Sana’a Cafe — Restaurant in Oakland

My wife and I are in Oakland during my surgical recovery. On last Saturday evening, I went on a walk downtown and spotted Sana's café, and mentioned to my spouse that there was a coffee shop close by where we were staying. Earlier this afternoon we went ahead and tried it for the first time. The space seemed nice when we walked in, and so my spouse and I went ahead and ordered. The prices were definitely a lot higher than I expected but I also figured that would come with a larger serving size, so I got the superfood smoothie and my wife got one of their coffees. After we ordered we realized that the entire place was full. Like, there was nowhere to really sit and even have a table so that my spouse and I could chat. The place was completely packed.

In the end we ended up paying $19 for a medium sized coffee and a maybe 16oz smoothie, neither of which were very good at all, and we didn't even get a chance to really enjoy the establishment because everyone was doing their own thing and the entire place was completely packed (on a Monday late-morning) to the point that my spouse and I could not even sit with one another. I felt very uncomfortable in this coffee shop, even though I had really high hopes from the weekend before. Likewise, I just did not feel like it was an open and inclusive place for us, and we ended up staying for maybe 15 minutes here maximum as a consequence. Overall, I would not recommend this establishment. I feel that there is many other places that I wished I had spent my money...

The motto here is coffee with a purpose, I guess the purpose is for people to go in for telework, drink coffee and grab something light for breakfast.

The vibe was a bit weird, nobody really spoke to each other, just the humm of computer keys and zoom meeting muffled voices.

The coffee isn’t bad, I just didn’t like it, it seemed old and was tepid when I tasted it. They did offer to brew a fresh batch, but I just ordered a tea and waited for my order. It could have been an off day or someone new on drinks. They do have a wide selection of brews and other specialty drinks, so there are options.

I highly recommend the cinnamon toast on sourdough, nobody does sourdough like the San Francisco Bay Area, this made up for my failure with the coffee. I would return for the toast, most...

Just had such a lovely time here with my group of new moms who needed to place to gather and chat. There’s a separate space in the back of the cafe that’s kid friendly and was perfect for us to dock our strollers and let our babies lay on a blanket while we talked and enjoyed our coffees. I appreciate that we didn’t feel we were disturbing the rest of the cafe since we were out of the way, and the other patrons were super kind and smiley at us which was a relief (I’m always worried about being “those people” ya know?) Beyond the atmosphere, the coffee I got was delicious, an iced maple cinnamon latte, and the blueberry cream cheese toast was very tasty. Will definitely be back. Thanks for creating a welcoming environment,...