Coffee and air plants, anyone?
Flora Grubb Gardens is located in an area that has been considered, until quite recently, the city’s nether regions, but is now on the leading edge of gentrification. It’s off the 3rd-Street corridor, down in the Bay View district, a neighborhood still better known for homicides than horticulture.
This 2,800-square-foot garden center includes an espresso bar and offers periodic lectures on topics such as green architecture, hanging gardens or innovative landscape design. The selection of available vegetation is broad. There are palm trees, Japanese maples, succulents, shrubs, and grasses, all set out in beautiful pots, or in unconventional holders, like hanging bicycles and an old Ford Edsel. There are also a variety of exquisite vertical gardens displayed throughout the center, which gives the space the feeling of a living art gallery. At the core of Flora Grubb is a deep interest in collaboration—this is a place where all kinds of artisans create their own synchronicities—and the results are a bit magical.
Info
Address 1634 Jerrold Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94124, www.floragrubb.com, +1 415.626.7256 | Public Transport Bus: 23 (Jerrold Ave & Phelps St stop) | Hours Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–5pm| Tip Nearby is Bayview Rise, a big, bold, playful mural painted on the 187-foot shaft of a grain silo (Pier 92, off 3rd Street).
The small coffee counter is hosted by the coffee-roasting company Ritual Coffee and houses an espresso machine and a five-ring pour-over bar crafted from copper piping. You can enjoy your latte at the cafe tables or on the heated cast-stone sofa in the charming garden patio—you may never want to get up!
Flora Grubb is a woman with a deep affinity for gardens; she has nurtured this “rustic urban” oasis since opening in 2007. She once described her Earth Day wish in an interview with Grace Bonney: “It is always my wish that I’m helping people to create gardens that they love … and that the connection they make to nature through their garden will inspire them to live more gently on the planet. It is my wish that more and more people will turn to their gardens to find sanctuary, and that they will develop a love for growing things that will stay with them for their whole lives.”
Nearby
Back
To the online map