Owners Michael McCrory and Lauren Crabbe stand in front of Andytown Coffee Roasters as the sun sets on the western half of San Francisco.

My friends Michael and Lauren opened a coffee shop in the Sunset District of San Francisco a few months ago and so far Andytown Coffee Roasters is KILLING it. These two deserve the success but the process to open doors on the tiny well caffeinated shop at 42nd and Lawton was a long hard fight against paperwork and construction problems. Opening your own brick and mortar business is HARD.

I unfortunately was out of the country when they first opened their doors but I tried to help by spreading the word on social media and taking handout photos of them when they were doing their build out.

The Snowy Plover.

Now that they are up and running the task of creating a fully functioning web site is at hand and I am working with Lauren to get them the images they need to illustrate the site.

The wonderful thing about shooting for their web site it that it is giving me a chance to do food photography which I absolutely love. A great thing about being a freelancer is that you can really steer yourself towards what you would rather be doing commercially.

To the left is the mighty ‘Snowy Plover’ which has become Andytown’s signature beverage… and I wouldn’t doubt if it is also their most photographed beverage. A pint glass of sparkling water, simple syrup, espresso and fresh whipped cream the Snowy Plover is beautiful and bears a striking resemblance to a fresh pint of Guinness.

In addition to the Snowy Plover they are also creating a buzz with their freshly roasted coffee and amazing baked goods. Several years ago I had the pleasure of eating a fresh scone at a bakeshop at 5 am and I realized how wonderful they can be. Andytown takes their in-house baked goods to the next level by baking them as needed all day long. I really can’t decide what my favorite baked good is but my favorite to photograph are the cocoa nib sea salt cookies.

I love their perfect dramatically dark heart shape so I experimented with my light on them the other day.

Cocoa Nib Sea Salt Cookie.

Oh, and you can’t forget the coffee.

Lauren pouring a latte.