Saturday was an adventurous day for me! It was a pretty busy day out and about in the streets of San Francisco. Early in the morning (for a Saturday), we set out to the Dogpatch area of the city to the San Francisco Coffee Festival (a sold out event that already has a date set for 2017!). We were so excited to sample coffee from our favorite roasters and we were overjoyed at the thought of being over-caffeinated.

Before heading into the festival, we actually took a detour and stopped by Neighbor Bakehouse one street east.

Neighbor Bakehouse is a no fuss place to grab some mouthwatering pastries. Aside from a small counter area in the front of the bakery, the rest of the place is the bakery. Friendly faces take your order and give you suggestions as you decide whether you want a giant cookie, a croissant, bread, or some other delectable pastry. I was tempted to get some type of a chocolate pudding bun, but the girl working there recommended the guava & cream pastelito, which was SO GOOD.

The pastry was not overpowering at all. The guava provided a hint of sweetness to my pastry which I really liked. Highly recommend it. My friends, who don’t have a sweet tooth as big as mine, decided on a savory pastry–ham and cheese morning bun. They were RAVING about it. Either way, you can’t go wrong here. Buy all of it.

Just outside of Neighbor Bakehouse is a seating area with about 6 sturdy wooden benches where you can devour the delicious treats you just purchased inside. That’s where we had our breakfast pastries before heading back to the Coffee Festival.

Ok, back to the festival. As soon as we entered, we walked straight into a huge room with like 15-20 different coffee companies and sampled coffee from Blue Bottle, Ritual Coffee Roasters, Peerless, Boba Guys, Andytown, Califia Farms, and a few other places where names don’t come to mind. Verve, my favorite of them all was there, but we didn’t get a chance to go to their booth since we were really caffeinated and I already knew what the quality of their coffee is like–top-notch.

We were served so many different types of coffee: cold brew, cold brew with milk, espresso, boba/milk tea, a coffee float, pour-over, nitro coffee, nitro coffee mojito, etc. It was insane that we were able to try all that in a short amount of time. Though the event space was pretty big, it was sold out so it often felt cramped. We stepped outside from time to time to make sure we were getting air and were able to enjoy our coffee drinks without getting in the way.

After getting our money’s worth of caffeine and a couple of bathroom trips later, we headed out to the new Tartine Manufactory for lunch.

The line was about a 40 minute wait as we got there right at peak hour–noon. On a Saturday. Great timing for hungry folks! The food was well worth the wait, and the ambiance is light and airy. Full of energy but still relaxing.

What kind of food do they serve? Lots of things to do with bread, at least for lunch! Open-faced sandwiches, smørrebrød (open-faced sandiwches), tartines (open-faced sandwiches), you get the idea. They also have some salads, other entrees, and pastries you can look at. Oh and you can always just walk in and order some bread to-go if that’s more your style. Their menu changes for breakfast and for dinner.

At the back of the restaurant, there is actually a little ice cream bar called Tartine Cookies & Cream that looked SO GOOD and I REALLY WANTED some ice cream BUT I just ate too much.

Want to know what we ordered? Some really good food:

Top Left: Roast Beef Smørrebrød // Top Right: Prosciutto sandwich // Bottom Left: Roasted Mushroom, raclette cheese sandwich // Bottom Left: Avocado Smørrebrød and Roast Beef Smørrebrød

It was all so tasty and flavorful. I haven’t had smørrebrød since I was in Copenhagen (I mean, where would I find some anyway?) but it was really nice to have some.

We ended up having a really good time chatting it up while eating our delicious food and people-watching.

I was tempted to order some more food to-go to have for dinner or at least as an afternoon snack, but I resisted.

After lunch, we were so tired! After waking up early to go to the festival, having too much coffee and not enough water, and eating our lunches, we were all so ready for naps after having such a satisfying and adventurous day.

If you’re a bay area resident who loves coffee, you should definitely consider going to the coffee festival next year! And if you love good food no matter where you’re from, make a trip to the Tartine Manufactory or Neighbor Bakehouse when you’re in the area!