"On Van Ness Avenue, a newer player partnered with Middle Eastern rooftop party Baladi for a daytime fiesta and linked with El Coffee Party for a large event featuring Edward Khoury; multiple parties filled the spacious floor inside a former movie theater, drawing about 450 people by the end of a weekend and featuring Dubai chocolates and Arabic beats. Those events were coordinated after a local reached out via Instagram to owner Rebecca Fox; she says these DJ dance parties — full of young professionals chatting about hobbies and politics — are terrific and that social events at coffee houses or sober gathering spaces hark back to coffee’s origins of brewing, bringing folks together, and letting the heady energy bubble over. As an owner she sees it as her responsibility to host positive community events, and she is planning a big Halloween-themed fiesta in October." - Paolo Bicchieri