L's Caffe in San Francisco, California: A Review

L's Caffe is a surprisingly large coffee and sandwich shop located on 24th Street about midway between Potrero Hill and Mission Street. From the outside it doesn't look like much, but once inside it looks like a converted artist live/work space or something like that. This means a bit of minor inconvenience in ordering food and drinks, which requires you to head up a short flight of stairs to the cramped upper loft area, but outside of that one little thing this place is pretty fantastic.

Hours of operation are pretty good too, as they are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. The menu pretty much boils down to coffee, soups, sandwiches, salad and a bit of sweets and pastry. They also have some beer on hand.

Salads run from $5 to $7 and include seasonal fruit, spinach with avocado, tofu with almonds, chef salad, Caesar salad or "Just Greens". Not much of a salad man so I can't comment on these but they look pretty tasty.

The sandwiches range from $5 to $6.25 and there's a good amount of options. You can construct your own deli sandwich with a choice of meat (honey ham, smoked turkey, salami, hot links, or roast beef), cheese and bread (French roll, Dutch crunch roll, whole wheat, white or focaccia. These are of a pretty hearty size and the ingredients are fresh. I thought it was a pretty good value.

Soup is a flat $3.50 and rotates by the day. Monday is Cream of Mushroom, Tuesday is French Onion, Wednesday is Minestrone, Thursday is Chicken Lime Tortilla, Friday is Italian Wedding, Saturday is Chicken Noodle, and finally on Sunday you have Beef Barley. I've only personally tried the Minestrone but based on the quality of that I'd give any of the others a spin. $3.50 does seem a touch pricey though.

As far as coffee goes, they keep five different organic blends on tap at one time, which are changed up periodically. Coffee here is only $1.25 for a small and $1.50 for a large, which is lower than the area standard, and the quality is good. You've also got your usual range of coffee drinks and teas and whatnot at competitive prices. This is also a pretty good stop for breakfast, as aside from the coffee deals, they have good bagels, croissants and Chilean empanadas at a reasonable price.

So it's a pretty nice place, family-owned and with sweet service. The interior is nice and spacious, a nice change from typical Mission cafes, although they have now apparently been "discovered" so it gets pretty crowded during peak hours.