Trouble Coffee Company

Dan’s the man!
Great chai tea latte, good people, solid staff, and service.
Love.

I think the purpose of the mean suggests that people who come here they would be able to temporarily forget about their trouble. Had a great time to chat with my friend here today and I could really enjoy the pleasant atmosphere. Reasonable price. Highly recommended !!!

I just love this place. The object here is to sell you wonderful coffee and a great experience without all the pretentiousness and frou-​frou crap of the hipster joints. This really is the un-​café in that the mechanism, the paraphernalia, and the technique is de-​emphasized, and a great product is instead delivered.
The heavy industrial parklet outside fits the vibe perfectly.
Oh — and then there is the toast. Who ever rants about toast? A giant wodge of bread toasted perfectly with a variety of toppings including a ½ lb of butter if required. Just amazing.
And though understated, the baristas are superb at their craft, and very friendly.
Worth the drive to the Bayview anytime.

Love their thick toast. I tried a few places who now serve thick toast because its the «IN THING». But trouble coffee has the best cinnamon sugar toast in San Francisco! It was crispy and not overly sweet, prefect! I also had their honey and peanut butter as well. It was good but cinnamon was way better. So sad that they don’t have one near me. Their coffee has great flavor but their latte was just okay. Can’t wait to always come back.

Trouble Coffee has been my go-​to San Francisco coffee shop for the past 4 years. I used to frequent the location on Judah, as I lived only a block or two away. It was perfect sitting out in the parklet with a hot cup of chai. Now, I am hooked on the chai and I did a little research to learn more about it! The chai is locally sourced from Bay Chai, a company in the Mission. They are making some great chai. I am so tired of coffee shops selling Oregon Chai, or some other garbage product. Bay Chai has an excellent balance of spice and favor, and Trouble has figured out how to perfectly craft a chai latte using it. The toast here is pretty famous, and is some of the best toast you have ever had… but with that said. it is still toast. The staff here can be really friendly, or really cold… I think it partially depends on how touristy you appear to be. This place does attract a lot of business, so perhaps they have forgotten the importance of each individual customer, and the owner can occasionally be interpreted as abrasive. Oh well, I’ll still get in line and order my chai. I love the Yosemite location, the parklet is a very nice little place to sit in the sun and the staff is very friendly and welcoming.

The latte was bitter.
They don’t have almond milk.
They don’t serve iced mocha.
They won’t make a cold brew mocha.
The peanut butter toast was alright.

Unfortunately not a good representation of the third wave. I ordered a cappuccino. l, which was priced on par with the fancy coffee places, and even served in a dance blue-​bottle-​esque cup. But similarities ended there. The drink was weak coffee bathed in foam and milk. It was a frothy concoction fitting a Starbucks store. Sorry. I will not be coming back.
The place itself is small and quaint. Few seats, no wifi, and quite cramped. Cozy neighborhood café with bad coffee. That about sums it up.

Having easy access to Trouble Coffee in my neighborhood is such a great perk, especially when I want to change it up from my usual cup of Philz. On my first visit here, I tried their regular cup of coffee and it was everything that I needed in a cup of joe, nice bold taste with just the right pick me up.
My friend Aaron and I decided to sit down in this small little shop to fully enjoy our coffee and get to know the place a little better. The shop is as big as anyones bedroom with only 3 stools inside. If you wanted to hang out longer they do have sidewalk parklets. Dan, our barista, was great for providing conversation about anything from coffee roasting to sports. He even convinced us to try their toasted thick bread. I ended up getting the peanut butter honey and naturally I loved every bite of it. Since then, I’ve come back to try their macchiato and cold brew and both were great too. Glad to say, I have this coffee shop in my neighborhood.

4 stars for the barista who was 2000% nicer than the guys at their Outer Sunset outpost. While I don’t find the coffee to be all that good from Trouble, the fact that I was greeted with a smile and wasn’t hated on for existing on a Saturday morning made this a surprisingly pleasant experience. I’ve been told that the espresso items from Trouble exceed that of their drip coffee, so if I’m in the area again, I’m definitely going down that path since the black coffee was somewhat reminiscent of jet fuel. The chances of me coming back to this Trouble is significantly higher, and the toast seems to always be something I could convince myself into eating regardless if I’m there for coffee or not.

I wanted to start my morning with some coffee and I found this little café nearby. About four seats inside, but outside, they set up a nice bleacher area, adorned with a few small bushes of flowers. It’s a nice place to enjoy your morning coffee and snack.
I ordered a vanilla latte and a cinnamon sugar toast. The coffee was made fresh, right in front of you, the sugar and lids are placed outside on a table against the wall. The cinnamon sugar toast was amazing! It’s a toasted thick fluffy bread spread with a generous amount of butter, and topped with cinnamon sugar. It tasted like a churro heaven!

Nice place that echoes the quirky, rustic minimalism of the Outer Sunset store.
The bleacher seating in the parklet outside is a nice touch.
I volunteer at SF Community Radio in the produce district, and I like to come down to Trouble to get a cup of coffee or espresso before we hold fundraising events at Light Rail Studios, where we’re based.
Trouble seems to have drawn the younger, punk rock crowd out here, and that’s basically who we are trying to attract as listeners.

It’s never a bad thing to start your Sunday morning with a shot of grapefruit juice and cinnamon toast.
Love that there’s a Trouble Coffee «part deux» near my neck of the woods. Bayview gets better and better every day. No, I’m not kidding.
Though I don’t drink coffee, thoroughly enjoyed my fresh squeezed juice and a thick slab of lightly toasted bread. There’s Nutella, banana/​honey, or cinnamon. When in doubt, go for the cinnamon.
If it’s a sunny day, hang out on the parklet jungle gym. Great for kids or adults.
Simple stuff, but soooo worth the visit.

Trouble Coffee has brought artisanal toast and delicious coffee to Bayview!
This location is amusing in a very good way. It’s a tiny, cute bar about the size of a walk-​in closet. There’s cement and rusted iron scaffolding seating outside that has succulents planted alongside it. A large coffee is LARGE. This isn’t like at Four Barrel where a large is 12 ounces — it’s a full 20 ounces here. So much coffee. So much good coffee.
Also, the cinnamon toast. I can’t explain why it’s so good, but it’s amazing. You can practically feel it triggering the happy-​taste sensors in your brain. Maybe it’s the butter. I don’t know. But you need to try it.
What can I say, i’ma fan.

Cinnamon toast is to-​die-​for. Bread is chewy, soft, and perfectly toasted, with a good amount of butter spread, and then generously sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. So worth the calories.

They are famous for their coconut water and toast. The barista suggested the girlfriend! It’s milk and tea but not your typical Asian milk teas. We caved and also got a toast with Nutella! Sooo amazing! Fresh healthy portion of Nutella with my latte. The sweet and bitterness compliments each other so well.
I must say it was my hipster coffee experience that cost me $ 20 for 2 coffee, coconut water, and toast.
Must say the coconut water is not worth it though. It’s really just the ones you see in the Asian supermarkets.
I did like the mini stadium seating benches upfront.

The parklet outside makes me a fan of this location over the Trouble on Judah. Yes — you need to get the toast. Like the Judah location, don’t expect to find a seat inside here.
Oh, and high wind alert! Let your delicious cinnamon sugar settle into the buttered toast first before walking out the door, or half of it will get blown all over you and your friends. And the barista will laugh — sympathetically but… still. And you will laugh. But you will also be sad. Yes, I speak from experience.

A little shop in an obscure area, easy to miss if you don’t know where it is. Really great staff all of the time, and doesn’t get too busy here. I always stop by for a latte and a coffee cake (which is incredible by the way) here whenever I am in the area. The toast and the macchiato are great choices as well.
Easy place to stop by to grab a drink and a bite. Drinks come out quick, and there is seating outside at the bike rack structure.
This is not the Ocean Beach location, some of these reviews are for the wrong location.

Great coffee and close to the beach. Get a cup of americano and walk along the beach on a saturday while waiting for your table at Outerlands (which I think is a tad overrated, but whatever, you’re going to go anyway).
If you haven’t already, check out This American Life podcast that features Trouble. It was a great episode and you’ll have a whole new level of respect and adoration for this place .
The cinnamon toast is delicious, but know that they put an absurd amount of melted butter on that thing! Yolo.

Gibraltar Review
The Pour:
Very very good, they use Intelligentsia beans and it’s a very nice change from the super light roast that you’ll find in most of San Francisco’s artisan coffee shops.
Service:
My barista was Scott and he did a great job with my drink, skillfully pulled and poured
Ambiance:
Tiny place but clean. Only room inside for a couple of people to sit.
Conclusion:
I’ve only been once but so far the best in SF if you like medium roast, edging out Elite Audio Café (since they changed their roast). This particular location is seriously in the hood, located in Bayview, although it’s a pretty clean, quiet street near a police station so…
About Me /​Review Criteria:
–I only check out /​review «Third Wave”/artisan/craft coffee shops
–Nobody gets more than 4 stars until I’ve gone several times
–Reviews can’t be based on just a select group of baristas, they all have to be equally skilled, or at least must all have a minimum level of skill
–My star ratings are solely based on the drink, never on food, ambiance, or if the barista is emo or snobby (because that would bring down more than 50% of the shops), although I do mention those in the review
–I don’t claim to be a trained coffee connoisseur but I know the difference between good and bad coffee
–My reviews are generally based on cappuccinos (or gibraltars), not espresso or drip coffee

Oh. You don’t know the back story behind the artisanal toast craze to sweep San Francisco in the last year? Don’t you listen to NPR? NO??? Who ARE you!!!
Don’t feel bad. I hadn’t yet heard that episode of This American Life (link to the article version at the end of my review) before I tried Trouble Coffee, either. All I knew was that a $ 3 – 4 piece of toast had become the next big thing people wait in long lines for in this city. And, being the Unilocal lemming I am (…Yelp-​ming?), I knew I had to get my piece of the pie. Loaf. Whatever. I decided to bring my laptop, too.
I was met with disappointment when I walked up to the address of the Bayview location and saw that it was, to use hyperbole, no larger than a bread box. The only stools along the hole-in-the-wall’s counter were occupied by women with on-​its-​way-​to-​dreadlocking hair and tattoos, who appeared to be in deep conversation with the baristas (also covered from head to toe in tattoos). Well, I guess I wouldn’t be typing up the start of my latest novel here. I also felt like I just didn’t quite belong in this extremely small space with complete strangers who seemed to already know one another.
There was, however, a small stadium-​like seating area on the sidewalk right out front. And it was a sunny day, as it often is this side of town, so I decided to take my cinnamon toast and latte out there. I ended up striking up a conversation about mental health with the police officer also enjoying his morning cuppa joe outside, as well as with some staff on their break from the behavioral health program across the street. And then some guy tied up his super cute dog that looked like my parent’s dog’s twin outside, which was my cue to go in and show him and the baristas my iPhone pictures to prove it. He was drinking a coconut, by the way (the guy… not the dog).
Then I went home and read the article (link at the end of this review):
«At first, [Giulietta] Carrelli [the owner] explained Trouble as a kind of sociological experiment in engineering spontaneous communication between strangers.»
Well, looks like I played right into that one!
Also:
«‘People are taken aback by her [Carrelli], but she reaches out.’ This gregariousness was in part a survival mechanism, as were her tattoos and her daily uniform of headscarves, torn jeans, and crop tops. The trick was to be identifiable: The more people who recognized her, the more she stood a chance of being able to recognize herself.»
The owner was totally one of the women sitting inside at the counter. Due to my own insecurities, I didn’t feel tattooed enough to join, but I bet if I had tried, she totally would have engaged. Especially in the conversation we were having about mental health. Coincidence? (Just read the article already!
)
As for the toast? It was ok.