasts, remote workers looking for a morning base, and anyone exploring SoMa's museums and galleries.

Sightglass has other cafés in San Francisco, including one at 3014 20th Street in the Mission and one at 301 Divisadero Street, but the 7th Street flagship is the one to visit if you want to see the roastery. It is in SoMa, at 270 7th Street, and is easy to reach by taxi or on foot from central hotels.