The Mill

Finally, this past Wednesday, The Mill opened its doors, merging the combination of Four Barrel Coffee Roasters and one Josie Baker. Four Barrel, the up-and-coming San Francisco roaster, that has perfected the medium roast formula, met up with Josie on Divis last summer and started slinging espresso out of a tented off area out of the front of this large space as the rest of the space was being developed. Josie and her crew mill their own grains and bake their bread in the back, in this open air service area coupled with the coffee service area that sits in the front.
The space, in the Four Barrel fashion, is long and spacious. Starting from the back, along the service area that takes up about half the length of the store, a set of 5 tables are built in to the wall with two moveable chairs each. The front of the cafe hold 7 double seated tables along the opposite corner, with a long wooden table that seats about 12 That parallels the opposite wall and the entrance. There are two bay seats in each window. The palatial seating allows each patron to breathe and sip their coffee in peace while being serenaded to the distant whir of espresso machines and the buzz of the bakery.
Unlike the main store on Valencia, a double cassette has been installed, but the record collection and turntable are missing. Perhaps mix tapes are better, but the same fidelity fades on old cassettes as they are repeated played (thanks to the properties of magnetic tape and metal play heads).
The coffee and the bread are both excellent. I sat with a cappuccino and toasted rye with cream cheese. The coffee follows the same specs as the original store's exceptional quality. The black rye slice that I had was so sweetly strong, that I can still taste its flavor through my last sips of my coffee.
Highly recommended. Maybe there is still a reason to walk across town to the original flagship, but only to listen to some old vinyl spinning in the morning sun.
Like all early risers, this cafe's space and quiet was slowly replaced by an abundance of people waiting out the door. It would seem that all of the other amazing cafés closed up and down the street in NOPA, which is overly populated with late 20 and early 30 somethings, many of which gather a paycheck from newly minted downtown office jobs. Unfortunately, this lot does have a tendency to stare at full tables in a crowded castle, not planning ahead for an early filled seat on a Monday holiday. The go getter attitude of this age group is maybe the one feature of NOPA that makes this part of the city feel like Manhattan, but without the artists of the Mission, who at least read and write in the cafés across town.

Location:The Mill, 736 Divisedero, between Fulton and Grove, San Francisco

Black Oak Coffee Roasters, Ukiah

This space, once inhabited by the Coffee Critic until the summer of 2012, has been a great place to stop on my way from San Francisco to California's northwest coastline for some time, on a long weekend trip to visit some friends or taste some wine in Mendocino or Sonoma. Recently, my wife and I swung by en route, and on our return from Arcata.

The most important shift from the Critic is that the coffee is served to spec, where a macchiato is no longer a cappuccino, but instead served with the equivalent of two table spoons of foamed milk. The macchiato passed the slow sipping test, where the last sip, fifteen minutes later was as flavorful as the first. My wife's soy latte was exceptional, and the coffee that we took to go was an exceptional dark roast that lasted in the car after dinner on the continued drive to Humboldt.

Gone is the black and white checkered tile that always reminded me of an old ice cream parlor. Gone is the emphasis on lunch service. Gone are the heavy cast iron chairs and tables that filled the entire dining area.

A coffee roaster now sits prominently displayed behind glass at the entrance, that runs along the western wall. The interior has been transformed to a dark oak or walnut finished floor and ceiling. Smaller two and four seated tables now line part of the dining area, complemented by three couches and coffee tables. I do not recall, but I think the front windows now had a small window bar with bar seats facing the parking lot.

When we entered on Friday around 4 pm, a string trio with a small vocal PA was pleasantly serenading the five or six other patrons with folk and country ballads. This was not possible at the Coffee Critic, but to be fair, a single pass once every year or so is no measure of the local performance calendar that I chanced upon this past Friday.

On my way to friendly abodes on California's western corner, I will surely pass this way again. We bought a pound of dark roast as well, and will soon grind it this week before work to savor some of the flavor of this exceptional roastery.