Paper Son Coffee (opens in new tab)<\/a>. Barista Alex Pong launched the business as a pop-up out of Dogpatch bakery Neighbor Bakehouse in 2023, and it has since become one of San Francisco\u2019s most highly regarded coffee shops, with a first permanent location on Second and Folsom in SoMa.<\/p>\n\u201cWe weren\u2019t actively looking,\u201d Pong says, \u201cbut the more we engaged in the space and the neighborhood, it was a romantic notion. There\u2019s some poetry around the concept.\u201d<\/p>\n
The name Paper Son pays homage to the way Pong\u2019s family immigrated to the United States; until the 1950s, many Chinese immigrants entered the country using false documents that identified them as the children of U.S. citizens \u2014 a practice that gave rise to the term \u201cpaper son.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cafe\u2019s beverage menu will highlight pour-overs, espresso, and signature drinks, such as a matcha passionfruit soda and Thai tea cloud. Pong says hand-poured drinks are hallmarks of Chinese cafes, and he wants to bring that tradition to the neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There will be seasonal single origin coffees from Yunnan, China\u2019s prominent growing region. The debut blend, called Apricot Mist, references the original restaurant that existed in the Soon and Soon building, \u674f\u82b1\u6a13, and the former Four Seas Restaurant space that Mister Jiu\u2019s now occupies at 731 Grant Ave. (\u201cApricot might not be the direct translation,\u201d Pong admits, \u201cbut it\u2019s like floral, or almond.\u201d) That coffee is a blend of a yeast-inoculated Yunnan coffee mixed with a washed Ethiopian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve secretly done in-house roasting at our downtown location,\u201d Pong says. \u201cI want to try Paper Son as a roaster on this small scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also seeking a pastry partner, hoping to recreate the kind of collaboration Paper Son has with pop-up bakery and salt bread specialist Tano at its SoMa cafe. Though, because the space is so small, the only seating will be outdoors in a yet-to-be-built parklet. During its original run, Soon and Soon sold a bevy of branded rings, hats, totes, and more; a press release teased a similar lineup of specialty goods, merchandise, wine, and to-go beverages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The partnership grew out of a shared connection between Jew and Pong: a commitment to honoring their Chinese heritage. Pong didn\u2019t grow up in San Francisco, but his father\u2019s side of the family has roots here (his grandfather once ran a shop around the corner on Sacramento Street), so he understands the significance of opening in the country\u2019s oldest Chinatown. He\u2019s got the tools to make it work: a commercial-grade single-grouphead Synesso ES1, two baristas to staff the new cafe, and a neighborhood history he aims to honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some echo of that in what Mister Jiu\u2019s does,\u201d he says. \u201cWe really have to pull it off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soon and Soon Souvenir ShopDate and timeOpening late summer or early fall 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published Jul. 27, 2026at6:00am A new chapter is coming for Soon and Soon Souvenir Shop, and this time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413800,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[32135,13005,16221,9913,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-413799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-boom-loop","tag-chinatown","tag-coffee","tag-pop-ups","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}