Rolling Out Cafe

Farther east up Taraval was another bakery,

which actually had a San Diego connection...

We noticed there was a parklet in front of the cafe, which I found out later was three years in the making and also by design, by Rolling Out's owner, Bruno Tse.  His shop is near a Muni stop and he felt that the parklet would help out not only his business but neighboring shops as well.  What's nice is that the parklet is open to the community; you do not need to buy anything from his cafe to sit there.

The parklet also has a view of the Pacific Ocean!

We chose to sit inside since it was still chilly.

In fact, we sat at this interesting table...

Notice the chairs are in the rounded corners rather than the sides. I kind of didn't like it since the corner  of the table pointed at me. 

I researched this place online and was curious about the apple lychee croissant and their morning buns. The offerings were  really diverse - Portuguese egg tarts, croissants, and even a ginger carrot cream cheese morning bun (in addition to PBJ and bacon).



We went with two croissants, the aforementioned apple lychee (what a great combination) and the more "mundane" chocolate. No frills here. Paper plates. Not a deal breaker for me especially when the pastries were excellent like these were.  The other pastries were the morning buns. These were flaky rolls of goodness. Strangely, f these buns were topped with a round jellied slice One was PBJ and the other, bacon.  The bacon morning bun also had finely chopped bacon within those flaky layers.

Those jellied toppers looked so odd. I'd never seen morning buns like this before.



Of the morning buns, I liked the bacon better. For the croissants, the apple lychee was the winner.  I need to make myself a tart with that fruit combination!

I had a nice chat with the owner Bruno.  He had moved to SF in 2008 after having spent several years in San Diego. In fact, he was living in North Park, which at that time, hadn't gentrified to the point that it is today.  I remember North Park being a not-so-nice neighborhood in the 90's and early 2000's. How times have changed.  But back to Bruno...when he was in San Diego, he didn't have a bakery just yet.  He moved away to San Franciscio during the economic downturn.   Who knows what would have happened had he stayed? San Diegans would have been enjoying his pastries...there's nothing like this down here, sadly.  He was such a nice and friendly man. I let him know that if he were to ever move back down to San Diego and open up a bakery,  I would definitely be there!

Articles:
"Baker builds parklet to revitalize business" SF Examiner, Dec. 15, 2015
"Parklet debuts at Rolling Out Cafe" Hoodline, June 2016
plus a post by The Hungry Onion blog, "San Francisco Sunset - Fusion pasgtry at Rolling Out" Nov. 2016

Rolling Out Cafe
1722 Taraval St.
San Francisco, CA 94116
(415) 513-6054

www.rollingoutcafe.com

I did mention there was yet another stop, right? Well, it would be a return visit actually but this time, to try an unusual drink (which San Diego didn't have at the time, but now they do)...