Sightglass Coffee – Divisadero by Studio BBA
Sightglass Coffee – Divisadero is a restaurant in San Francisco, CA, United States, designed by Studio BBA. Housed in a 100-plus-year-old Edwardian, the café pairs restored clerestory windows and a new walk-up service window with a fully customized interior. Tailored lighting, joinery, furniture, and equipment keep the room precise, while accessibility and structural work sit quietly underneath.
About Sightglass Coffee – Divisadero
Each Sightglass café develops its own character and set of opportunities, alongside the warm, tactile brick-and-mortar brand the studio has built for the chain. This location is no exception: a 100-plus-year-old Edwardian now houses a café shaped by a long change-of-use permit process and a structural upgrade.
A chic storefront now welcomes coffee lovers. The restoration recalls a 1950s eatery, with divided-light clerestory windows brought back, steel doors commissioned with related glazing details, and a walk-up service window added to the street front.
Inside, everything is new and highly customized, as it is in other Sightglass cafés. Tailor-made chandeliers, fixtures, fittings, joinery, furniture, and barista equipment create a finely tuned environment with close attention to use and finish.
Material and finish choices draw from several eras to produce a layered interior. Hand-chopped mosaic tile, mid-century tapered wood detailing, neoclassical plaster, grey Fume limestone, and turn-of-the-century utilitarian metal components sit together, while the cypress throughout the interior comes from a single tree.
The banquette concept first used at Sightglass 20th returns here with bays and channel-tufted leather backs, arranged for groups of different sizes and wheelchair access. A full-height merchandise shelf, pastry case, and iced bottled beverage display organize the coffee bar, while the bathroom wall tile uses a wallpaper-and-wainscot pattern repeated in custom accessories and mechanisms. Modern systems such as radiant floor heating, LED lighting, and a hidden ADA lift are integrated with care.
Photography courtesy of Studio BBA
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