Go to Barcelona, in Europe, and walk around anywhere in the city. There are a few Starbucks, but full with short-term tourists only, who need the reassuring familiarity of ordering exactly the same thing as they do home.
The long-term tourists, aka those in love with the city and who find themselves unable to leave it, enjoy the "bars i cafes" that exist all over. Many, many of them privately owned, not part of a chain.
A big difference between San Francisco and Barcelona is the following: people's houses and work places are all in the same place (which does not mean that the inhabitant's don't commute anyway). If anything, this overlap provides business throughout the entire day. This overlap provides "eyes on the street", that Jane Jacobs described, in her book "Death and Life of Great American Cities", as the source of safety and comfort (and thus business opportunities) in any city street, along with very small blocks so that walking around the local neighborhood is possible.
Perhaps in the big cities of the USA that match the Los Angeles sprawl model, like San Francisco does to some extent (as opposed to Manhattan & Brooklyn), only chain cafes may survive, riding on the low costs of mass production and distribution.
San Francisco isn't on the sprawl model. It is not a typical American city that's been hollowed out to be a workplace for people who live in the suburbs. It's pretty dense with a mixture of residential and business. There are other weirdnesses though - people who work in the suburbs and live in the even-further-out suburbs come to SF for entertainment.
The Mission district is particularly local-oriented since there is a large youth and student population and a lot of professionals who either consult or work from home. Hence... cafes. Although this is more of a district that people live in during their 20s rather than their whole lives.
The long-term tourists, aka those in love with the city and who find themselves unable to leave it, enjoy the "bars i cafes" that exist all over. Many, many of them privately owned, not part of a chain.
A big difference between San Francisco and Barcelona is the following: people's houses and work places are all in the same place (which does not mean that the inhabitant's don't commute anyway). If anything, this overlap provides business throughout the entire day. This overlap provides "eyes on the street", that Jane Jacobs described, in her book "Death and Life of Great American Cities", as the source of safety and comfort (and thus business opportunities) in any city street, along with very small blocks so that walking around the local neighborhood is possible.
Perhaps in the big cities of the USA that match the Los Angeles sprawl model, like San Francisco does to some extent (as opposed to Manhattan & Brooklyn), only chain cafes may survive, riding on the low costs of mass production and distribution.