About
We opened a coffee shop two months into a pandemic.
The space at 1299 Sanchez used to be a laundromat called Spin City Coffee — washers up the back, a coffee bar up front, the smell of detergent in the espresso. We took it over in phases. Pulled out a row of machines, served some coffee. Pulled out another row, served some more. Ten years from the first conversation about a cafe to the day we finally opened the doors.
We started roasting our own beans in 2014 under the name Noe Valley Coffee. Christian sources from Latin America and runs the Diedrich IR5 you can see from the bar — the one that took a fight with the city and a thermal oxidizer to keep. We installed it because we wanted to taste exactly what we were serving. We kept it because the neighbors got used to the smell, and so did we.
We opened the full cafe on June 10, 2020, two months into the pandemic. There was a line around the corner. We figured it was a fluke. It wasn't. The neighborhood showed up — through takeout windows, through every reopening, through every Saturday Smash Burger and every Tuesday Alfredo's taco. We host pop-ups because the best food in San Francisco is made by people without storefronts, and a corner like ours is exactly the kind of place those people deserve.
Today we're two cafes — the original on the corner of 26th and Sanchez, and Noe Cafe - Dogpatch near Crane Cove Park. Same beans, same regulars, same insistence that a coffee shop should feel like part of the block. (The block helps — Sanchez is a Slow Street now, so our corner is more plaza than sidewalk.)
The two of us
“We really wanted to create a coffee shop, but we didn't have the money to do it. So it was a far-fetched dream. But we're big dreamers.” — Maricar Lagura
Maricar started behind a bar. Christian started behind a roaster. We met, we kept talking, and a decade later we had keys to a laundromat with a coffee bar bolted onto it.
The cafe is run on the same idea we had on day one — that the people behind the counter matter more than anything on the menu, and that a neighborhood spot earns its place by showing up every morning, not by trying to be something it isn't.
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