Divisadero has yet another gorgeous café to add to the corridor, with SIGHTGLASS now open on the edge of the Lower Haight on a sunny corner at Page. It’s so nice after a few years of plywood to see this beautiful café emerge, full of custom work. Boor Bridges is behind the architecture of the 2,000-square-foot space, which required an entirely new foundation and seismic retrofit of the 1906 building.
This is brothers Jerad and Justin Morrison’s fifth café, and they continued to work with many of the same craftspeople as their previous cafés. As you walk past the charming mosaic tile inlay in the doorway with the bronze sun happily holding a coffee mug, you’ll note the steel and glass entry doors, the original clerestory windows that were uncovered and restored, and the extensive woodwork throughout, most of it milled from a single Monterey Cypress tree. There is a lot of custom fabricated metalwork—check out the counterweight and pulley window system by the walk-up window.
Walk-up window, you say? Yes, for you folks on the go, you can just walk up to the side window, which features a quick-service menu, like their Fetco Batch brewed coffee and some selections off the two-group La Marzocco Linea. Handy for those of you catching one of the many buses in the area. At the main counter, there are two Kees van der Westen Spirit espresso machines that look like spaceships that just landed, and there’s an individually prepared pour-over bar.
Some other fun additions—just in time for summer—include their signature cold beverages on tap (and kegged in-house), including single-origin nitro cold brew, cascara shrub soda, and iced vanilla cold brew. On the menu, you’ll find pastries and snacks from Neighbor Bakehouse, b. patisserie, and Piccino.
Hang out at the community table, or grab a seat in the open banquette booths that were designed to encourage interaction (as in lifting your eyes up from your phone). Enjoy listening to records playing on the vintage McIntosh stereo system. There’s even a neon sign outside, and benches along Page Street.
Welcome to the neighborhood, brothers! It has been a long time coming. Hours are 7am-7pm, but they plan to start opening the to-go window at 6:30am in the next week or two. 301 Divisadero St. at Page, 415-522-0112.
The elegant and restored exterior of the new Sightglass on Divisadero is a looker. Photo: Arlo Crawford.
