You're out with your best buds at a hip brasserie, savoring that contented feeling of good friends and good eats. The conversation's buzzing and the mood's high -- but you also notice, out of the corner of your eye, some desperate-looking folks staring pointedly at the empty plates on your table and the green and white striped receipt curling up on its little plastic tray. You reluctantly divvy up the check, put on your coats, and head out the door. "Does anyone want to get dessert?" someone says.

Well, we'd love to get dessert! But ... where? Why doesn't this city have any decent places to go in the evenings where you can sit down with your buddies and get a nice slice of cake? Sure, there's Just Desserts -- but the cake's always dry (and how much lemon poppyseed can one person consume in a lifetime anyways?). Tart To Tart and Sweet Inspiration? Depressing lighting, hard to find seating, and also kind of dry cake too. Tartine closes early and Stella's schedule fluctuates. Citizen Cake? Too 'spensive! Going to a coffee place (though fun) is just not the same!

We'd just like some places in the hoods with informal seating, decent prices, evening hours (say, until 11, even), and relatively moist cake -- that perfect place to cap off that conversation with those friends of yours without hogging a seat at the restaurant. Is that so much to ask, San Francisco?

Where do you guys go with your friends for non-intoxicating evening fun?

Picture of cake from Pacifica's The French Patisserie

sure