With its institutional lighting, black and white checkered floor, and high-backed, Alice-in-Wonderland red velvet chairs, Mediterraneum Caffe is where many say the espresso revolution began in 1958.

Malcolm Margolin, a Berkeley publisher, remembers the early days of the Med: ``Today you can get espressos and regular caps all over -- it's become part of the language -- but in the late '60s, a macchiato was an exotic experience. The coffee really was extraordinary, and for a dollar you could have a table and sit around -- there was the sense that real life was this coffee shop life, this mixing ground of poets and politicians.''

The Med has always catered to a political crowd. In 1969, activists fighting for the preservation of People's Park met at the Med, and in the same era Jerry Rubin -- the political firebrand credited with coining the phrase, ``You can't trust anybody over 30'' -- spent his free time there... - www.sfgate.com