Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

This split café and to-go market is founded by Chef Charlie Ayers, famous for catering for the Grateful Dead (as evidenced by the large wall photo inside) and the initial food operations at Google. This place is his attempt to make his Google cafeteria “public.” It has limited outdoor table and picnic bench seating. Inside [...]

Since we visited a few notable Peninsula cafés at the beginning of the year, some locals mentioned this neighborhood café. Il Piccolo Caffé has been in operation since 1990, and it has survived in the suburbs despite a Starbucks moving across the street in 2004. It adds a bit of local character as an Italian-themed [...]

The Peninsula offers little in the way of great espresso. This is supposedly one of the better examples, but it’s not something we would be proud of. If someone was visiting us in San Mateo and wanted a good espresso, we’d still send them all the way to Palo Alto first. The Peninsula Coffee Roaster [...]

Locals on the Peninsula generally have good things to say about this place, and with good reason. This is primarily a roaster with a retail café operation hidden inside among its “warehouse” floorspace — perhaps a glimpse of what Peet’s Coffee & Tea was like just as they made the transition from a bean-and-leaf pure-play [...]

You have got to be kidding us. A runner’s supply store with outstanding espresso — perhaps the best in town? You bet. And a big thanks to veteran San Jose Coffee Geek, Gary Hutchison, for publicizing this unusual discovery. This place ran as an online-only store for several years before opening this physical location in [...]

Recently we’ve been spending a bit more time on the Peninsula, so we’ve been on the hunt for notable espresso shots just due south of San Francisco. We’ve followed up on a few places that locals admire and put them to the test. The results have been… well… you’ll see. Some consider this among the [...]

A Peninsula people-watching Mecca, typically filled with large crowds throughout the day and skirmishes over available outdoor tables. It’s been that way here since I first entered this place 15 years ago. They have large indoor and outdoor seating areas, local art, occasional musicians, and obligatory patrons in bike shorts. One of the most indelible [...]