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!

I only went there once and saw a local thing friends played in. it's been years. sad.

omg— when I was in grad school at CCA, Thee Parkside was my second home. fuck.

I do seem to remember especially loving the fries at Thee Parkside?

Re downtown: I am among those who believe that it was just too planning monoculture. Too much office-only space which proved fragile and hard to fix when something unfathomable happened

What's everyone thinking about our mayor dinking with the city charter?

The SF city charter has been amended so many times that it is a completely arcane mess. The mayor wanting to streamline it is a good thing imo

https://i.imgur.com/7TgRaw4.jpeg

xp i seem to remember tater tots at thee parkside, regardless it’s a lovely venue that will be missed.

Tater tots otm.

yeah, tots and their greasy veggie burger

There are so many embarrassingly hyped Super Bowl tie-in events.
Including

BAHC Super Bowl LX Innovation Summit, San Francisco
This invitation-only leadership summit bills itself as “a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind gathering at the intersection of sports, technology, civic leadership and global storytelling,” bringing together “500 hand-selected leaders from across tech, sports, venture capital, private equity and culture.”
Details: Feb. 6, SFMOMA, 151 Third St., San Francisco. The event is invitation-only

Like, that seems like an opportunity for creative protest

https://marchforbillionaires.org/#details

wtf I thought that was some kind of satire site when I first clicked over to it

lol wut

I wonder what the ratio of actual billionaires to jokesters will be. I, for one, will be dressed as the Monopoly man

that is the most insane thing i have seen in the past few days

Best chant I heard in the Dr. Su protest footage:

"We know why your pay's so high*...
Because your kids go to SI"

*$385k/yr

It's beyond embarrassing not to mention a major *RED FLAG* to have an elected supervisor in charge of our public school system who chooses to send her kids elsewhere. The school district bled out an additional $40M (!!!) due to their performative bargaining stall, which they eventually conceded after 144 hours of the strike (and 11 months of deliberation!). Everyone involved on the district side should be ashamed. Can't give enough thanks to our teachers and faculty.
What an enormous waste of time and money.

I think that's not uncommon, we had the same situation with a super in Berkeley schools a few years ago, who seemed alright until covid hit and he was revelead as barely competent and disengaged, and people also found out he sent his two kids to private schools.

how did they lose 40 million in this stall? in 4 days or over the past 11 months?

385k a year is ghastly. I mean no doubt this is a horrendous job and it should pay well but that's probably 100k more than I would have expected.

well you need to live in PacHeights so you have a direct visual view of all the schools in the City

I'll bet she lives in hillsborough

kinda sounds like the union got everything they wanted?

They did not - only 6% raise instead of 9% and the line items for special ed time did not make the deal. Paid sabbaticals were canceled/voided I think too. But they did get full health care.

Really dread driving these days. One of the most dangerous places I've ever driven.

I don't blame ya.

I usually ebike and Caltrain for the occasional commute. Earlier in the week I took a car down San Mateo during 8am rush and it was like AN HOUR. Last time I actually drove down there regularly when I was commuting there it took no more than 45 mins tops in the AM. Holy shit.

The city has once again rapidly transformed from even 2-3 years ago. This feels worse than 2018/2019

Transformed how? I lived there 1996-2001 and have only been back a few days here and there.

Well a whole fuck ton more than 2001 - it's a different universe than those years.

But compared to the late covid years? Way more people working/commuting in the city now. Return to office is a thing for sure. You have an uptick of AI boom activity across the city and peninsula, where as in 2023 SF was still reeling from the pandemic, and WFH was kind of a ubiquitous lifestyle for a lot of people in the city. Night life and the dining scene were still in its nascent steps of recovery. It isn't what it used to be 10 years ago (way fewer people drinking/out late) but there's a real flurry of activity on the streets now, even on weekdays in many hoods. But cars/commuters are way way way up.

In terms of vibes it's also very different, with the AI scene kind of relentlessly present via economic impacts, used as an excuse for layoffs, ever present AVs/robotaxis, advertisements everywhere, some saying "Stop hiring humans" and a general feeling of leeriness and the precariousness of it all. From 2020-2023 the pandemic really had a major impact, more so than other US cities due to the much stricter conditions, WFH opportunities for people, increased caution of the locals, and the exodus of people during that time.

That said, the spirit of SF is still alive and there's still great places to go and amazing people about, but damn it stings to see places like Bottom of the Hill and Parkside close. Not too many other places in the US I'd rather still live.

Yeah I had a lot of memorable moments at both

Really dread driving these days. One of the most dangerous places I've ever driven.

― disco stabbing horror (lukas), Sunday, March 22, 2026 11:34 AM (two days ago)

i think this is a wonderful thing! cities should not be joyous to drive around in.

keep the car-friendliness and other failed hybrid planned stroadiculture to the low-efficient suburbs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XsvBKDWmXM

xp well sure, but it's the same on my bike, I just have less protection

Jeez, my supervisor, Jackie Fielder, is resigning, due to a stated health crisis:

https://missionlocal.org/2026/03/sf-jackie-fielder-resignation/

Received her regular newsletter yesterday, zero indication of anything amiss. Hoping for the best for her. (Not hoping for the best with Lurie getting to do another botched replacement or the like.)

I'm really sorry to hear that. I hope she will be ok

That's terrible, and she seemed like one of the better supes to come from that district in a minute too. Ugh

anyone else going to Gray Area tonight?

true story: in college I put on a show in some squash courts with Hrvatski (now KFW) as the headliner

Ha, nice. Somehow I missed it was performances as well as the workshop. I’m in for the night though.

sad what it's become... after rendering employees' stock options worthless, now this:

Philz, the coffee chain that was founded in San Francisco and has been operating for more than 20 years, is facing backlash for making the decision to remove pride flags from its cafes.

they want to cafes to look more 'inclusive'... not too hard to boycott this place tbh

Their coffee sucks ass anyway

there's a newish one near my place in Oakland and it looks more like a Verizon store than a coffee shop

Feel like I remember reading or hearing that their owner was an asshole back when there were like two shops. Never liked them.

I went to the original one like 15 years ago and a barista snapped at me for not understanding the ordering system so I was like 'fuck this place' and never went back

haha

I might stand corrected. I read that the people responsible for this new policy are a private equity company who bought Philz. So, maybe one asshole sold to another.

when Philz first opened in Berkeley I got a pour over there that was one of the best cups of coffee I'd ever had. but it was never as good as that again and it's expensive. I never buy coffee out now.

that reminds me that the other best coffee I've ever had was in the early 90's in a food hall in downtown SF which is long-gone (the original Apple store was built in this location). I got a cappuccino there made by this amazing old Italian dude and it was so good. He even had postcards from people from all over the world telling him how great his coffee was. This was a crowded kind of warehouse with other food vendors in it, from what I remember. It was eventually replaced by the original Apple store. dunno what's there now.

Philz is garbage. Both this and Ike's have been enshittified beyond recognition.

I did watch, as a customer, Ph1l J4b3r and his son build the business from the first location (and the first failed attempt at a second location)

I did think they were a bit tough on their employees but did appreciate it all working out for them. (well and then they kinda screwed their employee stock holders right?)

But of course they arent involved anymore and i refuse to go.

Yeah the coffee was always mediocre, but it was an amusing counter to the third wave coffee era.

their whole visual aesthetic/logo is awful

i liked Philz in the 00s when they were convenient to wear I was spending time. i don't think i have been to one since this post:

having coffee with rene redzepi at philz. Corey lee and Jeremy fox are talking stoneware.

― Fartbritz Sootzveti (Steve Shasta), Monday, October 4, 2010 4:01 PM (fifteen years ago)

fwiw rene was nice! he didn't punch me in the stomach nor verbally degrade me at all...

*where

well he has to keep up appearances when off the clock