On the Corner in San Francisco, California: A Review

On The Corner is a nice little cafe in the Haight that has a focus on comfortable seating, a good zone of personal space, and a lot of board games on hand.

Indeed, Wednesday is Board Game Night, where they bust everything out for a little competition, but I believe you can ask to use just about any game at any time. It's a nice touch to see people playing chess in a cafe, in a world so consumed now with iPods and Blackberries and cell phones and people all wrapped up in their little personal bubbles at all times. On Tuesday nights here a bunch of knitters get together for a knitting circle, and Thursday nights a movie is shown with popcorn for all those on hand (I assume only for those who are purchasing something else however.)

This cafe is much better used as a place to relax and socialize than as an office. There are adequate seats with power outlets, but the "free" WiFi on hand is actually that ZDNet stuff that forces an ad bar into your browser as a term of use, and restricts you to two hours of use per day. Most of the seating is really more designed for sinking back and relaxing that sitting up perched over a laptop, anyway.

The food menu is fairly limited. Sandwiches run from five bucks to 6.50, with Buffalo Mozzarella Pesto, deli style (choice of turkey or ham), tuna salad and chicken salad being the only options here. Salads are similarly limited to only three options - green, Ceasar and Greek at five to seven bucks a pop. There's also three kinds of personal pizzas - cheese, pepperoni and Greek, which run from six bucks to $7.50. Bagels here are awfully expensive, at 2.00 for jam, and 2.50 for cream cheese (a more standard price for a bagel with cream cheese at San Francisco coffee shops is like 1.50, and there's nothing really special about the bagels served here.) Quiche and hummus are also on the menu for later in the afternoon and the evening, and they also serve up various baked desserts - apple cake, chocolate cake, cheesecake, banana bread, blueberry and bran muffins, chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies. Happy hour is nightly from seven to nine and the specials of the house are 2.50 beers and 3.00 for a glass of Sangria.

On The Corner offers up pretty good coffee, decent food, and a nice place to relax. Some items are slightly on the pricey side, but on the whole it is not off-putting, and the slight mark-up is really almost worth it just for the comfort and space you get here.