L’acajou Bakery & Cafe

I’ve never eaten here but I’ve ordered through Caviar several times to treat myself on rainy SF mornings. The breakfast sammie and the cheddar chipotle breakfast sammie + runny egg are out of this world. They clearly specialize in rolls and scones and I think you can’t go wrong ordering anything that has the word «roll» or «scone» in it. Even though it probably takes a good 30 minutes to have our ordered delivered, the food is never soggy and tastes great. L’acajou is also one of the few morning places on Caviar that price their coffee at something reasonable ($ 2 for a small French Press). I highly recommend this little bakery and I envy those that live near it.

While L’acajou may not be consistent when it comes to customer service and hours of operation — they are certainly consistent when it comes to their food. Yum! Everything I’ve had here has been pretty delicious.
Let me be clear about the inconsistencies first:
Hours of Operation — According to their website, they’re open from 8 AM — 4 PM on weekdays (9 – 3 on weekends). However, there have been a few weekdays where I’ve stopped by around 3 PM and the door was locked, and no special sign like «closed early for event» or anything… so that’s been kind of a bummer.
Customer Service — Most of the time the employees have been fine and friendly, but there have definitely been more than a few times where I’ve sensed a bit of attitude/​snootiness with some of them. No one has been flat out rude, but I think they get really stressed (it’s a SMALL kitchen/​workspace, ya’ll) and they’re not the best at hiding it.
Now, on to the good stuff — the food! Really tasty stuff. Everything seems really fresh and thoughtfully made.
Baked Goods — Cookies, scones, croissants, muffins — their assortment seems to differ every day, but they always seem to have plenty of cookies at lunchtime. My favorite is the Salted Dark Chocolate — dangerous!
Sandwiches — Favorite is definitely the Tuscan Chicken, and it seems to be pretty popular, as I hear lots of other people ordering it when I’m there. Chicken, fontina cheese, spinach, and roasted tomato on some kind of earthy tasting bread (wheat? rye?). Pretty sure the bread is baked in-​house. It’s not quite a panini because the bread isn’t super crispy, but it seems to be lightly toasted. Sometimes they’re a little skimpy on the spinach, and sometimes they really load it on. They also have a Pulled Moroccan Lamb Sandwich which also seems to be pretty popular, but I have yet to try it. Their grilled cheese isn’t anything to write home about, but if you add tomato and kale it really kicks things up a notch.
Salads — The spinach salad is pretty solid. Sometimes (as with most spinach salads I’ve found) the ratio of spinach to other ingredients isn’t equal (could use more goat cheese and/​or tomato). Haven’t tried any of the other salads yet.
Breakfast — Their breakfast sandwich (minus the cabbage slaw and mustard) is of the best breakfast sandwiches I’ve had in my life, and let me tell you, the tomato is the star. Thick cut, perfectly ripe, delicious — the first time I had this sandwich I thought I just got lucky, but the tomato (and other ingredients) have been perfect every single time. It’s served on a fresh baked bun/​roll that’s to die for. Seriously.
They don’t have the biggest menu, so it’s great that the few items they have are done beautifully. They tend to have specials from time to time to change things up a bit. On a couple occasions they’ve run out of some major ingredients (their main proteins) as early as 12 PM, which was unfortunate mostly because of the way they were kinda blunt about it and not very apologetic. Again going back to the customer service issue. Not the biggest deal, but worth mentioning.
Overall, I enjoy this place and come here often! I work nearby and walk over, so I’m not sure about the parking situation. Snagging a metered spot on the street is probably your best bet. There’s also two parking structures nearby, for Costco and Trader Joe’s/Bed Bath Beyond if you’re planning to do some shopping.
Oh, and there’s a homeless dude who likes to hang out on the corner of 9^th & Bryant who will probably holler racist things at you as you walk by. Have fun with that!

I’d give it 2 ½ stars. Am rounding up to 3.
First, the good: yummy little bakery. Extraordinarily yummy. The breakfast sandwich is the best I’ve ever had (egg, Gruyère, bacon, Dijon, slaw). Woo hoo!
Now, the bad: this place is staffed with people that don’t work well together as a team. The service was atrocious. The lady at the register took nearly 10 minutes serve the patron ahead of me. All the she was doing was boxing up and ringing up eight pastries or so. She kept asking the patron to repeat what she wanted. Then she boxed-​up the wrong thing, and had to re-​do that. Back-​and-​forth, back-​and-​forth.
The cashier then went and did something else and turned her back to me for several minutes before engaging with me like this was normal behavior and not apologizing. I get better service at McDonald’s.
Meanwhile, three other employees bumped into one another behind her trying to prepare some salads with strawberries on them. Three employees. Four salads. I noticed it was a to-​go order, and the guy waiting for his order was already there when I arrived and his ordeal did not end until after I was sat and eating — about 30 minutes later.
Additionally, L’acajou was nearly out of most of their pastries. It was 10:15 a.m.; how could a bakery be out of baked goods that early in the day?
This place would really rock if they had better employees working as a team at the counter.

I’ve not set foot into the actual bakery, but I’ve ordered lunch from them for team meetings on various occasions… and every time I’ve loved it!
Their chicken-​pesto and pastrami sandwiches are always a hit, but my favorite is the Moroccan lamb sandwich… oh my, just writing about them makes me want to order from here again!
I especially like that they send a bike messenger to deliver your lunch… nice touch!
By the way, we’ve used Eat24 or the Unilocal app for placing our orders.

The best coffee hangout in SOMO???1 you should try the hazelnut cookies they are to die for I come here looking for those cookies fresh out the oven awesome awesome awesome.
The French press coffee is what they use for coffee it’s a good place to sit down drink some coffee and look at the traffic if that’s your thing.