Ballast Coffee — Restaurant in San Francisco

I came to this coffee shop for the first time about half an hour before closing time, while it was relatively full with other customers still. I had fully intended to try and have a coffee beverage only to be told that no espresso drinks were no longer able to be ordered, which narrowed my options list by half.. as an open minded person I didn't mind this, as I quickly attempted to order a cafe au lait immediately after, and yet was denied again because it wasn't available anymore either, as he then followed by saying he couldn't do drip coffees either. The worker suggested I order something else like a plain cold brew, chai, or matcha, yet none of those were what I had in mind at all and this truly disappointed me and the people I had gone with because I had to skip out on ordering anything at all. My best guess is that the worker had already cleaned the machines and simply wasn't willing go out of his way to make an exception or just didn't want to provide me service. Either way, it was ridiculous to not be able to order any of the different beverages i so desired at a...

UPDATE - 5/11/23: so the wifi now appears to work, great! Now i’ll definitely come here more often to work 😀 ORIGINAL REVIEW - mid-April, 2023 It's a nice cafe. Coffee options, whatever you may end up picking, are all solid across the board. Deducted 2 stars bc even though this would be a lovely place to work, the wifi does not work, even though they say explicitly they have wifi :( It's just a little inconvenient to have to work offline, esp when you are able to connect to the wifi, but said wifi does not have any internet.

Normally this wouldn't be a problem, as I could just use my personal hotspot and keep working, but for some reason the cafe also appears to be a dead zone for cell reception. Obviously this is no fault of the cafe, but this does make the presence of wifi even more critical.

Owners, if you're reading this, if you fix the wifi, I will edit my review to 5 stars; the cafe is a really nice spot to study and work with solid...

This used to be one of my favorite cafes but ever since their recent renovation, I find myself wanting to go other places.

They used to be open until 8pm on weekdays, which set it apart from most other cafes in the city and made it ideal for those needing a place to get work/study done late, but now it's been cut to 5pm.

Additionally, they removed the nicest seating, which was the built-in table and chairs facing the windows of the outside area. They also replaced the group table with an even bigger one, which gives the back room a more conference-like feel. No improvement to the seating in the front room, which has tables that are too low for the benches.

It's still a fine cafe, and it definitely does the job, but to me it lost some of the main qualities that truly made it special. It seems like the renovations regressed it a bit instead of making it cozier/more exceptional, but maybe that was...