Mojo Bicycle Cafe is based on one of those San Francisco formulas that can’t miss. Find a slightly below-ground location on a busy street in a neighborhood where a lot of interesting people live and don’t want to leave. Put it in a fixed-up Victorian building. Add a lot of warm, honey-colored wood and natural light from windows. Be dog friendly. Put a garden patio in the back, hidden from view so it’s almost like a little oasis where you can drink coffee, beer, or wine. Make sure the beer includes Red Stripe, and the wine is good enough for people who live forty minutes from Napa. Offer a breakfast, brunch, and dinner menu so people can eat well and at a reasonable price.
Then say, “Aha, we’re right near one of the biggest bike paths in the city — Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle,” and add your well-supplied and super-friendly bike shop to the mix — because frankly that’s the kind of store you wanted to open anyway — and now you have one of the great cafe success stories of our time.
Really, this place is never empty, and when you come, you don’t ever feel like leaving. “Mojo” is right.
Mojo Bicycle Cafe
639 Divisadero, San Francisco
415-440-2338
Review from the guidebook The Cafes of San Francisco 3rd Edition, by A.K. Crump. A.K. Crump is the founder of TasteTV and the annual TASTY Awards honoring the best food and fashion programs on TV, in Film, and on the Web.
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