Cafe Infusion - CLOSED
Categories: Desserts, Coffee & Tea, Asian Fusion, Ice Cream & Frozen Yogurt [Edit]
Neighborhood: SOMA829 Mission St
(between 4th St & 5th St)
San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 808-0808
- Hours:
Mon-Wed 7:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
Thu 7:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m.
Fri 7:00 a.m.-12:00 a.m.
Sat 11:00 a.m.-12:00 a.m. - Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street, Garage
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: Yes
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: No
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: No
- Wi-Fi: Free
83 reviews
Neighborhood: SOMA
"What an absolutely delightful, savory experience! I had semi-blindly chosen this location based upon fellow Yelp reviewers wanting to…" read more »
43 Reviews for Cafe Infusion
This is In Memoriam for Cafe InFusion. I was set on having lunch there from the very morning, but when I arrived, there was a sign on the door. Cafe InFusion has closed.
This makes me sad. I do not eat out often, and this place was the closest one of having me as a regular. I came there first soon after they opened two years ago, and I loved it immediately. I loved the food, especially the Hawaiian pizza. I loved the desserts on a display, though I never ordered any, and loved their huge teacups. But most of all, I loved the clean design and overall lack of character. This might sound strange, but it feels so good to sit somewhere and just blend in. It feels so good to just eat without being cornered with various displays of someone's decorative ideas. I don't always need a cafe with character, I have enough of character myself.
I would miss Cafe InFusion.
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I stumbled upon this place while I was wandering the city looking for a place to pick-up breakfast. It's just beneath the 5th & Mission parking structure that charges only $3/hour. I ordered a breakfast burrito and coffee and it came out to less than $5. Great! The very nice lady behind the counter handed me a small piece of paper with the password for the free WiFi and said, "Have a seat anywhere you want and I'll bring your order to you." How nice! Anyway, I had a very pleasant breakfast with my burrito, coffee, and laptop. It's a clean, relatively quiet place to hang out among the hustle and bustle of the city.
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Breakfast for under $5, says the sign. Those always point to tourist traps, right? Not always.
Tasty, well made, with fresh ingredients, my breakfast burrito was the envy of all at our 8:30am staff meeting. Back off boys, it's mine.
Add a cup of Illy coffee to go, and we were at $5.33 including tax.
Close enough to $5 for me.
It looks like a comfy place for lunch or even after hours, and they have Ciao Bella gelato too.
I'm a sucker for breakfast. And it turns out, their breakfast is pretty good.
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Quaint. It's not somewhere I'd frequent. It's edible. A lot of chicken on the menu, if that's your thing.
My experience was good only because the wait staff was attentive to my order that was served incorrectly. It was the Turkey Provolone Sandwich, and they forgot the provolone... As the waiter/cashier said,
"It's in the name, Provolone. How could you forget that?"
Only because they replaced the entire sandwich did they earn two stars.
My dining companion had a pesto chicken pizza which looked quite good. It was focaccia with toppings and cheese. She thought it was nah bad.
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I had to go into work a half hour late so I figured it wouldn't hurt to try out this mysterious cafe on Mission. There were five people in line in front of me which served as a great opportunity to peruse the menu posted on the wall above the register counter while I waited to place my order.
I ordered a whole wheat sesame bagel (toasted) with avocado, tomato, and cucumber (in an effort to maintain my pledge to keep it healthy this year) and then I proceeded to take a seat on a large yellow couch positioned in the corner of the cafe.
Then I waited....
and waited some more....
As it turns out they hand out bagels to anybody here, willy-nilly. My bagel was whisked off to some other table and promptly eaten with nary a crumb to speak of by the time I had its remains in sight.
Like any hungry patron I was a little miffed that my food had been noshed in the wrong set of jaws. So I approached the counter to ask the guy about my bagel. He apologized a few times and tried to comp me something but all I wanted was the bagel. At long last I got my bagel made and packed up within minutes and I was off to work.
So, how was the bagel? It was great. The produce was very fresh: the avocado was bright and green with a firm but ripe texture, the tomato was not a runny mess, rather it was perfectly matched with the crisp cucumber slices atop this delicious breakfast sandwich.
Things happen. People forget orders, people take other peoples orders, waiters bring the wrong food to the wrong table. I don't think this is a regular occurrence here at Cafe Infusion but just in case they get 4 stars, instead of 5.
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Walked by here today and the windows are covered up. Yes, they are closed and gone for good. It's about time.
Everyday I drive by here and never saw any customers in here. How did they ever survive these past 2 years? When I saw the "coming soon" sign, I thought "what the....???? This is a very bad location for something like this. It will never make it."
Infusion is the jack of all trades. There are lots of food options, coffee, tea, boba, whatever you want. The staff is friendly and it seems like a decent place to hang out with a laptop.
Edit: I gave this place a second chance, and stopped in to try a smoothie. The store wasn't very busy, but I was ignored by the counter person who was microwaving someone's soon-to-be meal. Not a hello, not a "I'll be with you in a minute", not a word. After 10 minutes of waiting, I gave up and left.
Cafe Infusion, you blew your second chance. I don't recommend this place.
First chance review follows:
I went into this place for the first time for lunch expecting it to be about as packed as everywhere else, but it was completely empty. I was the only customer in the entire place, and Cafe Infusion is fairly large with plenty of table space.
I ordered the rice special for only $7 and it quickly arrived at my table. At first I was impressed with this cafe, the table space is large and the eating area is large and open. The abeyance is very comforting, with artistic walls, tables, and music playing in the background. There are internet rental terminals or wireless, and the staff was friendly and fast.
The rice plate that I ordered looked delicious too, even artistically placed about my plate like I was about to have a $30 meal. The problem, and reason for the 3 stars, is that it tasted about as good as a microwave meal from a Super Wal*Mart. Just terrible food.
For that, Cafe Infusion gets a solid 3 stars, but a second chance. Maybe I just got a crappy plate?
Edit: Shocking, they closed. Good riddance!
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UPDATE - 3/20/2008
This has been replaced by the self-serve frozen yogurt parlor, Icebee.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
ORIGINAL REVIEW - 8/16/2006
There's THAT trendy word again...fusion. Only it's buried in the title - InFusion - get it? There isn't that much fusion going on in here unless you count the Thai chicken pizza. But no matter as this is a lunch place a couple of doors down on Mission from the obstreperous tourist magnet, Mel's Drive-In, on the ground floor of the Yerba Buena Garage. It's a modern-looking place with little IKEA-style tables and a couple of couches in the back. Off the peak lunch hour, it is relatively cozy. Come the crowds, and the place becomes a zoo.
The food is decent though I haven't really had anything outstanding here. The rice plates - three coconut curry variations and a chicken teriyaki - are good and come with a side salad, but they seem a bit pricey to me at $8.49. A better deal is the $7.49 foccacia pizza, which reminds me of the Stouffer's frozen French Bread pizzas from days of yore. They come with your standard global toppings - pesto chicken and spinach or pineapple and ham or that Thai chicken with peanut sauce.
They also have more regulation oven-toasted sandwiches - $6.49 for specialties like chicken curry and roasted vegetable and provolone, and $5.75 for standard types like BL&T and roast beef. If you end up considering these options, it seems to me there are cheaper alternatives in the neighborhood. The best deal may be the $6.49 lunch special of a pizza slice, a small salad (or soup) and a can of soda.
I don't find much of Cafe InFusion memorable, but there are certainly worst lunch options in the area...like the sodium-saturated Long Life Noodle in the Metreon. Don't get me started.
FOOD - 3 stars...decent rice plates, decent sandwiches but rather pricey
AMBIENCE - 4 stars...cozy when it's empty, hell when it's not
SERVICE - 3.5 stars...efficient for the most part
OVERALL - 3 stars...if you're in the neighborhood, why not?
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So, when you work at the same place for awhile, you start exhausting the lunch options immediately near you fairly quickly. That's why I was pretty excited to hear about Infusion. A bunch of us popped in there and our lunch experience couldn't have been more varied: Hawaiin Pizza, club sandwich, curry dishes and lemonade. Their little treats and gelato looked great as well and they were complete with coffee drinks. I'm excited this place is so close to work.
But the clincher for me? They serve beer. Yipee!
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I frequent this place weekly over the summer to study, as my Japanese language group meets nearby. The menu selection is great and the sandwich are yummy. The drinks are made fresh and you get your money's worth as the size are large.
The interior decor is hip and trendy; vibrant color and light music makes Cafe Infusion one of my fav cafe to lounge. There are also live entertainment performance on certain nights.
Oh, they have FREE wifi too! A must for modern cafe these day.
Shatangi's buddy had a graduation party here and it rocked. Great, friendly staff, good pizza's, awesome salads and good sake drinks. the space is a little strange and IKEA looking but it's OK for lunch.
Shatangi told you
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My friends and I had passed by Cafe Infusion when looking for Sat morning a couple weeks ago--it wasn't open for some reason at the time that we were seeking b-fast, but the impression it gave was "This is like any typical Nu-Asian pearl tea house."
Then I read an article in SFGate profiling the owners and their sm biz issues. Curious, I went back yesterday.
Frankly, my initial impression was on the dot. This place is like a Q-Cup, Fantasia, Tapioca Express et.al. with perhaps more food offerings and the occasional night music (so it seems). I had the jasmine green milk tea, which was fine.
Meh. I wouldn't think to go back.
Here is my advice to the owners, just as a customer:
GET BETTER LIGHTING!! from the outside, it looks like the inside is dark and thus "cheap."
Brand unity and identity is desperately needed! (or maybe i'm just not getting the current look.) a couple suggestions:
1. A congruous menu--theysell both breakfast burritos and pearl tea... try to stick to either an American, or Asian, or Americanized Asian, or Fusion Asian menu. Mixing items on the menu is unappetizing and confusing to the customer.
2. A single "themed" interior. Too much plastic funiture. 80's deco red-blue-yellow coloring is...unattractive. And again, something wrong with the lighting/dark-brightness.
3. People generally have an image of the type of setting they're looking for at a specific time of day--morning, lunch, coffee break, afterwork, late night. It's really difficult to design a small space that does all of that, and combining "coffee break" with "late night" right now is not particularly appealing.
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Cheezy 80s music, comfy sofas and chairs, next to Mel's diner (you'd probably miss it if you weren't specifically looking for a cafe)...
Diverse drink and food menu from chai latte, sake, fruit smoothies, to curry noodles, chocolate chip cookies and gelato - all very good and satisfying...
It's a unique, kinda off the beaten path, a SOMA cafe... when you want something a little different, yet familiar, reliable, but not cookie cutter or yuppy.
But really, I come here because it's a just the right distance from the office, feels earnest, good coffee drinks and helps me think... check it out the next time you're at the metreon!
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I often pickup sandwiches here and take it back to work for lunch. The food is fresh, clean, and inexpensive. If you want a foo foo sandwich with "pickled grape mayo" and want to pay $12 for it, go across the street to 'wich craft but if you want a simple sandwich try Cafe Infusion. Nothing fancy, just clean, simple, fresh, food.
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I was walking home from work and decided to try this new place out and I was glad I did, as its an awesome place to go. Prices are reasonable, food was great and they have a really cool chill atmosphere inside the place. Perfect for a quick meal, or if your just trying to kill time before a movie at Metreon. Drinks range from Coffe, tea, beer, wine and even Sake. I ordered the Pesto Chicken and Spinach Focaccia Pizza and it was excellent. Highly suggest you try this place out if you are in the area. They also have free WiFi which for a geek like myself, is the topper of it all.
Try the Mint Lemonade Tea!!! I know it sounds weird, but its is so refreshing and good.
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A delightful little spot to catch a quick bite of lunch. The decor is lovely, the staff attentive, and the selection of food quite decent. Also they have a pretty nice little web site that gives you a better idea of the feel of the place and lots of pictures.
Definitely one of my fav hangouts in the neighbourhood. Perfect lunchtime hangout where can read without being bothered.
We stumbled upon this place away from the crowded ballpark eateries after the game. And I'm so glad we did. The cafe features an extensive food menu, offering pizza, gelato, and rice plates (try one of their coconut curry dishes!) in addition to the usual salad, sandwich, and pastries. Their drink menu includes coffee/tea, smoothies, and pearl milk tea. The staff is cordial, and the interior of the cafe is clean and inviting. DSL terminals and free wifi are also available.
It's a cool spot SOMA--just a hop, skip, and a jump away from downtown/Union Square. Kick back and enjoy a meal here for a change of pace.
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Two stars for the jasmine milk tea with boba drink I ordered, which was 1) too sweet, 2) the pearls were off; they fell apart too quickly and didn't require half the chewing that they should have.
Three stars for the breakfast burrito: which was just as expected, nothing special. I would have thought $3 is more appropriate than $4, but I suppose that's the cost of city living. Who am I to complain? And the burrito wasn't too big.
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Cafe Infusion have the nicest staff! Positioned right near Mel's Diner at the corner of 4th and Mission and directly across from the new Bloomies, I stopped by here the other day for coffee and a pastry. Their Illy tastes much better than mine at home, not too robust, just right, and the banana bread-HAS CHOCOLATE CHIPS IN IT! Some might view that as a desecration of banana bread, but it is simply divine, and tastes homemade.
I am planning on going back and sampling their salads and sandwiches as well.
Quick note, their hours state that they open at 6:30 am but the cafe is never open on time. So plan on getting there around 7am if you want some quick Joe.
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Had their lychee shake, which was composed of lychee gelato and lychee! So refreshing...and the service was very nice. They also have a decent looking food menu, I'll have to update you on that later...
Walking past I thought this was a tiny two-table type of establishment but it's quite large once you're inside and has a comfy couch. Diverse menu including rice dishes, focaccia pizzas, pearl drinks and bagels, Tullys coffee. Fairly reasonable prices and nice folks. I had the pizza/salad combo and both were tasty.
Not a place I'm gonna rush to but a nice alternative to the other stuff around.
I gotta chime in since my new yelp-friend Ed U. has a review for this place as well. I work nearby and yelp a lot of these places. Cafe Infusion has been open a year or so and it's ... OK. Been twice to hang out and test the wireless which was not robust. I am finding that cafes with encrypted wireless don't do a very good job training the staff on what the encryption keys are and it was no different here.
The menu looks yummy but prices are 50% higher than many competitors. Maybe the quality's higher. They offer a discount to us employees but I haven't taken advantage.
And I'm not sure what the deal is with "Fusion" but they have some asian dishes. Growing up Hapa, I don't think I notice it much.
What a real BAR should be: food, desserts, hot beverages, cold drinks, cocktails, art shows (The ongoing pixel art exhibition is really beautiful - Jul7_Aug6/2006). I'm not saying it's the best in town but when you happen to stop by just for a coffee while going to a concert and you stay over there more than you expected enjoing the moment....that deserves 4 stars.
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***update:this place has closed, and I am bummed. I guess it's Walgreen's for lunch from now on.
I work near here and noticed it just today - I was hungry but not too hungry, it was raining, and I had been at work since 5am. They had a pretty diverse menu, and made a mental note that they carried lots of different ice cream flavors; but I opted for a smoothie which was yummy, and a bagel with avocado + veggies.
The service was friendly and low-key, the chairs are comfortable, and they have a nice stack of magazines to flip through; overall the nice atmosphere made it a place I'll visit again, and next time I'll try some of their rice plates.
Illy coffee, divine pastries, Ciao Bella gelato, great menu, open late, free wi-fi, super friendly waitstaff, comfortable seating...wow!
I fell in love with this place instantly, but I'm taking away a half a star for having only a couple of outlets for those of us with laptops with shitty batteries and taking away another half a star for being closed on Sundays. OMGWTFBBQORLY?
But god......Illy coffee less than two blocks from home? I used to endlessly make fun of my friend, Herr Doktor for his coffee snobbery until I tried Illy myself. Now, we are comrades in coffee!
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They have the BEST spinach salad with some kind of miso dressing. Not sure exactly what it is, but oh man, do I ever love it. Plus, you can get lunch specials for $6.95. My favorite is the veggie pizza (reminiscent of the Stouffer's French Bread pizzas my sister and I used to inhale during our high school years) and the spinach salad combo.
To be honest, I haven't tried anything else there because I love that meal so much, but I commit myself to breaking away from tradition to try something new the next time I am there.
The ambiance is nice too, and so unexpected on that stretch of pavement!
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The owners are gracious enough to allow my charity WHOmentors.com, Inc. to host a program to extend hospitality to foreign visitors and nonimmigrant students, promote cultural and educational programs, and provide an environment for reflective interaction and social contact between American citizens and foreign visitors and nonimmigrant students.
FULL IMMERSION USA is a weekly foreign language exchange and English practice program that features educational tools and cultural activities to support the development of an ability to understand spoken English or a foreign language and speak it intelligibly at a native conversational pace on every day topics.
We meet at Cafe Infusion every Saturday from 3pm to 6pm.
Great fruit drinks. The watermelon drink (seasonal) is divine! watermelon and ice!
love the BBQ chicken pizza - good value.
great for group gatherings. very courteous staff
fresh baked cookies all day long.
This is a great little new cafe on Mission between 4th and 5th. They have a unique menu complete with gelato and several desserts, free wifi, great friendly service in an excellent space. Looks like they will be hosting art events too and they have some cool art on the walls as well.
Gotta say, I really like this place, and not only because if it did not exist I never would have had an excuse to talk to my sweetie for the first time. It's a really cool laid back kind of place to grab a cup of coffee, tea or a soju cocktail before classes at City College. The food is pretty good for what it is, although I can't say I have eaten here a lot. They have Mighty Leaf Tea which is fabulous, and the coffee (although not strong enough for me) is pretty good. The sweetie loves it. All in all, highly recommended (especially if you can snag on of the couches).
Definitely good for happy hour if you're looking for a laid back place where you can actually hear people talk. The food is pretty good too and there's plenty of space.
I work very close to this contemporary like cafe, some featured artist artwork display; very into the health side of the coin, i really enjoyed the grilled chicken pineapple sandwich. in the menu is a very wide selection, is a cool place to hang with friends or by your self with a good lecture and have a delicious meal.
I went here for a work happy hour & found it to be an excellent place to kick back. With interesting soju drinks and delicious appetizers plus a great atmosphere and A+ service all my post-work decompression needs were met! It's a little out of the way from my normal haunts, but I'll make it a point to get down there again.
The Union Square area is a bigger zoo than ever, with the huge Bloomingdale's complex having opened. This cafe is a nice respite from all that. To be honest, I've never had food here -- I'm here strictly for the coffee, the gelato and desserts, and the Wi-Fi that they'll set you up with upon request.
Away from the glare and hubbub across the street, it's a nice respite. It also attracts an unusual crowd... often, next to the sofas, you'll find magazines on or under the tables that can't even be bought at any US magazine rack. German ones. French ones. English ones. It's as if the cafe has been written up in some overseas guide.
Blah, I only had twenty minutes for a quick bite on a break from a conference. This place looked quick so I came in. I ordered a chicken sandwich and a bubble tea drink. I waited and waited. Finally got the food and was really hungry that day, so I was hoping for something tasty. The chiken was dry and seemed burnt. There was something that tasted nasty and bad in it, it tasted strangely bitter.I couldn't identify what it was. I didn't even finish it. I walked back over to Moscone Center and bought some edible food.
this is a good, solid place to go for lunch. the food is fine- just... fine, nothing special. not bad at all- just not special. they have a decent selection of salads and sandwiches and pizzas for lunch, breakfasts for breakfast and all sorts of desserts for whenever you want dessert. but it feels like a place people eat at for a quickish lunch during the convention. it feels like a place salesmen eat at. not that there is anything wrong with salesmen, i love salesmen, some salesmen are even sexy-- but that isn't the point. the point is that it has that sort of nobody comes here regularly feel that is a little uncozy.
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I dropped by before a show at the Exit Theater a block south of this place --- I was looking for a better option than the Mel's further up the block and the cheap but artery-destroying Chinese place next door.
It's great --- we had three different salads that came with some amazing dressing that the server said was a special recipe of the cafe's. Ten bucks each later, we were stuffed, and if we only had the time and appetite, we would have stayed for the yummy looking pastries on display.
If I only worked in downtown SF, and/or lived in SOMA, this is where I would be eating all the time.
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We go and eat there..2 time a week. Clean, fresh food and drink.
Great staff. The owners Robert & Emily are nice. Try going there.
I bet you love it!
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Nice place, family style staffing & a fine selection of different style foods,
make this one of the up-n-coming "cool" places on Mission. They have great pastries as well as the good beer selection, plus internet access,
live music some nites. and more....
They care alot about the customer and quality of experience.
I suggest anyone would enjoy Cafe Infusion. "5 STAR" yeah baby!
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