Best Lunch Meeting Spots In The Bay Area

With a prominent location right across from San Francisco's main Caltrain station, the Creamery is a major hotspot for lunch meetings and for people on the go. Once depicted as "deal central" for local techies in the City, the hip bistro/coffee shop is better suited as a lunch meeting spot rather than a place to work remotely for several hours. However, with the free WiFi, along with outstanding breakfast and lunch items served daily, indoor and outdoor seating, it's not uncommon to see a laptop at virtually every table beyond the lunch hour. In addition to a full drink menu of coffees and teas, the Creamery has a full bar and 11 beers on tap, including local favorites like Anchor Steam and Back in Black 21st Amendment.

There's something quite special about the Blue Bottle in downtown Palo Alto. Located in the heart of the city's central shopping district, the coffeehouse/cafe now occupies the area that formerly housed the Varsity Theatre built in 1927 and several decades later, a now defunct national bookstore chain. As one of the largest Blue Bottle locations in the Bay Area, the cafe designed by Hanahaus draws plenty of students, techies and others who need a convenient place to work on their laptops. In fact, many of the tables and chairs are set up so nicely; the cafe resembles a spacious study hall in a modern library. In addition to the award-winning single origin coffee selections from Oakland-based Blue Bottle, the food menu at the Palo Alto cafe features plenty of delicious items, such as oatmeal and toast, breakfast sandwiches, spring vegetable salads and pastries.

With free WiFi, plenty of workspace and great food, it's easy to know why Coffee Bar is a welcome spot for students and workers on the go. Of the three San Francisco locations, the most popular is the flagship store on Bryant Street, which is widely used by laptop users and features outdoor seating and provides a work guide so that lunch only patrons have a space to dine. Coffee Bar offers both a breakfast and lunch menu and includes tasty dishes like breakfast bowls and breakfast burritos, sandwiches and salads. The coffee at all three locations is sourced directly from Oakland-based Mr. Espresso, a beloved Bay Area institution since 1978.

Walk into any Philz Coffee store in the Bay Area and it's all but certain to have a number of tech savvy customers already working away on their laptops. This is especially true for the Shattuck Avenue location, just a few minute's stroll from the Downtown Berkeley BART station and not far from the UC Berkeley campus. Widely acclaimed for its superb drip coffees like Jacob's Wonderbar and Mocha Tesora, Philz Coffee also sells a variety of fresh pastries and small desserts made with organic ingredients, but is said to also allow outside food. Although the Shattuck location can be very crowded during the noon hour, Philz has two other Berkeley stores, in addition to the original store in San Francisco's Mission District and several other Bay Area locations. Philz Coffee is so universally acclaimed for its exceptional drip coffee selections that Mark Zuckerberg was compelled to open up a store right on the Facebook campus in Menlo Park.

The problem for people looking for a bite to eat and a place to work remotely is that most, if not all tables are already taken. This is especially true in the innovative Bay Area, where laptops are nearly as ubiquitous as smart devices. To solve the issue of laptop nomads taking up dining space, the founders of Workshop Cafe have come up with the novel approach of renting workspaces of all sizes for people who can also enjoy a really great meal. While the use of WiFi in the patio and front lounge area are always free to customers, the ability to reserve a workplace area for as little as $2-$3 per hour takes away the possibility of waiting for a dining table. What's more, the first 10 hours of reserving a seat in a workspace through the Workshop Cafe mobile app is free. Since the Workshop Cafe opened a few years ago in San Francisco's Financial District, it's become a popular spot for business meetings, workshops and corporate events for up to 180 people.