This is absolutely a great place to see and be seen. Across the street from the park, in the neighborhood of the inner Sunset - it even has free parking (a true rarity) in the back.
The food is standard/a bit above average cafe food. We ordered an odd mix of muffins, pita, hummus, babaganouch, croissants, tea, wine all sorts of stuff - we were all tired and hungry as we came here after an afternoon of sightseeing in the Presidio and making holes in the sand at Baker Beach with the kids.
But, on top of the standard cafe fare this is also an excellent (truly) art gallery - I fell madly in love with the work on an artist named Tim Yankosky, and if it weren't for that pesky mortgage I'd have bought one of his pieces.
You can view their exhibits here.
My friends that I was visiting have several pieces on their walls that they've purchased at Canvas. They told me the owner has a committment to unknown local artists, so the work is both beautiful AND somewhat reasonably priced (from $50 but never more than $1500). Unfortunately, I still couldn't afford anything on this trip, but I'll definitely be back.
The cafe was packed - full of of med students from the University nearby, tech types with their heads stuck in expensive laptops sucking down lattes, arty types in black with tiny eyeglasses drinking wine, and moms in casual chic with $2000 strollers. We wound up chatting with some Japanese tourists and one of the stroller moms for quite some time. Her baby fell in love with ours.
I could not recommend this place more highly and here's the URL so you can find your way there: click here.