My my my. Did we ever need our coffee this morning.

Sometimes we forget that coffee's not always just this wonderful, pleasurable, leisurely thing. And when we need it, boy do we ever. What may serve us on a weekend clearly may not be appropriate for the workday and vice versa.

"Quality" when one needs to be in the office for a conference call at 5 a.m., can take a backseat to "availability." "Atmosphere" pales in comparison to "convenience."

How lucky then, downtown San Francisco, that we have a great mixture of the four in On The Go Espresso -- a great coffee kiosk for those working near the One Market/Ferry Building/Embarcadero/Rincon Center part of downtown. (You know, there must be a better way to describe this area. Sorry, we were up since the crack of dawn. Brain hurting.)

On the Go is a kiosk on the corner of Mission and Spear streets; there's actually a sister kiosk right around the block at 120 Howard Street as well.

Twice as many opportunities to salvage a crappy morning, we suppose.

These kiosks are geared toward the downtown business people; in fact, the kiosks are in storage on the weekends.

The first great thing about On the Go: It has the best -- BEST -- club card deal around. Ask for a card; your first drink is one-half off! With the 12th stamp, your drink is free. Wow. Add this to the below-corporate-coffee prices ($1.60 for a large cup o' joe) and we're really cooking. This is good on your wallet as well as your palette.

The straight up drip coffee is good -- maybe a bit weaker than our favorite cafes around town, but the coffee we had was on par or better than everything else readily available downtown (SBUX, Peet's, etc.). The cappuccino ($2.80 for a double) was a treat -- perfect foam, excellent brew, and the kind gentleperson asked if we'd like "cocoa and cinnamon" on top. Usually we don't go for such frivolities, but this morning -- this extremely trying morning -- we smiled and said "why, sure." And damn it all if it wasn't the best part of our day, that little touch.

They do the little things right. Despite this being a business-folk-oriented kiosk, On the Go Espresso has a lot in common with the best places we've found. Classical music soothed our sleep-deprived agitation; the amazing friendliness of both the man behind the register and the barista reminded us that not all people were loathsome after all (as was our grouchy mindset), and the cup of good, relatively cheap, and hot coffee helped us get the day back on track.