Ah! The sun! Would that I weren’t typing this in a cafe with an excessive amount of windows. Or that I was in one of San Francisco’s last stalwart salons to eschew the wired world. That’s right, there are still cafes out there that don’t have wireless Internet. Spots where you can sit your sweet self down and feel absolutely no urge to chain-check your Facebook newsfeed.
These are places where you’re still keeping up with your double soy latte joneses, but are forced to devote your attention to finishing (continuing, starting, rueing) your multi-dimensional wade through Gravity’s Rainbow. Or to eavesdropping on your neighbors’ conversation about the recent spate of cats on leashes sightings. Or even – gasp! – have a conversation of your own. And should all the actual reality get to be to much don’t fret, I don’t believe these places are confiscating iPhones. Yet.
Four Barrel Coffee
Four Barrel’s got no wireless because to be on your computer would mean taking your eyes off the see and be seen parade that treks back and forth beneath the behemoth sailor’s rope and lightbulbs sculpture that hangs like a blunt sword of Damocles above the entryway. Should the beautiful people parade wear through the surface, turn your gaze to the back of the cafe, where lithe coffee crafters roast the brand’s beans on site.
375 Valencia, SF
(415) 252-0800
Delancey Street Crossroads Cafe
Winner of this year’s “Best Al Fresco Feel Good,” Delancey Street Foundation’s Crossroads Cafe not only provides on-the-job training for adults in transition, but also had one of the most comfortable, indoor-outdoor cafe seating in which you can’t log on. To supplant this digi-dearth, its got more than enough diversion: a bookstore, ice cream cones, waffles, and the prettiest little garden patio from which to spy on Giants fan stadium processionals.
699 Delancey, SF
(415) 836-5624
www.delanceystreetfoundation.org/entercafe
Borderlands
“A nice place to sit, read, and converse,” reads the motto of this charming space. In the thick brush of the Mission’s most dense latte land, Borderlands is one of the only cafes where you will find people that look as though they could be working on the next great American novel, not that the next great American hashtag doesn’t have its charms as well. Pop next door to pat the thought-provoking skin of the hairless kitty cat in the sci-fi bookstore of the same name for that extra smack of the real real.
870 Valencia, SF
(415) 970-6998
Momi Toby’s Revolution Cafe and Art Bar
Say you want a revolution? Would you settle for a cafe where you can sit indoor and out, segueing effortlessly between caffeine and alcohol as afternoon thickens to dusk? Fab, here’s your flophouse. Momi Toby’s shoots and scores with the Parisian round table and wooden chair look. With beers on tap, a reputable food menu that can include bagels to pizettas, and candles produced when darkness falls outside the streetside windows, it’s easy to see why they’re not concerned with the remote access crowd. This place is for lounging and contemplation, not hyperlinks and trackbacks. Bonus points for not having a website.
528 Laguna, SF
(415) 626-1508