Perfect spot If you need to get work done while enjoying a latté. Always plenty of space.

One day when I was walking around in the hills behind my house, I happened upon this bizarre street. It was as though someone had taken postmodernism and tried to make it into a block of houses. Each one has its own internally complete theme, involving strange colors and sculptural elements attached to the outside walls (gold eggs, wisps of wrought iron). This led me on subsequent walks to name them: the Corbusier House, the Barn, the Preschool Blocks house, the House of Wicca… and so on.

A veteran San Francisco arts institution that recently moved from its home in the Mission to the bottom of the San Francisco Chronicle Building. Their gallery regularly puts on exhibitions that are relevant, accessible, and often straight up delightful. As opposed to some of the more buttoned-up galleries, Intersection’s penchant for participatory pieces is met with a regular crowd that tends to be game for participating, which always makes for a good time.

For all your pie needs, from savory to sweet.

If you can get past the bourgie factor and/or you work down the street like I do, you will come to love this place. It has some of the best food in the city, a Blue Bottle coffee, and an observation deck from which you can watch the ferries come and go, emitting their weird beeps and disgorging tourists. The people who work here are great too (whether or not I dated a baker from the Acme Bread kiosk because of a Craigslist missed connection will be left to history).