Thanks to a longtime tablehopper reader, I received word about a new café that has opened up in the Excelsior called EXCELSIOR COFFEE. It’s from a husband-and-wife team who have been living in the neighborhood for the past eight years, and they kept waiting for a café to open in this underserved neighborhood. But sometimes if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, so when they saw a café just wasn’t coming to their retail corridor, they sold their 1964 Ford Falcon in order to buy the espresso machine. It took two years of onerous permits and spending more money than they planned for (oh, SF), but they just opened June 27th.
Owner Lea Higginbotham tells me as first-generation “kids” (she’s Filipina, and hubs Andre Higginbotham is half-Mexican), they are neighborhood-focused and so welcoming to non-English speaking communities, the working class, students, senior citizens, and as parents, they’re kid-friendly too.
They’re primarily using Cento for their espresso and coffee service, and testing other coffees and blends to suit the neighborhood needs as well. You’ll find some special treats, like ube brownies, ube and pandan crinkles, ube flan, and ube tarts (from Ube Area in Oakland—Excelsior is the first café to carry their line). They are making croissants and banana bread in-house, and also getting cookies from SF’s Goody Goodie. They plan to add breakfast sandwiches, bagels, and conchas soon, and next year, they plan to add beer and wine!
Summer hours are Mon-Fri 7am-4pm and Sat-Sun 8am-5pm. 4495 Mission St. at Excelsior.
The checkered flag is up at Excelsior Coffee! Photo: Excelsior Coffee.
