21-07-2025
Skip the Club. Hit the Coffee Shop.
The line at Clement Street's most trendy coffee shop does not feel like waiting to order a coffee. It feels more like the pseudo-sceniness of waiting in line to check your ID at Bar Part Time. Guests look over their shoulders and walk to the front of the line, trying to catch the vibe. Lilting notes of R&B ooze toward the street from the DJ deck courtesy of deep cut fiend Abby Imperial. Dropping by on a farmers market-stuffed Sunday is like watching a super well-lit club go up, with less dancing and visible intoxication. The frenetic scene is a sliver of Cafetón's vibe in Chicago.
This is almost every day at Hi NRG, Luis Gonzalez and Nathan Kruse's coffee pop-up at wine bar High Treason. Caffeine is the controlled substance on hand. While the coffee is tremendous and clever, the two baristas are well past the San Francisco proving grounds of the Coffee Movement; the move here is to dress good and vibe out.
The party vibes will get more to the point soon, though. On Sunday, August 3, there's not even going to be coffee for sale. Starting at 9 a.m., two primo DJs will take turns spinning vinyl while free coffee is passed out to guests. It's the pop-up's first birthday, and the two just want everyone to dance.
In summation: Coffee shops are as see-and-be-seen as clubs this summer 2025.
For a lot of reasons, coffee parties are on the rise, spawning their own Reddit questions for transplants eager to get into the fray: A generational shift away from getting wasted, a rise in the quality of nonalcoholic beverages runs right against that spike on the cardiogram. The wealth accumulation amongst the top one and two percent of the United States means that while the S&P just saw a record high in July 2025, per the Washington Post, a lot of people feel poorer than ever. And in many ways, they are. Hence, paying cover charges and ordering Ubers all night stings a bit more than getting the same caffeine fix you'd already get — plus there's dancing.
The Mellow Joe Maloof
The Mellow Joe Maloof
The Mellow, a plant shop that takes turns as a barber and a cafe depending on the outpost, saw its Haight Street spot go viral in spring 2025. Hundreds of guests danced the day away amongst houseplants; almost 600 people RSVPd. Co-owner David Velasco was a barista at Duboce Park Cafe trained by Blue Bottle in a past life. He and partner Lorena Velsaco's coffee bar has become a regular spot for tourists and locals alike, though it's currently closed under renovation until mid-August. When the shop returns, there'll be seating for the first time and expanded pastry offerings. Plus, more parties, including a kick-off with DJ collective Sazon Libre.
Lorena Velasco says when they were building out that shop, before there was a coffee bar, local DJs, including Wonway Posibul, played music. The Mellow hosts live music at night, too. It was a natural fit for private groups and shows, such as those put on by Black artist-centered Silk, and the Mellow pays musicians and DJs competitive rates rather than with exposure alone. 'If you left to get a breath of air, you had to get back in line to get in,' she remembers of those viral parties. 'It's very much people wanting to gather during the day, and not always around alcohol. A cocktail can be like $15 for one.'
Hi NRG itself is not a proper coffee party, outside of that upcoming event. The energy, though, reflects the trend's logical endpoint: a shifting cafe culture. Minimal third-wave spaces are barely interesting to tried-and-true coffee pros themselves at this point. Gonzalez and Kruse are both musicians, the former a DJ who takes over fancy restaurants like Verjus and Mister Jiu's Moongate Lounge with city wave noise and the latter a pianist and singer. Hi-NRG is the name of an uptempo subset of techno music, the pop-up's namesake. Both of them say going out has changed since the pandemic, and Hi NRG collides with San Francisco's infamous queue and events cultures, teeing up this buzzy storm. 'It's always been about the coffee being competition level,' Gonzales says of Hi NRG, 'while having the best music possible.'
Emerald Lounge Tony Abarello
On Van Ness Avenue, newer player Emerald Lounge linked with Middle Eastern rooftop party Baladi for a daytime fiesta. That group also connected with El Coffee Party for a big event featuring Edward Khoury, a wildly popular Canadian and Lebanese DJ. The multiple parties take over the spacious floor inside the former movie theater, about 450 people total showing up by the end of it. Dubai chocolates and Arabic beats brought dozens of guests in the first weekend of July.
The events with Baladi and Coffee Party came together from a local reaching out to Emerald Lounge owner Rebecca Fox through Instagram. She says she feels these DJ dance parties — the one at Emerald Lounge full of young professionals chatting about their hobbies and politics — are terrific. For her, it's always great to have social events at coffee houses, or sober gathering spaces. Moreover, she sees it as a harkening to coffee's origins — brewing coffee, bringing folks together, and letting the heady energy bubble over. As a cafe owner, she feels it's really on her and other owners to host these positive community events; there'll be a big Halloween-themed fiesta in October.
There are coffee parties geared toward specific groups, too. Avotoasty, a cafe with two San Francisco locations and an Oakland spot, is hosting She's On Fire, an all-women dance party, at the end of July. In that same vein, Chai and Vibes puts South Asian drinks alongside cars this August, thrown by culture group Harakat in Oakland. Side A's morning time service with Coffee Movement is, basically, a DJ bar with espresso. It's caffeine's club, you're just a guest. 'Party in the morning,' Kruse says.
The party at Emerald Lounge's first coffee party. Tony Abello
Eater SF
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