Bird Rock Coffee Roasters - Little Italy

Bird Rock filmed its Kalita pour-over recipe at this counter, in a room whose other attraction is the planes coming in over the city. Somewhere with a view like that could coast on it; the recipe says nobody here plans to.

The company roasts its own coffee and goes past the fair trade structure to buy from growers directly, with a Q grader on staff running a cupping open to anyone once a week. The single-origin lots are named down to farm, varietal and process, a honey Pink Bourbon from Miraflores in Colombia among them, though the only date attached to any of it is the Tuesday each batch leaves the roastery.

Brick on the corner of Kettner and Juniper, with the spacious garage door windows and bar ledge seating Bird Rock calls its signature and repeats in room after room. The formula was drawn for the company rather than for this corner, and the ledge along the glass is still the seat worth taking.