San Francisco and what to do in it

There's a couple of ferry/harbor cruises that give you a great view of things. Can't recommend directly by name, however. I know, i'm useless.

City Lights bookstore? Yeah, you should hit that too.

Isotope Lounge on i think Noriega is a great comic shop, if you're into that sort of thing.

You could always go score at Golden Gate Park, too. That's good for a chuckle...

And, oddly enough, there is an excellent Japanese restaurant down at the Pier 39 (ir whatever) tourist mecca - hidden about two blocks down from the Ripley's museum - on the same side of the road - beautful - traditional service - a real treat.

And check-out Glide Memorial Church, in the tenderloin - wonderful, beautiful, a bit scary, and it's one of the few places in the U.S. that you can share your pew with TVs and prostitutes and dominatrixes and so forth - I love it!

http://www.asianart.org/ the asian musuem is wonderful, almost encyopedic and one of the best buildings in a long time.

And what's the name of that restaurant on the highway that looks right over the ocean? My mom and brother and I almost got thrown out of there for causing a drunken ruckus.

record stores:
amoeba (haight/stanyan)
aquarius (21st/valencia)
open mind (oak/divisadero)

brew brah:
toronado (haight/fillmore)
kilowatt (16th/albion)
zeitgeist (13th/valencia)
call 415-863-8350 and make a reservation for the anchor brewery tour, best deal in town (ie, free and plentiful beer).

music venues:
hemlock (polk/hemlock)
bottom of the hill (17th/missouri)
379 40th st (oakland)

music listings:
zumonline
the list

art:
the luggage store (market/6th)
5024 (fillmore/waller)
111 minna

restaurants:
el castillito (church/duboce) cheap mexican
farolito (24th/mission) cheap mexican
hotei (9th/irving) mid price ramen house
indian oven (haight/fillmore) mid price indian
kay cheung (jackson/ross) cheap dim sum
pakwan (16th/guerrero) cheap pakistani
powells (hayes/octavia) cheap soul food/fried chicken
sawa (divisadero/hayes) mid price eritrean
shimo (25th/clement) mid price japanese
thep phanom (haight/waller) mid price thai
yummy yummy (11th/irving) cheap pho house

uh... i can go on and on here...

this is a start let me know what else you want. i can get the MSP to add some east bay recommendations as he is more familiar with that area than i am...

more record stores:
grooves (1797 Market) -- all vinyl
groove merchant (687 Haight St) -- all vinyl. soul, jazz, breaks. kinda like a west coast dusty groove
street light (3979 24th St @ Noe) & (2350 Market St @ Castro)

more food:
la taqueria (mission @ 25th) -- my favorite carne asada burritos
bean bag (hayes @ divisidero) -- cheap good pasta. get the trieste
asqew grill (1607 haight) -- amazing skewers and mashed potatoes
cha cha cha (upper haight near amoeba) -- great tapas and sangria

don't miss the Exploratorium. hands on science experiments. cool shit. makes you feel like a kid again.

and i know we've named specific places where you'd go, but there are great areas to go shopping in.

obviously there's Haight. Upper Haight (from masonic to stanyan) is a 5-6 block area of commodified rebellion. record stores, food, clothing, tattoos. yada yada. Lower Haight (webster to scott) is a little less compacted, but has a few record stores (more on the dj side of stuff), restaurants, and flea market-y kindsa places.

Union Square is where all the name brand kinda stores are. lotsa department stores, nike town, mall-ish kinda stuff. but there are maybe 5-10 square blocks of shopping and eating there's also a Rasputins music and a Virgin Megastore. and Blondies, next to rasputin, is probably one of the best pizza joints in town.

the castro has a bunch of stuff to do (records, food), but i wouldn't really go shopping for clothes there unless you wanna look like you went shopping at International Male

and then in Berkeley, across the bay bridge, there's Telegraph Ave, which is kinda like upper Haight. there's an Amoeba, Rasputins and Blondies there too.

(you can see from my recomendations the only things i spend my money on are music and food)

you guys gonna rent a car? napa/sonoma are 1 hour's drive north. let me know if you want recommendations for vineyards.
(my favorite tasting room that i'd recommend for you young hipster dudes is bonny doon in santa cruz... about 90 minutes south of SF)

best pizza:
tomasso's (broadway/montgomery) - ranked top 5 pizzas in the USA by i forget who
zachary's (rockridge and n. berkeley - east bay) - unbelievable deep dish / stuffed pies

decent clothes shopping in the castro: Rolo but find a $ugar daddy first.

neighborhood guides

the mission district has decent shopping/peoplewatching between 16th and 24th streets bordered east/west by mission and valencia. bars/restaurants/shops (aquarius is here, as are some of the tacquerias mentioned above).

haight street between masonic and stanyan draws the line between hippy and hipster.

north beach (columbus between filbert and jackson and adjacent blocks) is nice on a sunny day, washington square park, st. peter/paul cathedral, italian cafes, some funny record stores: 101 records, the basement of 513 green st. @ grant is probably the only record store of it's kind in existance. there is one small block of hipsterism around powell and columbus.

more later

Frjtz on Hayes street is awesome Belgian fries, and BPM right next door is maybe the city's best dance-music specialist (smallish place, but they'll let you listen to anything in stock, CDs as well as vinyl)

Also more online listings:
flavorpill
transbay calendar

Now that I'm (kind of) a native, I can recommend a Greek restaurant called Kokkari..."something" in the Financial District, but it's not cheap.

The coffee in Berkeley all smells amazing. Try it for me, as it looks like I'm off the evil bean indefinitely, damnit.

I expect Sean to pop up and recommend Jardiniere in Hayes Valley, as he usually does. ;)

If it's a nice day, get a ferry over to Sausalito, but don't bother getting off. It's full of rats.

Nob Hill = MUST SEE: grace cathedral park (nabisco and chris v. *cry* on cue). also: fancy hotels, aristocratic history of last 150 years of SF, good views, in between union square and china town but it's a hike. the fairmont hotel has a super cheezy (but fun! or ?) tiki bar that has a decent happy hour... $5-6 but very potent drinks.

Potrero Hill:
not too much to see, but if you go to Bottom Of The Hill head up to 18th street between Connecticut and Arkansas, there is a couple good shops/restaurants/cafes... i recommend the coffee place (have no idea what it's called) and Eliza's for reasonable "gwai lo" style Hunan/Mandarin hybrid. Very good. Not sure how authentic you want your chinese food but this is good for SF-style. just west down mariposa from the bottom of the hill is the parkside another great bar that has good live music sometimes.

The Tenderloin:
The seedy underbelly of SF. Don't let it scare you, it's actually pretty mellow despite a high-profile of crime (sex/drugs). Lots of music happenings here: The Great American Music Hall (capacity 800), the Hemlock, the Edinburgh Castle (sometimes great shows/readings upstairs). Naan & Curry (o'farrell/leavenworth) is a easy/great/cheap indian. the big vietnamese place (i'm blanking on the name) on geary/larkin is not bad, the spicy shrimp appetizer will probably blow your head off if you're into that sort of thing.

inner sunset:
centered around 9th/irving lots of shops/restaurants cafes, more of a residential neighborhood. i recommended a couple asian restaurants in this area for good reason.

inner richmond:
across golden gate park from the sunset, there is some great shopping to be done on clement street... try green apple books (clement/5th), the best bookstore in SF, they have music too. there's lots of restaurants/large theatres (balboa/coronet) in this area too...

castro:
if you go to the cafe du norde for a show, head up market until it just can't get any queerer. in the mid-70s the castro replaced polk street as cruiser central and there's no turning back now. the castro theatre is the nicest theater i've set my foot in, excellent arty indie-friendly programming (i've seen yo la tengo and superchunk score silent films here)... beautiful beaux arts bronzework inside, you won't be treated to the pipe organist during matinees, but the evening program is worth coming early for the wurlitzer short performance.

[sidenote - excellent rep/revival theatres:
the red vic - haight/cole
roxie cinema - 16th/valencia [kindly note: check back on this link in two weeks]

PacBellPark
Home of your SF Giants. Even if you hate baseball, you will have a good time at PacBell Park. Sitting along the bay a short walk/Muni ride from downtown, you can get standing room tickets for $8 and sneakily find a seat and enjoy the game. Food/drink is expensive but try the bratwurst/hot dogs with grilled onions at the stand around section 104/105 ($4-$6) if that's your scene. Unless you go on Sunday, you stand a good chance of seeing the greatest player in the game (ever?) hit a homerun into the bay. (Aug 5-10;19-24)

more later

that being said, i still find some great stuff in the bargain bins at amoeba (which are bigger than most stores inventories) it's just so colossal and chaotic that it scares away most people.

(I kid, I kid - post-burst SF is actually supremely pleasant again)

i went back a few weeks later and had the worst experience in my entire life. bad service, a waitress that wispers even though the music is loud, and she has a tongue ring and has a lisp so you can't understand her even if she did speak up. they made us sit at a super small table (like 2 square feet) for 5 people. and half of the table had this artsy rock formation in the middle of it. we had to put our drinks on the ground because there wasn't enough room. the food was good, but the service was bad, which made the food kinda bad.

moral of story is, go there with gygax or don't go there at all.

well, better than smogville. i did inform you that i might be relocating , stop rubbing it in. (JasonD please treat as CONFIDENTIAL! PLEASE)

wrt "the boom"!: The boom wasn't so bothersome (so long as you ignored the establishments that catered to the boomers...) i mean really spencer, nothing says "dotcom SF" like foreign cinema:

"We were kind of the place for the chic, young, Prada-wearing, cell phone-carrying, CNBC-watching crowd, and for a while we were packed every night," explained Bruce McDonald, owner of the Foreign Cinema restaurant in San Francisco's Mission district.

Foreign Cinema, located in a spacious warehouse, complete with a wall-sized movie screen for diners' entertainment, used to serve 400 people a night. That number fell to as few as 30 late last year, as unemployment in the Internet sector mounted and surviving dot-com companies started watching their pennies.

To try to win back customers, Foreign Cinema recently revamped its pricey French Bistro menu to offer somewhat lower priced American comfort food like pork chops.

The film fare has changed, from esoteric foreign films to some cheerier all-American musicals like "Singing in the Rain." Comfort entertainment to go with the comfort food, which it is serving in increasingly large portions.

Foreign Cinema sees its moves as critical to its survival. It wants to reach out to an older, somewhat less stylish crowd that may not have money to burn but has enough to eat out from time to time.

"I do mourn the old days," McDonald said. "Life was a hell of a lot easier and you could count on a lot of money coming in. Now you have to work hard for it."

ugh.

berkeley, university ave and shattuck.

straight off the downtown berkeley bart.

modlang (www.modlang.com) - for latest uk imports. lot's of garage and psych stuff. very pop-oriented.

the comic store next to modlang rocks. i can't remember the name.

crepes a go-go... my favorite crepe place in the bay. i like it because it's not as frou frou as all those dumbass gourmet places. the (dark) chocolate, banana, coconut crepe is just perfect in semi-sweetness, texture, and fillingness.

there's a lot more in this area foodwise, etc. great china. sushiboat (or sushico). thai e sun.

if you head north on shattuck you find the gourmet ghetto where nouveau cuisine came from. the cheese board is the shit there for breads and cheeses. there's a deli next to a pegasus books that also rocks. barney's burgers is good. cha'am on shattuck is really really good thai.

berkeley... telegraph and durant

a 10 minute stroll up from downtown berkeley BART...

amoeba - the berkeley location doesn't have as good a used selection but the new stuff is just as together and it's a block down from rasputin's, which is another large store that isn't amoeba haight, but still decent. rasputins has a BUTTLOAD of seven inches. that's right. a buttload. both of these stores are also in the telegraph area of berkeley which has both moe's and cody's books, and more ... plus lot's of great food.

cafe intermezzo has awesome pbhb sandwiches...peanut butter honey and banana on big, thick wheat bread. the salads there are easily two meals and really good.

blue nile... great egyptian food.

top dog on durant is a favorite for hot dogs and stuff.

king pin donut on durant will make you fat with glee. the buttermilk donuts are pretty awesome. it's also on the end of the asian hallway... where you can pretty much get fast food asian of many different varieties. some better than others... but generally edible.

this area's also pretty well hooked up with vintage clothing stores and stuff and lot's of street vendors with all the dirty hippie hook ups you could possibly want.

Rockridge at college ave... off Rockridge Bart station.

great food... zacharay's deep dish chicago pizza is the shit.

pearl of siam is decent thai.

cactus taqueria is one of my favorite burrito joints... it's right off the bart there. it's probably not authentic enough... but it's all natural and way good.

barney's is there if you want burgers and shakes and curly fries that rock.

there's a dreyers ice cream store here. yum!

also on this stop is pendragon books... a small place that's pretty well packed... and another book store that's south on college on the right that i can't remember the name. both are very tasteful and have a great collection of the latest bits.

saturn records kicks ass. it's a small crowded place. there's a small section of spockmorgue weirdo stuff you can't find most places. it's also one of the best place in the bay area to find collector's vinyl. if you wanna tempt yourself with $30 trips to rarity heaven, saturn will probably do you right. i also like it cause they've got very condensed sections of certain types of music. pan through their punk section and you'll find the best of the best. you won't find the latest or the rare name... but there's a quality you usually don't find at most stores in the area.

i could describe a few other hoods... but but but...
m.

Also, I always eat at a Barney's whenever I'm in the Bay Area. The curly-fries are great for hangovers!

well the racist AI chatbot scandal literally happened in the past week.

other examples:
- https://medium.com/@contact_11245/unmasking-scott-wieners-nativist-hypocritical-attack-on-me-a201b3e7854a

- the fact that he supported Israeli apartheid and genocide until it was no longer politically expedient to do so, and has still accepted money tied to AIPAC, making him a liar

- his regular patronage of what is known in the gay community as the most racist of SF gay bars, Midnight Sun, which has faced boycotts from various groups over the years

- some more… personal stories about non-consensual “race play” during sex that I have been told by people who would, uh, know, if that makes sense

the transphobia thing is mostly re: no respecting the wishes of the trans madch organizers asking him not to attend.

I love you table, but I think he is far more qualified to be a congressperson from SF than Connie Chan

He's not transphobic all! He has sponsored bills in the State Senate that specifically protect trans people! And I think the reason those people hounded him out the trans march was because he's Jewish and is in favor of building more housing.

He was reluctant to call out Israel at first, but he now has and is in line with all of the rest of us.

That chatbot thing was mostly aimed at Connie's anti-housing, anti-transit views ('let's do nothing together'), but I can see that it might be interpreted as sexist and racist and I agree it was really not good.

If she wins I won't be unhappy.

I admire that when he is attacked (which he is, often), he doesn't fight back, he just lets it play out

I came out in 1978 as a medical student at Duke, and often went to the local Durham gay bar 42nd Street. Both lesbians and gay men went there. That was the era of Anita Bryant and the first gay activism. It was the perfect place to come out. Everybody was welcoming. My friend described it as a NYC nightclub for newbies, but in retrospect I think it was even more than that.

When I first moved to SF in 1980-1981 I went to the Midnight Sun a lot, my recollection is that a lot of hot guys stood around there and showed themselves off while we all watched dumb videos. I don't remember if I ever met anyone there but at the time it seemed magical to me, like a new world that I wasn't yet invited to.

I haven't been there in more than 40 years

He might be better than Chan, no arguing that. But he sucks.

the transphobia thing is mostly re: no respecting the wishes of the trans madch organizers asking him not to attend

Which is not actually transphobia imo… the organizers broadened the politics beyond just advocating for trans people… and there’s been this consistent political conflict around Pride events for decades (e.g. the Gay Shame movement)… it’s complicated imo … but I also think that he’s definitely guilty of similar tactics, like the activists who were criticizing his behavior re Gaza weren’t actually being antisemitic.

easy terms to throw around now that are extraordinarily loaded and incite an immediate reaction regardless of how legitimate they are

San Francisco something to do!

Sunday 4.30 I'll be doing a presentation and screening of URGH!A Music War with East Bay Ray in attendance for a Q&A

Hope this isn't too big:

https://i.imgur.com/3jxJwba.jpeg

Oh I am sorry I missed this!

I finally watched "Urgh! A music war" a few months ago and greatly enjoyed it.

Yeah I had a full day and couldn't make it! Hope it was a blast!

Are there any journalists around who write about art & culture who hate D@ve Egg3rs who might be interested in a uh story?

Damn... Sounds spicy

It’s kinda boring I guess n/m

what's the bottom line, is he evil

Yes and his project Art+Water is bullshit … especially in the context of CCA(C) spending prodigiously on buildings but then financially fucking faculty and staff and students and ultimately closing. This project that is promoted as an alternative to that art school is basically throwing a stupid amount of money (and wasting time) on the Pier 29 building that is just a temporary site.

I’m not entirely sure on the best way to get the info through public records so that people on the inside aren’t fired for whistleblowing or complaining etc

It’s basically arrogance, stupidity and waste meanwhile the media are kissing his ass about it.

that's too bad, it sounded promising initially

Interesting, I hadn't read anything about those plans for Pier 29.

That kind of feels to me like the plans that have been made for the SF Art Institute, which is in my block. A huge amount of money is being spent to renovate it - I have been listening the construction noise every day all day for months. I think the effort is great because it's an amazing historic campus and should be preserved ... but since it's not going to be a future art school I'm wondering what it will actually be in the end, or how it will be sustained, or how it will help artists or engage with the community

Probably going to be converted into a tech company campus

That isn't my impression, but I have no idea

https://www.archpaper.com/2025/06/former-san-francisco-art-institute-campus-renovation/

it's gonna be a billionaire-funded "arts center"

Yeah that’s what I heard too.

I started a goofy new project where I visit every public park in San Francisco and take pictures of them. Trying to gamify getting in better shape lol. I visited some interesting ones yesterday. In Noe I found a dog park that was so epic I kind of couldn't believe it. It seems crazy that this amazing spot was only for dogs, but I guess we also do that for golf. Do you all have any deep-cut parks in SF that you really like?

Wow great question. Unfortunately my answer is no, I don't. I live near Dolores Park, Corona Heights Park, near-ish to Buena Vista ... those are kinda my go-tos. Land's End isn't exactly a deep cut but it hasn't gotten old.

I've always kinda liked Juri Commons just because it's so weird... I used to cut through a lot when an ex lived on Guerrero

Corona Heights Park was one of my visits yesterday, that's a nice little spot.

One that I really loved was Pine Lake Park in the Sunset. It reminded me of Lake Chabot Park in Oakland, which is one of my regular spots. I'd been to Stern Grove before bit didn't realize there was this cool little canyon park behind it.

I live near Precita Park so I'm happily biased. But the small little park right in front of my house, I'm glad it's there.

Do you all have any deep-cut parks in SF that you really like?

Ina Coolbrith
Jack Early
Marini Plaza

fun fact: Ina Coolbrith was the niece of Mormon founder Joseph Smith

(polyp, thos are all within in ~15 minute walk)

I used to work in that area but was more into the bars than the parks in those days lol

you can drink in parks if you hide in the bushes

A judge Monday threw out all charges against 18 people arrested at the San Francisco “Stud Alley” party over Pride weekend in June.⁠
⁠
The 18 individuals were charged with resisting arrest, unlawful assembly and the failure to comply with a dispersal order. ⁠
⁠
But new evidence, acquired earlier this month, showed that San Francisco police officers did not issue an order of dispersal immediately before making those arrests. They had issued a dispersal order more than an hour earlier, while the party was taking place at a different location.⁠
⁠
In a Hall of Justice courtroom, visiting judge Brian Hill went one-by-one, asking attorneys for the background of each defendant. ⁠
⁠
He found that all but one had no prior criminal record. Many were employed, several had lost employment because of the arrest and one defendant, an immigrant, was facing potential visa issues as a result of the charges. ⁠
⁠
Hill read aloud from a San Francisco Police Department document called a “Chronological of Investigation” and reasoned that there weren’t sufficient facts to justify either “failure to disperse” or “unlawful assembly” charges for any of the individuals arrested.⁠
⁠
📸: Frankie Solinsky Duryea

Wanted to again mention the Kickstarter for the small cinema planned near me -- it's raised a good chunk of change for a lot of things but anything further helps fine tune and plan for the future! Wraps up Friday:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theportalcinema/the-portal-theater-san-francisco

those stud alley arrests were fucking bizarre. nothing even happened, AFICT. people gathered and there was a dj and they just showed up and started wailing on people and arresting them.

FAP, anyone? (I love the paragraph about just the sound system.)

Anyway, a cheerful tale of corruption and hidden passages and secret safes.

https://missionlocal.org/2026/09/walter-wong-kink-com-uncle-walters-mystery-house-citicenter/

You know, I remember really being surprised that the Matt Gonzalez campaign office was in this incredibly ugly spot, which was Citicenter.

Only now do I understand that connection.

Also I remember the heyday of kink.com when some of the stars would shop at my Safeway, but it seems like they moved on long ago.

(As you are exploring parks/open spaces in SF, I might as well mention that Mt Davidson seems to have a huge tick problem this season, but oddly other nearby spaces like Glen Canyon don't seem to have this problem)

Does C0l1n M. still post on ILX? I saw this headline and thought of him:

https://i.imgur.com/lIWM72E.png

SF is ripe for mocking

(NYT gift article)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/us/san-francisco-ai-satire-artificial-intelligence.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D1E.uldc.wfIsbM7u9J8z&smid=url-share

It's the Marin Lately guy. Some of his stuff was pretty funny but, as he says in the article, he kinda ran out of ideas. SF is a much broader canvas.

anecdotal but holy shit

San Francisco real estate agent Butch Haze recently helped a client search for a home in Noe Valley. The wealthy buyers — one of whom works at one of the city’s famed artificial intelligence companies — fell so in love with a particular property that they told Haze they’d do almost anything to get it. They submitted an offer 85% over the asking price, and Haze assumed they’d be guaranteed to win.

Instead, the couple lost out to someone who offered 90% more than the list price.

approaching this info with a bit of hesitation but i heard from a very reputable/reliable source that BOTH has a buyer and will not be closing... don't want to damper any of the "final show at this venue" marketing going around.

Good to hear if so, of course. If nothing else it's been great for getting a bunch of notable shows this year (will be there Sunday for Acid Mothers Temple).

yeah I've heard the same... I think they were doing fine financially (more or less), it's still a viable venue; they were just burned out

Yekutiel has dropped out

"I’m going to take this time to work on myself." lol!

I like Manny. I think he has been more of contributing citizen to SF than anyone I personally know.

And let me just say, I think this is all bullshit. I've probably been to more pride parties and circuit parties than anyone here. Everyone gropes everyone. It's a gay man thing. It's not something to get so offended by that you hold it back for years and then spring on somebody just before an election

But what's done is done

Here is what I think:

Gay men in SF are not snowflakes or innocents in any sense, to start with. They scare me sometimes, seriously

Also, I groped someone while standing in the aisle of a Muni bus on Pride Sunday in 1980 because he was leaning up against me suggestively and was very cute, and he groped me back. People smiled.

I have also been groped by men many times when I didn’t want it. I just pushed their hands off me. So what? I still respect those men. I have never thought of them as predators

At least in SF, in the past I've always thought gay culture was different from straight culture. Claiming victimhood from sexual advances by other gay men was not really a thing here and the idea of it would have been laughed at by people in my generation