"Community in a cup" is the mantra at Farley's, a cozy coffee hub with a local art gallery and a plethora of magazines awaiting your bleary-eyed perusal. The food menu includes plenty of classy salads — pine nuts, arugula and goat cheese are just a few of the ingredients — and paninis both hot and cold. There's even a store with beans and Farley's T-shirts. Free wi-fi.
Since 1962, Woody's Cafe has been serving the neighborhood of East Oakland. This joint uses beans from Mr. Espresso for all of its coffee beverages. The cafe is also tucked right next to a laundromat, which is owned by the same cafe. Customers can enjoy outside patio seating and free wi-fi. Even though the cafe closes at 7 p.m. daily, music, art, and comedy events are held until 9:30 p.m. throughout the week. Check their web site for event details.
This is the place to go if you want to step back in time and taste some of the finest hops around, made in the most venerable of traditions.
Oakland's emerging beer renaissance finds a firm foothold at Beer Revolution, located near Jack London Square. Inside, a bevy of beers on tap (as many as fourteen at a time) includes local selections, Belgian and German styles, and microbrews from across the country. Perhaps even more impressive are the large coolers lined up against the wall opposite the bar, stocked with four hundred of the world's finest and rarest brews, with forty two of which are on tap. Take one to go or enjoy it on the sunny front patio for a $1 corkage fee.
Ahna Adair co-owns the CommonWealth with her brother Pete Jeffryes and her husband Ross Adair, a Scot who learned to appreciate traditional cooking in his grandmother's kitchen. He prepares it here in the form of English-style breakfasts and pub grub with a California twist: Steel-cut oats, beans and toast, egg-and-chutney sandwiches, and the like augment an impressive selection of beers from the UK, the East Bay, and even a few locales in between.