My friend Beatrice spent four years in Edinburgh for graduate school and came back to San Francisco with two things she hadn’t left with. A doctorate in urban planning and a very specific understanding of what a scone is supposed to be. She is not precious about it. She does not require clotted cream or…

My friend Theo is not someone who thinks about muffins very much. He thinks about a lot of things with considerable depth and attention but muffins have historically occupied a part of his mental landscape that he would describe as background furniture. Present, occasionally noticed, not particularly interesting. He works near Presidio Heights and stops…

My friend Clara has celiac disease and she has been navigating the San Francisco cafe landscape with it for about six years and she has developed a system. The system involves asking specific questions before ordering anything labeled gluten free and pastries at any new place. Not to be difficult. Not because she enjoys the…

My friend Zoe went vegan about three years ago and she will tell you the hardest part was not the meat or the dairy in savory food or even the cheese which everyone assumes is the hardest part. The hardest part was pastries. Not because she missed them desperately in an emotional way. Because she…

My friend Danny grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and has been in San Francisco for nine years and has maintained exactly one consistent complaint about the city for the entirety of those nine years. The bagels. Not the weather, not the rent, not the tech culture, not any of the things people who move to…

My friend Margot spent six months in Lyon working for a design firm and came back to San Francisco with exactly one non negotiable food standard that she holds every city and every cafe to without exception or apology. The croissant. Not in a demanding way. Not in the way that some people who have…

My friend Vivienne does not consider herself a pastry person. She says this about herself with the confidence of someone who has arrived at a self assessment through years of data collection and is not interested in having it challenged. She eats well, she pays attention to what she puts in her body, she has…

My friend Wes has a breakfast problem that he acknowledges freely and without embarrassment. He cannot skip it. Not in the way some people say they can’t skip breakfast while clearly being fine about it by eleven. He means physiologically cannot skip it in the way where skipping breakfast turns him into a version of…