Caffe Trieste

Caffe Trieste Great experience, legacy of San Francisco. Trieste is an institution (and I do mean the Vallejo Street location.) Pavarotti has sung there. I had coffee there for 10 years in a row, one time. After moving to Marin 7 years ago, I still am recognized and can order in Italian, which is really not necessary, since the barristo still remembers what I drink in the morning.

But like the rest of San Francisco, the scene shifts by the hour of the day, and the day of the week. In the early morning, the locals (and they are a colorful bunch) hang out. Later in the morning, tourists from around the world are there, and in the evening, jeeze, who drinks espresso at night?

Sometimes it is very loud, and sometimes the amazing collection of opera and Italian songs blares from the jukebox (actual 45 rpm records!)

Great pastries, great coffee (strong, roasted right there, honest-to-god espresso!), superior customer service; but not much tolerance for little princes and princesses with attitude. For everyone else, this is the birth of the North Beach Scene, which once was vibrant with literati and musicians .. a venerated museum.

Oh, and Paul rocks on.…

The worst customer service I have seen in my whole life!. Terrible experience, they tried to overcharge me for a couple of expresso, then the guy at the bar yelled me saying that I was not clear about my order and told me that was my fault with a really nasty attitude.

After that when I made him notice that I am the customer and if there is an error he should try to set everything he gave me back the money and didn't make the two espresso I asked for!

I don't know about the other place, but AVOID caffe trieste in Vallejo St.

Go to one of the other plenty places around Columbus.…

Worth the trip!. I recently vacationed in The Bay and was very excited to have some REAL coffee. I've been living in Las Vegas for almost three years now and it's nothing but commercial cookie cutter STARBUCKS. I've made due with that, but Caffe Trieste made the vacation! I normally drink straight espresso, but on the second visit I had a latte. To me, that's how you can tell what kind of coffee house you're at. It's tough to get the espresso wrong, but very easy to scald the milk and they made it to perfection! I was impressed also with the service. There was a line on every visit, but it much quicker than any of the Starbucks' lines at home. The menu was somewhat simple as far as coffee, but they had a pretty big selection of various foods from grilled cheese to sweet potato pie(which was excellent). They also made their whipped cream from scratch and it wasn't in some metal can or plastic tube it was a bowl of honest to goodness whipped cream-DELICIOUS! Definitly a must visit.…

Unfriendly in North Beach. After all the recommendations to go to Trieste, I added it to me "must see" list but must say I was rather disappointed. The cafe was not only dark and a bit dingy, but the service was abrupt and unfriendly, the complete opposite of all the other cafe's I visited during my stay. I was on a bit of a caffeine high when I got there, having already patronized 3 other North Beach cafes so I simply ordered a hot milk toddy. It was delicious (hot milk with a splash of amaretto flavoring) but the server seemed practically annoyed that I was buying milk and not coffee.…