My impartial review of the best and my most favorite breakfast cafe.
It’s a little bit of a love song with some fair criticism sprinkled in. But mostly it’s an ode to connection. Because for so long, connection was lost. Thank you to Covid, anyone who was used to garrulous family dinners, or long heartfelt coffees with friends, or the grocery store checker who knew you had kids and how are they doing, had to go without. And you don’t know how important connection is to your well being until it’s ripped out from under you.
I’m a private person but I love the idea of walking into a bar and Sam yelling out to me, “Norm!” Before the pandemic, my Sam equivalent was Omar, and it wasn’t a bar but a tiny busy coffee shop. And Omar didn’t yell out my name when I entered, but he did make my drink as soon as he saw me walk in the door and rang me up without ever asking what I wanted. And then that was gone, thank you Covid.
So, “after” the pandemic, when I found that my addiction to draft oat milk latte and a killer breakfast dish drove me to eating at this particular cafe, BSL, at least once a week, I found my new Omar. Or Omars—Rita and Trevor and Daniel (it was a bigger cafe than my tiny coffee shop, so more waitstaff). I always ordered the same drink, the draft oat milk latte, and the same breakfast. And always made the same few changes to my order, so after a while they knew me as Amy, the woman who ordered the Vegetarian Big Brekkie, hold the mushrooms and dressing, eggs well scrambled please. I’ve never claimed I’m not high maintenance. But if I had ever sensed they were irritated with my modifications, I would’ve ordered something else so as not to make their jobs more difficult. But I did ask them on several occasions and they assured me it wasn’t a problem. So every time I go, I order the same thing. Every time.
Except when the draft oat milk latte machine is broken. Which it quite frequently is. Which is how I got to know Daniel, the manager. One does not find a draft oat milk latte easily. I have searched and unless you live near a La Colombe–and living in Northern California I’m out of luck–and unless you live near another BSL cafe (yes, I have driven forty-five minutes up to San Francisco just to get my draft oat milk latte), you cannot partake in a draft oat milk latte when the machine at this BSL is down. Which is problematic when you love them so much it borders on addiction. At this stage I’m calling it dependency.
So when the machine was broken the first time, I was crestfallen. When it happened again, I asked the staff about the situation. When it happened again, I got to know Daniel, so I could get the inside scoop. And the scoop was the machine is crap. And the company that licensed BSL the machine has a very unresponsive and/or unavailable repair team. So my favorite person Daniel, with self-admittedly no handyman-fix-it-yourself ability, jerry rigged a solution that held for about a month. And then it broke again and Daniel’s fix no longer would fix it.
So that’s part one of my criticism. The machine was broken and the staff wouldn’t drive up to the city to get me a replacement draft oat milk latte, so although the avocado toast was to die for, 2 stars. No I wouldn’t do you wrong like that BSL. But I will move onto part two of my anemic criticism, the app. It is a hold-over from the pandemic, when restaurants got rid of theoretical Covid-carrying-menus. BSL brought back menus, but we still order via the app. Not because we like the experience, the app is crap (you can’t even enter your modifications!). 2 stars. But because we get loyalty rewards when we do. 5 stars! And as anyone who does a lot of flying and racks up mileage can relate to, the $5 loyalty rewards add up because of how much we eat there. As a matter of fact we just attained the highest rewards level BSL has, gold status. We get a free bag of coffee, baby! So me and the business woman who travels so much she can fly her whole family to Bali on mileage? Samesies.
But we also “like” the app because it’s how I figure out ahead of time if I can get my draft latte fix or not. If the draft oat milk latte is available on the app, I’m driving down to BSL. If it’s not, I’m still driving down there with the thin hope the machine will be fixed during the twenty minute drive. Never once has that happened. I’m a pessimist by nature, but not when it comes to thinking that Daniel will jerry rig a miracle during my drive down.
So even though in my year or more going to BSL the machine has been down about 75% of the time, and even though the app is clunky and the QR code doesn’t work and I have to enter my table number manually, I still give BSL 5 stars.
Because today when we went in, despite knowing there was no draft oat milk latte and Daniel didn’t fix it while we drove, I had a Norm moment. A few minutes after we had placed our order on the app, but hadn’t made it to the front yet to warn the waitstaff about my modifications, a female cook approached our table. Cooks never come out from the kitchen at BSL. Ever. She asked with no seeming annoyance, in broken english, if I wanted no mushrooms and no dressing. I was astonished. I asked how she knew that, and she said, “When your order comes in, we see your name, we know it’s you.” She didn’t seem bothered when she said this, that she had to make these modifications. She just wanted to confirm the changes before she started making it, because a waitstaff hadn’t come back to tell her yet. I apologized, was deferential because I was making her job harder, but she truly seemed unfazed. 10 stars.
Maybe the waitstaff and the cooks have a rating system for customers. No doubt they give me 2 stars. I would. Picky customer, makes changes like she’s at a high end restaurant, but doesn’t tip like at a high end. 2 stars.
But because this is an ode to connection, a little bit of a love song, and even if I’m a 2 star customer, I appreciate BSL. I appreciate Rita and Trevor and Daniel and the female cook and their good natures, I appreciate they make me feel known, and I very much appreciate the draft latte machine when it’s working.