It really is all about the other side of Market Street now. Along with neighborhoods that we've heard of before like Pike Place in Seattle; Hillcrest in San Diego; and Park Slope in Brooklyn, N.Y. -- our xenophobia runs deep, folks -- as well as hoods that we've never heard of such as Chatham Village, Pittsburgh; Eastern Market neighborhood of Washington, D.C.; Elmwood Village in Buffalo, N.Y.; and Old West Austin in Austin, our......

Not to be outdone by San Francisco's own zip code fibbing person of the people, Green Party follower and Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board member Chris Kavanagh, according to today's Matier and Ross, "was hauled out of an Oakland coffee shop [Cole's Coffee Shop] in handcuffs today" and thrown in the clink on fraud charges for lying about his Berkeley residence. It seems that he actually lived on 63rd Street in Oakland, where he was......

This weekend we started our taxes, so we are now feeling particularly poor. In need of activities that that will suit our penny-pinching ways, while also distracting us from the cold hard reality of our financial state, we turn to Albany, a little town north of Berkeley. ...

East Bay food critic SFist Julie hella hearts Oakland. Remember those days? My parents went to blah-blah-blah and all I got was this stupid... Well, if you go to Oakland's Bulldog Coffee Shop today from 6-7:30pm, not only will you get to enjoy Cindee de la Vara's newly-installed paintings, but also you will get free snacks and wine (natch), musical accompaniment by singer/guitarist Mercedes Skye (we wouldn't have it any other way) and access......

Every once in awhile, SFist likes to get out of our pajamas and take the SFist show on the road. So we pick up our trusty laptop and head on out to go work at a coffee shop. There's one we especially like to go to-- it's small, extremely cute and cozy, and has plenty of outlets for everyone to plug in. There's only one problem, though, and that even at like two in the afternoon, they're usually too full for us to get a table. And so we go to another place only to discover that they too are completely full. It's two in the afternoon, doesn't anybody have jobs? ...

We were tipped off about this coffeeshop accident on Page and Laguna on Friday by a reader, who reported that a sedan smashed into an SUV around 8:55 a.m. and hit two coffee shop patrons sipping coffee outside. We've still got no confirmation on the person who choked on a tree branch, though. Someone found a dead llama on 89th Avenue in Oakland. No one can figure out how it got there. A man hits......

Time when newspapers only meant two things to dogs – either they were laid out flat in the kitchen or rolled up in the palm of someone’s hand. Neither use was particularly attractive. But now dogs in the Bay Area have two, count ‘em, two monthly newspapers catering to their needs. The Woofer Times claims to produce 40,000 free papers per month distributed at over 650 locations in the Bay Area. Fetch the Paper is......

Perhaps a result of the recent spate of publicity surrounding laptop thefts at cafes, super-fine SFist reader Sugam observed this behavior: So, this morning... I stop in at the corner coffee shop which is buzzing with the usual unemployed people (usually with emo hair, or Marina hoop earings) busily tapping away at their PowerBooks and iBooks (occasionally Dells). I order a bagel and a coffee and as I wait recognize a neighbor sitting next......

In media news, looks like Google got caught with their Craigslist-killer pants down over the weekend when their new database system was accidentally revealed to the public. Their shiny, baggy, flowing pants. Tom Foremski talks to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster about all things classified ad. These are probably some of the things talked about a recent Scoble and Winer 'geek dinner' in Berkeley that Scott Beale snapped some pics of. But the buzz around......

We have been jumping up and down since one of our favorite food writers, heck, our favorite one, Dan Leone, Cheap Eats Guy at the Guardian agreed to do an interview with Gastronomique. Disclosure: we are total fan. We have read him punctually every Wednesday since, like, 1998 and time and again, even though we knew he was going to order the chicken and eschew the mayo, he has surprised us with his goofy-yet-poetic......

Inside the west-bound 1 California that we rode on Sunday, there's a sign that reads "Shop the Haight." The sign is printed in strange brown tones that make it almost unreadable.We thought that a sign encouraging visits to the Haight would have some color. Perhaps the sign was a bad omen, for the Haight was where we were headed. The sign indeed proved to be a bad portent. Your Trimethyldioxypurist, among his many other......

Last week, we talked about "ordering the right thing" -- recognizing the specialties of the house and what would be appropriate to drink there. Similarly, there are coffee-related ventures where the coffee quality doesn't matter. Not as much, at least, so long as it's hot and plentiful and the server is quick on the draw with that carafe. I speak, of course, of the "coffee shop." Or diner, if you prefer. Does anyone agree......

Ack. The camera broke. Far be it from the Trimethyldioxypurist to post a coffee shop review without a photo. Time for a bit of a screed. After the discovery of the holy grail of Bay Area coffee last week, it's a good time to sit back and take stock of why we do this. And how we go about it. Is it time for a change in format? After a mere three months? And......

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (okay, it was a Cole Valley coffee shop in August), we met an enterprising photographer who wanted to start her own photoblog. Her name was Genevieve Shiffrar, and she recently wrote us to let us know that her site was now open for business. After taking a look, we realized that this was not the work of just any amateur. She definitely has a......

When reviewing a cafe or coffee shop, the Trimethyldioxypurist's typical modus operandi is to order a straight-up cup of good ol' American drip, nothing fancy -- a good benchmark to measure the general quality of a shop with its peers. However, when a cafe's claim to fame is that it introduced the West Coast to espresso, it's an appropriate time to stray from the formula. Caffe Trieste is in the heart of North Beach......

Elections in California are like final exams. You have a bunch of things you're supposed to read, a bunch of study guides you have to study to help you understand what you've read, and then you go check a box next to some question and hope that you get it right. The only difference being that if you get a test question wrong, it doesn't go invade a country without having any idea what to......

For those of you who thought the lamp posts, telephone poles, and coffee shop windows in town look too empty, fret no more! It's almost time for Supervisor elections!!...