After more than a year and a half of planning, permitting, and construction, Black Sands has softly opened at 701 Haight St.
Well, sort of.
For the first few days, Black Sands will be open from about 8am to 3pm, serving a variety of coffee drinks and pastries. Co-owner Robert Patterson tells us the idea is to introduce folks in the neighborhood to the space while they work out the remaining details of the lunch, dinner, and evening bar service. Those will likely follow sometime next week.
For now, start your mornings at the back of the bar, where you'll find De La Paz coffee and espresso drinks, matcha cappuccinos and lattes, and pastries from Jane on Larkin.
You can also order items from the kitchen like a chorizo and egg breakfast torta ($7), griddled Jane banana bread with butter ($4), or Lanai spiced granola ($6).
Patterson tells us some of the spent grains from the brewing process are baked and reused in the granola, along with a variety of other ingredients:
While the full bar won't likely be operational in the mornings, you will be able to order beer from the cafe if you're so inclined, and there will likely be some booze-infused coffee options in the future (a "breakfast of champions," as Patterson puts it). There's also a keg of cold-brew coffee on tap that's infused with nitrous oxide, giving it what Patterson describes as a Guinness-like texture.
When lunch launches, it'll be a simple offering of two entrees per day — one vegetarian, one meat-based. The dinner menu has yet to be finalized, but it will follow a tapas-style small plates concept. The kitchen, helmed by chef Eric Ehler, will likely be open until 10:30 or 11pm.
The space at Black Sands is bright and airy, with light woods, marble counters and tabletops, and plenty of windows flooding the place with sunlight.
There are about 20 stools at the bar and kitchen counter, four two-top tables, and two larger communal tables, plus additional stools near the entrance and in the rear of the space.
The swirling pattern that used to adorn the plywood outside of Black Sands can now be found in the interior, both inside and outside the restroom in the rear of the shop. (The bathroom mirror is particularly spectacular.) The pattern is inspired by wort, the liquid extracted from the mashing process during beer brewing.
In addition to the full bar opening in the near future, there are other developments in the works for Black Sands. They've applied for a parklet, and will be opening their popular home-brew shop on Fridays in addition to their current Saturday/Sunday operating hours. They've also finished developing their Free Beer For Life app for those that contributed to their Indiegogo campaign (a total of almost 400 people, Patterson says).
We'll have more details on that, and on all of Black Sands' beer/cocktail/dinner offerings, in the days ahead. For now, get on down to the corner of Haight and Pierce between 8am and 3pm, have yourself a coffee or a bowl of granola, and welcome this new addition to the neighborhood.
