Exploring San Francisco through the lens of city blocks, Blocker is a weekly series by Charles Hodgkins. Look for it on SFist each Wednesday, around the lunching hour.

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Blocker, No. 22: La Playa St. in the Outer Sunset

Among San Francisco’s myriad neighborhoods, few are as widely misunderstood as the Outer Sunset. Location certainly plays a role. To your average Upper Haight resident – to say nothing of your average South of Market or North Beach resident – this beach-adjacent community may seem as distant as Honolulu, with an N-Judah trip that may rival a flight to Oahu in terms of travel time. But it’s sometimes easy to forget that San Francisco is a mere seven miles wide, and that the folks out west do have phone numbers that begin with 415, rather than 808.

La Playa St., which borders the Sunset on its seaward side, takes a cue from Arguello Blvd. and Funston Ave. in the way it stunt-doubles for a numerically named street. In La Playa’s curious case, it stands in for 49th Avenue, a street name you’d think would warrant some serious respect in San Francisco. But this block of pavement between Irving and Judah at the edge of the North American continent could be called “Canadian Midwest Boulevard of Dreams,” and it would still convey the Outer Sunset’s singular blend of surfer, urban, Asian-American family, and hipster cultures.

On a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon in autumn, with the foggy days of summer in the rear view mirror, the sidewalk at the corner of La Playa and Judah has become a virtual bicycle parking lot. Available seats are few on the outdoor patio at Java Beach, this district’s longtime café of choice (a Starbucks was famously stonewalled out here a few years back). Quiet couples sip cups of caffeinated beverage next to pockets of young adults convening meetings of the Outer Sunset Chapter of the 30-Degree Angle Mesh Trucker Hat Club alongside a pair of bros bro’ing down with a pitcher of Budweiser sidling up to a patchouli-cloaked man sitting with a woman swathed in a lengthy headdress right next to three surfers that appear to have just gotten out of the water across the Great Highway 15 minutes before. And it wouldn’t be San Francisco without someone typing away on a Macbook in the corner...and there she is now.

There’s plenty more to observe up this block, which is residential apart from Java Beach. Slowly walking along the sidewalk on the east side of the street, we spot certain calling cards expected from San Francisco’s somewhat iconoclastic beach community – a wetsuit hanging out to dry over a staircase railing here, a “Vote no on yes! Vote yes on no!” bumper sticker there. What’s entirely unexpected is the elaborate “Bird Café” built into a large flower pot in front of 1370-72 La Playa. It’s got a solid wood foundation. It’s got steps that lead into a tiny little birdie shelter. It’s even got a table and chairs at which birdies may sit and discuss issues of the day - winter travel plans, prevailing winds, treacherous cats, etc.

Single-family homes and humble apartment buildings fill the space between Java Beach and Sherbet Manor at 1300 La Playa, the humongous structure that anchors the northern end of the block. Sherbet Manor is pretty tough to miss. For starters, it looks downright delicious, and its seashell-shaped lights are second to none. Judging by the exterior color scheme, homes here come in a few different flavors, with the most popular appearing to be lime and bubble gum. Blueberry ice also appears to be a contender.

Across the street, a less sugar-slathered apartment building runs a good three-quarters of the block. We reckon it’s one of the narrowest structures in town, perhaps only rivaled by those at California and Cornwall in the Outer Richmond, and Columbus and Kearny in North Beach. Where this lengthy building ends, a charming sliver of open space begins, directly across from Java Beach and adjacent to the N-Judah roundabout terminus.

Members of the Outer Sunset community collaborated with city agencies and private donors in 2004 to give what had been an unsightly vacant lot a complete makeover. The result is now La Playa Park, complete with woodchip flooring, a scattered array of low-slung benches, the odd birdbath or two, much native foliage, and during our visit, an outsized, smiling, shaggy dog reminiscent of the one in The Shaggy Dog.

San Francisco will never be known as a beach town on par with San Diego or Santa Cruz, and the fact that its coastline is a willing conspirator in Northern California’s fog cartel ensures that Ocean Beach won’t ever get confused with Huntington Beach. But, as with knowing you’re able to walk over the Golden Gate Bridge – even if you rarely, if ever, do – it’s nice to remember that a Pacific beach, and all its attendant elements, is always there.

(Photos by the author.)