When I first moved to San Francisco, a bike messenger friend turned me onto the best coffee I'd ever had, which could be found in a little alleway in Hayes Valley, in the garage behind an architecture firm.
Everybody knows that Blue Bottle coffee has taken off since then, and their latest venture is inside the MOMA's new rooftop sculpture garden.
The sculpture garden is on top of the parking garage so it's not actually inside the MOMA, it's connected to the fifth floor via an enclosed walkway, and the space that Blue Bottle is inside is all windows, so the garden, and the sky, and the city, can be viewed from inside on a rainy day (like this morning was).
The nice part about it not being completely connected is that you can still go up there if the fifth floor is closed for an installation, which it often is.
The garden has been really well designed to showcase the art there, which seems like a no-brainer (it's an art museum, after all) but so often museum architecture can be show-offy, which takes away from the art itself. At the press preview, the line was out the door for espresso at the Blue Bottle counter. Expect it to be longer when the MOMA opens the rooftop garden to the general public this Sunday, which is free of charge.
