Zocalo Coffee passed its final City inspection on July 28. The new cafe will officially open for business soon. For now, they’re open from 7 AM until 2 PM on weekdays, and 3 PM on the weekends. They will be adding more hours by mid August as they staff up. There was a sign on the door saying they’re hiring.
The soft opening on July 16 gave everyone who attended a chance to nibble on tasty charcuterie, cheese, cookies and cake, sip fresh coffee, marvel at the artwork, and take in the inviting tables and chairs. The Mission Creek Park Pavilion had always had a spartan interior that promised to be a popular gathering spot, if given a little panache.
Dan Grace, whose life partner Sara Ubelhart owns Zocalo Coffee, said that the café will serve breakfast sandwiches, a French toast casserole, and a quiche that’s very popular in their San Leandro and Oakland locations. They’re going for light dinner fare, a la French bistro-style, with salads and a grilled cheese and tomato bisque combo among the offerings. Asked if French onion soup would be on the menu, Dan said it’s a dish they’ve been meaning to add, so maybe.
Speeches were made as community members listened on the west terrace.
City officials, including Supervisor Dorsey, and community members from Mission Creek Harbor Association, South Beach Rincon Mission Bay Neighborhood Association, and the new Mission Bay Neighborhood Association posed for a photo. In his remarks, Dorsey said he’s planning to spend a lot of his time on the weekends at Zocalo, to the point of making it his weekend office, and showed the charger he would bring to keep his devices charged. To which Sara replied that the café will be equipped with chargers for exactly this purpose.
The District 6 office played a pivotal role in getting SF Rec and Parks to put out a Request for Proposals for a concession operator to lease the Mission Creek Park Pavilion, after the building had sat empty for more than two decades.
Sara has applied for a license to serve wine, for those who might like to toast the early evening in a Creekside setting. Zocalo will be open from 7 AM to 7 PM.
In the gathering that followed inside the café, one attendee remarked the new café is sure to become a third space for locals.
A “third space” is a social surrounding separate from the two primary environments of home (the first space) and work/school (the second space). Popularized by sociologist Ray Oldenburg, these include welcoming locations like coffee shops, public libraries, parks, and community centers where people rest, catch up, and build a sense of belonging. (Thank you, Google AI Overview.)
The Pavilion is a short stroll in the park from the old pier on which Galerie de Blanche invited guests to linger over crab sandwiches, back in the days when underused warehouses prevailed in Mission Bay. A container garden once thrived there. Blanche’s was a third space back when the phrase was first coined, in 1989. For more on life on the old pier by the Fourth Street Bridge, check out the “Through the Library Window: A Glance Back at Art and Community on Mission Creek” exhibit in the Mission Bay Library.
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