According to a San Francisco Chronicle article titled “San Francisco and its coffee: A city steeped in java history,” San Francisco is where:
- The first cup of restaurant coffee was served in the West, in 1846.
- In 1850, the first commercially roasted coffee was produced. The company that produced this later emerged as Folgers Coffee.
- Coffee beans arrived from Hawaii, Java and Central and South America.
- A coffee-roasting capital took hold, thanks to companies that, in addition to Folgers, included Hills Bros. and MJB, leading brands that were family owned.
- University of San Francisco students Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker met; became familiar with Alfred Peet’s specialty coffee operation across San Francisco Bay in Berkeley; and were inspired, upon return their return home to the Pacific Northwest, to launch Starbuck’s, perhaps the most famous coffee brand in the world.
Known globally for its burgeoning coffee scene, the San Francisco Bay Area has a long history of cafes and coffee shops. The Bay Area is also home to a fair share of roasters and varieties that have cultivated loyal followings with distinct aromas and tastes, including:
- Ritual Coffee Roasters
- Red Bay Coffee
- Equator Coffees
- Temple Coffee
- Barefoot Coffee
- Thanksgiving Coffee
In addition to the commonality of a Bay Area home, full-bodied taste and consistency, these coffees and roasters are all available through GoCoffeeGo, which features rare, exotic, and unique roasts on a website that makes ordering easy. GoCoffeeGo.com offers endless types of coffee; from nearly three dozen roasters, along with a range of light-to-dark roasts from seven regions of the world.
GoCoffeeGo streamlines the coffee procurement process with subscriptions to the first coffee company to sell espresso, single origin coffee and blends from award-winning coffee roasters—from around the world—through an online platform.
And it all funnels through San Francisco.
“We’re roughly seven miles by seven miles, and when you’re seven miles by seven miles and chock full of things, it’s big, but it’s small,” said GoCoffeeGo Co-Founder and CEO Elise Papazian. “It’s big because there’s tons of stuff to do and enjoy. But it’s small because you can navigate it this way, that way, every which way. You can meet most anybody for coffee here in 15 minutes.”
GoCoffeeGo.com was co-founded by Elise and her late husband, Scott Pritikin. Elise was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and lives there now with her teenage son, Oliver, an informal consultant to the company.
It’s safe to say that San Francisco’s vibrant coffee scene has played a very big role in the evolution and identity of GoCoffeeGo, which is a conduit for bringing great coffees from around the world to the front doors of coffee lovers, by way of the Bay Area.
Also playing into San Francisco’s coffee vibe is the creative side of this city known for fog, cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. Famed director Francis Ford Coppola wrote much of the screenplay for The Godfather while sitting in Caffè Trieste. And Beatnik poets during the 1950s surely met in North Beach’s bohemian Italian coffeehouses, drinking their favorite brew while viewing the world through lines and stanzas.
Yes, it’s safe to say that creativity percolates in San Francisco.
“You get a few creative people together, some writers, some painters, some filmmakers, some photographers and musicians—it’s a very natural progression for them to meet in a coffee house, this fountain of culture, where it’s really not about the coffee,” Elise said. “It’s more about a gathering spot. For eons, coffee has been a catalyst for joining people together to discuss and share new ideas.”
Underscoring Elise’s point are the notable creative personalities born in San Francisco:
- Lawrence Ferlinghetti—Poet and founder of City Lights Bookstore, located in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood
- Poets Maya Angelou and Robert Frosts
- Musician Carlos Santana
- Author Danielle Steel
- Photographer Ansel Adams
- Muppet creator, filmmaker and puppeteer Frank Oz
- Photographer Ansel Adams
Fourteen years after its launch, GoCoffeeGo features more than 1,000 different roasted-to-order coffees, shipped on the same day they are roasted, direct to your kitchen.
And who could have known how big a role geographical locations would play in the genesis of GoCoffeeGo.
In addition to the love of coffee that Elise nurtured from the moment she drank her first cup at age 13—just south of San Francisco—she and her son, Oliver Pritikin, became Q Graders. These coffee experts are professionals skilled in the sensory evaluation of coffee, and Elise and Oliver became certified through the Coffee Quality Institute at Boot Coffee Campus in Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.
But it was London of all places where Elise and Scott hatched the idea for GoCoffeeGo. While traveling, they couldn’t find a good cup of coffee. So the couple got to thinking about the ways in which anybody, anywhere, could locate a delicious, satisfying cuppa—even in a town like London, which is not known for its coffee.
While pondering the situation, Scott and Elise came up with the idea for a coffee website. The rest of their story is now brewing, roasting and sipping history.
Visit GoCoffeeGo.com to learn more.