Fresh Brew Coffee

Delicious food, inexpensive, and friendly service. Classic banh mi with a little California nod in avocado are the main draw. Wish I worked in the neighborhood so I could go every week!

I love this place! Food is great, service is even better. Case in point: I live in the neighborhood, and went to get a sandwich today, only to realize that my credit card had expired and I had no cash on me. The owner (?) completely rolled with it; he put my order in anyway and told me just to pay the next time I come in. Who does that! Amazing service.

I live right around the corner and this is one of my favorite things about the neighborhood. The family is very friendly, and their banh mi are delicious.

I’ll make this quick. Fantastic place! The coffee is better than Starbucks, the food was excellent, and it was CHEAP! Also, the service was great. They were very cheerful and helpful.
We had a regular drip coffee and a mocha, both of which were much better than Starbucks, as I said above. My husband had the bacon, egg and cheese bagel which was fresh and just the right texture. I was thrilled that they offered their Vjetnamese sandwiches (banh mi) for breakfast as well. I had the bbq pork and it was delicious! Fresh, perfectly balanced and the bread was just right. And for $ 4.75? We ordered more to go for our drive home.

This place rules. Always really quick and so friendly. Great value. I always come back. Plus everything is delicious.

This place scores in terms of food and service – love it!
Ambiance: small, but there is some seating in here. Plan on taking your food to go. It’s in a really ideal location near Union Square. There is a tiny bit of seating outside for warmer days and they have wi-​fi.
Service: the man behind the counter and his little daughter were so sweet. He was super friendly, attentive, and quick. I love seeing a smile first thing in the morning. The little girl was so cute and talkative. A friendly encounter, especially from a place that serves quick food, really means a lot to me. It can make your day and shows they take pride in what they do. I’ll be a return customer for sure.
Food: Stellar sandwiches! We ordered a breakfast sandwich (egg, cheese, bacon, added avocado) and banh mi (chicken). They both were delicious. The prices were low, especially considering you can get a banh mi for $ 8 in some places. I’d love to come back to try their other sandwiches.

A wonderful little place to grab a morning sandwich and some coffee. The family running the place are so friendly and accommodating that an onlooker could have sworn I must have been coming in regularly for years. That experience alone warrants a high rating!
The breakfast sandwich I tried was really good and the espresso I had was good enough (though not fantastic). The prices were very reasonable. As for the dining area — the shop is pretty small with seating for about 10 or so, but it appeared that the normal crowd was the grab-​and-​go sort.
If I’m back in the area at any point, I’ll try to stop by again to explore the menu further!

I stayed at Union Square a few days and ended up getting breakfast here every day except when they were closed on Wednesday. The bacon, egg, and cheese croissant sandwich costs $ 5 and is perfect. The bacon is crispy, they use a real egg (not egg beaters) and they fry the egg so there is just a little bit of runny yolk, they use cheddar cheese, the croissant is fresh and buttery, and the assembled sandwich is toasted. Definitely beats other breakfast sandwiches that serve limp bacon or a scrambled egg patty or a stale croissant… I also tried a smoked salmon bagel sandwich ($ 6), which contained cucumber, tomato, red onion, and capers (my favorite!). It was also solid, but there’s just something about that bacon egg and cheese sandwich… Moreover, the owner is very courteous which offers a very pleasant start to your day. Some day I will return to try the $ 5 bahn mi.

After searching for a new Vietnamese sand which around downtown, a friend had referred me to this place and may I just say it’s pretty good! I don’t need to travel all the way to lil Saigon for delicious Vietnamese Sammie when I have one near me! Def coming back! The staff is amazing and very chatty! It feels very neighborhoody!

Wonderfully friendly owners and tasty Vietnamese-​style sandwiches seal the deal. I love waking up to a spicy sandwich and Vietnamese-​style coffee.

I love this place. I come here almost every day for their Vietnamese iced coffee and breakfast sandwich. Service is fast and owner is extremely friendly. Always a great way to start the day when I get to stop by here.
Edit (12/​19/​2015): noticing an influx of tourists here, most of which appear to be quite impatient and rude. Please don’t ruin this place for us locals. Go somewhere else if you want to be pampered on your vacation.

Thank you fellow Unilocal...came in here while visiting. Awesome service and food. The owner is super nice and the food and coffee.

Warm happy welcome upon entering the shop. They were cracking jokes with me. I knew for sure I wanted a large coffee. then I realized there was a breakfast coffee combo (coffee medium) I said oh and he said no worries you can have the large. They were fast in getting my breakfast sandwich ready the only thing to make it better is hot sauce. Wonderful art work by their daughter iris and great customer service!

So delicious. I mean just look at my picture. Did you see it? Yeah. It’s beautiful. AND $ 5! I’m a fan of FBC not only because they satisfy my banh mi and Vietnamese coffee cravings, but the people who run this place are just so, so nice. Multiple times they greeted customers by name and that’s always a good sign.
A tip: Get there before or after the lunch rush if you want a place to sit.
My go to: BBQ Chicken w/​paté Banh Mi with an iced Vietnamese Coffee.

Delicious breakfast sandwich. Amazing service. Super friendly and fast. Nice place to grab a quick breakfast in the morning.
Love their avacado, egg, cheese and ham sandwich.

Come here for their banh mi (Vietnamese sandwich). I’ve had banh mi throughout Vietnam and at Saigon Sandwich (among other places in the city), and the banh mi here is my favorite. Get the Chicken Meatball & Avocado with jalapeño.
The baguette is always toasted and crunchy on the outside and soft and warm in the middle, and the ingredients are always fresh. It’s also $ 5, which is on the higher end for banh mi — but hey, it’s enough for a meal so I still consider it very cheap.

It’s inconspicuously delicious.
If you haven’t looked this place up because:
a) live under a rock
b) only use Rand McNally Maps
c) communicate with two tin cans and string
d) all or some of the above
Then you’ll probably walk past Fresh Brew Coffee and not even give it another thought. For the rest of us, this tiny place offers up great lunchtime banh mi sandwiches. The guy behind the counter (owner?) was super friendly and personable with our order.
Seating was super limited so the boy and I lugged our vietnamese iced coffee, hot green tea and banh mi sandos up Taylor (work them legs!) and enjoyed lunch in Huntington Park.
Both the chicken meatball and veggie (falafal) sandwiches were great picks!
‘Til next time, FBC!

This place is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it small, but it has a ton of heart.
I needed a place to hunker down and get some writing done while in SF, and the handy-​dandy Unilocal app directed me to this tiny spot a few blocks from my hotel. Despite the generic name, Fresh Brew Coffee is more than just a coffee shop, serving smoothies and banh mi sandwiches at impressively low prices.
I opted for a strawberry/​banana smoothie with a chicken meatball and avocado banh mi, which the friendly fellow behind the counter whipped up in no time. The smoothie was absolute perfection — thick, creamy, and tasty. As for the banh mi – it’s filling was flavorful and enjoyable, but the bread was rock-​hard. You win some, you lose some.
The important thing was that nobody seemed to mind that my laptop and I bogarted one of the only small tables in the space. Apparently all the other customers do take-​out.
This place is definitely worth returning to next time I’m in the area.

5 stars for service. This family-​owned shop has the nicest people. The service can be a little slow, because it’s made fresh and there isn’t much staff, so give yourself enough time if you are in a rush.
4 stars for the bahn mi. All sandwiches are close to $ 5, which is a little bit more for bahn mi, but pretty good for a lunch considering the area. I liked the BBQ chicken with not too much meat and lots of veggies. I haven’t personally tried the veggie bahn mi, but I saw that it’s stuffed with falafel, which is an interesting take on a veggie bahn mi. Good or bad, someone else will have to decide.
2 stars for the tapioca drinks. These aren’t tea drinks. It’s some fruit-​flavored sugar milk with too chewy, old-​tasting boba.

San Francisco, you’re insane. I have lived my whole live in and around a large Vietnamese population, eaten a lot of Vietnamese food. How is it you were able to give me Bánh mì that was better than anything I’ve had down here?
And before I continue, know that it wasn’t just me who had this opinion. It was also shared by my Vietnamese fiancée and her family.
Anyway, enough history lesson. Came here for some lunch to take back to the hotel, hoping for a quick sandwich meal. Now while I just praised the quality of the sandwiches we got, I must first reflect on the experience of this shop.
One, rename your shop. I mean, with Unilocal and locals I’m sure there isn’t a problem maybe, but how exactly would one know what was offered here besides coffee. I don’t remember there being a clear indicator that they sold Vietnamese sandwiches from outside.
Two, I get they’re made fresh and there is only one person in the shop, but a 20 minute wait for 7 sandwiches seems like a lot.
Three, expensive. Well, relatively expensive. $ 4+ for a sandwich compared with Garden Grove prices which are around $ 2.75 each and usually buy 2 get 1 free. Ultimately you get what you pay for, so it’s definitely a higher quality.
So was it worth it? Yes. The bread was nice and warm and crispy thanks to a toaster oven behind the counter. All the ingredients tasted fresh and flavorful (I got the BBQ pork one), and she did apologize for the wait when we finally got the food.
Oh, also got the Vietnamese iced coffee. About on par with so-​so Vietnamese iced coffee around here, complete with the filling the cup with ice as much as possible beforehand (at least she didn’t use crushed ice like Lee’s Sandwiches, so there was more volume for the coffee to flow into). Basically an expensive cup of alright iced coffee.