Java Xpress

I’m giving this place 2 stars only because the donuts I got were excellent. Having said that the coffee sucked and I’m pretty sure I walked in on hustle. Ghetto dive for sure. Gave a man a dollar to add to his money for coffee, so my good deed for the day is done! Who knows I may brave the this place again due to the great donut I had!

I’ve gone here a few times when I get that hankering for stale coffee, good donuts and homeless people. And of course I’m never disappointed.
So I guess my last complaint kind of comes with the territory, I mean Java Xpress is located in Civic Center so it’s bound to be a homeless mecca aThe homeless aside Java Xpress would be and kind of is a nice little place. The donuts are mildly priced for what you get, some of them are obviously a rip off like $.85 for a chocolate frosted donut, come on! But then there are the gems like the giant, and when I say giant I mean it was HUGE apple fritter for $ 1.25. This time I chose to give the Apple Fritter a try, and must say that it was pretty delicious. It certainly hit the spot, as all of their pastries do.
Now then let’s move on to the coffee. The coffee is probably good when they put it out in the morning, or when ever it runs out. But for what you get the coffee is terrible. It’s stale, and just bland all around. They seem to offer a wide variety of coffees and each of them seem to have the same bland taste.

I stopped here on the way to the Civic Center BART station. It was a glorious August morning, and I was happy because I had just gotten a $ 160 traffic case dismissed at Superior Court. I celebrated by buying myself a donut.
Here’s my exchange with an employee, a cheerful young Asian:
Me: I’d like a coffee donut, please.
Employee: A coffee and a donut?
M: No, a coffee donut.
E: What size coffee?
M: Forget it. (Points at donut with beige frosting that appears to be coffee.) I want this one.
E: That’s a maple.
M: Yeah. I want this one.
As the employee rings me up and puts the pastry in a bag, a thought crosses her mind and her face lights up like Edison in his lab.
E: Oh!!! A coffee donut!
For service like this, AND a donut, $ 0.70 is a straight bargain.

one star for the custard machine… that is cool, although it takes the fun out of buying a custard filled donut and then just eatng the custard out of the middle… it’s like, why go to the effort of filling the donut, just have them give me the damn custard in a cup you know?
i ate an apple fritter there once
then i felt like i was going to give birth to a ferret, for, like, the rest of the whole freaking night.
Now, theoretically, there is one amazing, redeeming factor about java city. They sell green tea soy lattes.
The only problem is, none of the staff know how to make them.
one put green tea powder in a coffee latte.
many of them just dont’ know where the damn green powder is.
Now, i have much sympathy for the staff, for sure. It’s got to be tragically hard to work at that godforsaken place, but it’s also tragically sad for me to go in there, ready for a soy milk green tea (or green food coloring and sugar) latte, then give up and say
«oh well, i’ll just have a custard filled donut thanks»

I have a theory as to why crackheads congregate in donut shops– and it has to do with the amount of crack that goes into making every lovable kruller.
Java Xpress (formerly Java City formerly «The only coffee place open 24 hours in the SOMA») is located down the street from me. So I’ve gotten pretty used to the crack heads. That said, I wouldn’t go to this place without my trusty boyfriend by my side or a nice .38.
The coffee isn’t awful, but it ain’t good. The donuts are pretty okay. DO NOT TRY the fancy coffee drinks like mochas, etc. as it will be the worst decision of your life. That said, honestly, what would you expect from a place calling itself now Java Xpress that’s located across the street from Civic Center?
I always feel bad for the ladies who work here. Getting hit on by crackheads has gotta be a new low. The plexiglass they work behind can only protect them from so much. There is a single, lone violin constantly playing for the women of Java Xpress.
This place makes me wish that horrible corporate venues like Starbucks were open 24 hours. And if it can do that, well then, seriously, I mean, damn.
As for parking, do not park here. Your car will get stolen /​broken into /​and/​or deficated on. Seriously, I once saw a large black guy making a small korean guy pee out in front of this place. That’s right. MAKING him pee. If you’re not the kind of person who can see that sort of thing and shrug it off as normal Market St. behavior then you’d best stay away from here.

«There is nothing to fear but fear itself»…Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Obviously FDR had never been to San Francisco’s Civic Center. It’s rather dicey at the intersection of 7^th and Market where drug deals go down at the nearby UN Plaza and street people congregate by rote in front of Carl Jr.‘s. That’s why I generally gallop at a pulse-​quickening pace in this area. But I have to acknowledge Java Xpress on the southeast corner. They offer an extensive collection of heart-​stopping donuts and Chinese food — an odd combination apparently available at night. I added the strangely unappetizing photo to satisfy your curiosity.
In a weak moment, I did get a cinnamon twist once. It was in my stomach for days. But the people there are amazingly chipper considering the number of people who must try to bum food and change from them. Their large iced coffee is a treat on a hot day. I have to say I would never consider sitting in one of the two booths there. I think they have permanent occupants anyway and probably a waiting list. No, no… I take my plastic cup and trot into the horizon as quickly as I can.
FOOD — 1.5 stars… Donuts and chow fun?
AMBIENCE — 1.5 stars… generally clean but step outside and (…starting to shake)
SERVICE — 3 stars… chipper
OVERALL — 2 stars… barely

This place is part of a three-​in-​one (one long «food court» kinda place, featuring not only Java Xpress, but also a now empty section that has so far been a failed chinese restaurant and a failed taqueria, and also the not so good Dog Out). It is easily the best place there. Before they moved into this building, the coffee and donut shop that was there before was really popular with the local crackheads, but when that place closed down and moved across the street to become a chinese food/​donut shop, the crackheads all got confused and dispersed to, I dunno, someplace else before they moved to the otherside of the block to populate the area surrounding the recently opened Louisiana’s Fried Chicken. Somehow Java Xpress has managed to keep the crackhead population in and around their area to a minimum, which I imagine takes equal amounts of muscle and voodoo magic. They seem to always be open and their coffee is decent. But my most favorite thing about this place is that the other day I went in there and on a whim decided to have a custard filled chocolate donut. After the employee took what was apparently the hollowed-​out shell of my chocolate donut and reconfirmed that it was custard filling that I wanted, she pulled out this huge machine with a giant tub of custard on top of it and set it on the counter. There were two metal tubes projecting from this machine. She commenced to «spear» my donut onto these two tubes which then filled my donut with custard. It was amazing. My life changed from that moment on. I’ve never seen this done before but I loved it. Some people are grossed out when I tell them about this, but I highly recommend going there and ordering a custard-​filled donut, you’ll be glad you did. Oh, and don’t be put off by the dirty windows, that is unless you plan on licking or touching them.