I love San Francisco. Like any big city, we have our problems. Yes, we are on occasion a bit preachy and sanctimonious. Our politics can be screwy. We get made fun of for stuff like the Happy Meals kerfuffle. But great things happen here also, sometimes this can be a downright exciting city to live in.
Not only is it a lovely city to live in (most of the time), it’s a wonderful city to visit. Apologies for the length (and number of Italian restaurants, but hey – it is San Francisco), and away we go.
Here are some of my favorites places and things to do:
CHINATOWN
EAT:
RnG Lounge (631 Kearny Street, 415-982-7877). Reservations highly recommended. This is the one place I unhesitatingly recommend to people for Chinese food. Go with as many peeps as you can so you can try lots of dishes. Served family style. Whatever you do, do not forget to order the salt & pepper crab. It is to die for!
Sam Wo (813 Washington Street 415-982-0596). Not for the faint of heart, but if you want a real Chinatown experience, try this place. No liquor license, and the servers have a reputation of being rude, but the food is good, and cheap. Enter on the ground floor through the kitchen, climb the stairs to the dining room. Show no fear!
N.B. Don’t go to the places that have the ladies standing on the corners of Grant Avenue handing out flyers, they are a joke to locals and the restaurants they are hawking have laughably bad food. Sorry friends, but just steer clear.
DRINK:
Empress of China (838 Grant Avenue 415-434-1345. Can’t vouch for the food here, but this is a great place to get a cocktail. Incredible views of Chinatown.
Buddha Bar (901 Grant Avenue, at Washington 415-362-1792). My favorite Chinatown dive bar.
Li Po (916 Grant Ave, at Washington 415-982-0072). Just down the street from Buddha Bar is my other favorite dive bar.
DO:
Good shopping for tchotchkes on Grant Street from Bush to Broadway. Very picturesque day or night, but especially at night with the hanging lanterns and string lights. The famous Chinatown gate is at Bush and Grant.
NORTH BEACH
EAT:
Sodini’s (510 Green Street at Grant 415-291-0499). No reservations accepted. Full bar, grab a seat and a drink while you wait. My now favorite place in North Beach (RIP Gold Spike). The rack of lamb is amazing. Very friendly staff. Lots of locals.
Tommaso’s (1042 Kearny Street at Broadway 415-398-9696 tommasos.com). No reservations accepted. Old school Italian, one of the best places to eat in North Beach. You will have to wait in line, they are nearly always busy, and for good reason. Just ask for some wine, and be patient.
DRINK:
Tony Nic’s (1534 Stockton Street at Columbus 415-693-0990 tonyniks.com). A nice place to duck into for a drink. Kind of swank, cool décor.
Vesuvio’s (255 Columbus Avenue 415-362-3370 vesuvio.com). Next door to City Light’s Bookstore, with Jack Kerouac alley in between). The Beats used to hang out here. Open every day of the year 6 a.m.- 2 a.m.
Tosca (242 Columbus Ave 415-986-9651). Across the street from Vesuvio’s. If you’re lucky you might catch sight of a famous actor or musician here. Good Irish coffees. This was the bar in “Basic Instinct” that all the cops hung out at.
The Saloon (1232 Grant Ave 415-989-7666). (Est. 1861). One of the oldest bars in the United States. If you like the Blues, this is your place. Live music most nights.
Comstock Saloon (155 Columbus Avenue 415-617-0071 comstocksaloon.com). Pretty cool place for a fancy cocktail or Manhattan. Handsome bartenders with fancy moustaches, you can find them here.
DO:
City Light’s Bookstore (261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway 415-362-8193 citylights.com). Go buy some books! Historic bookstore founded in 1953 by those hip hepcats poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin.
The Sentinel Building (916 Kearny Street at Kearny zoetrope.com). A cool old building, home base to American Zoetrope (Francis Ford Coppola’s production studio). Also Coppola’s café/restaurant on the ground floor.
Grant Avenue – Upper Grant Avenue on the non-Chinatown side is home to lots of cute shops and cafes. Caffé Trieste (601 Vallejo Street at Grant) has Saturday afternoon concerts which can be fun. Accordions are involved.
RUSSIAN HILL
EAT:
Street (2141 Polk Street at Broadway 415-775-1055 streetonpolk.com). No reservations. Nice neighborhood place to stop in for a bite or drink, they have excellent burgers. Fried chicken dinners on Sunday nights.
DRINK:
Royal Oak (2201 Polk Street 415-928-2303). Fern bar. Full of plants, Tiffany lamps and cool old couches.
DO:
Polk Street from Broadway to Union. Lots of shops, bars, restaurants.
Lombard Street – Take the Hyde Street cable car to the top of Lombard Street and walk down to North Beach. Or, take a chance on the brakes if you’re driving.
Macondray Lane – extends two blocks east-west between Leavenworth and Taylor streets, paralleling Union and Green streets. If you are a Tales of the City fan, you will get a kick out of this.
NOB HILL
EAT:
Venticello Ristorante (1257 Taylor Street at Washington 415-922-2545). This is a place lots of famous actors and athletes eat. Their sister (and very reasonably priced) restaurant Nob Hill Café is down the street. Italian food both places, and delicious. Keanu Reeves spent a lot of time there (NHC) when they were filming The Matrix locally. No reservations at NHC, and usually a long wait but totally worth it.
DRINK:
Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel (950 Mason Street at California 415-772-5278). C’mon, you know you want a tropical drink in a Tiki bar. Try the Scorpion Bowl, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. They keep threatening to shut this place down when the Fairmont remodels. But where else are you going to see an indoor tropical rain storm? That’s right, thunder and lightning too. Happy hour is great if you’re a fan of greasy snacks (BBQ pork, egg rolls, chow mein).
“Top of the Mark” Mark Hopkins Hotel (999 California Street at Mason). Pricey drinks but a great place to sit and enjoy an amazing view. Really, there is no better view of downtown SF than from up here, rain or shine (it’s enclosed). Opens at 5 p.m. for cocktails.
DO:
Cable Car Museum (1201 Mason Street cablecarmuseum.org). Free. Very informative if you have ever wondered how the cable cars actually work. Also HQ for the cc workers, and the “barn” where the cable cars go at night. True fact: there have only ever been two female “grips”, and one is now retired.
Grace Cathedral (1100 California Street 415-749-6300 gracecathedral.org). A beautiful house of worship smack dab on the top of Nob Hill. Huntington Park is across the street. If you’re here in December, check out the tree lights.
The Brocklebank (1000 Mason Street) also on top of the Nob Hill. Live out your Hitchcock fantasies. This is the apartment building from Vertigo. Can you believe it is a rental building? Apparently people only move out feet first.
UNION SQUARE/TENDERLOIN
EAT:
Kuleto’s (221 Powell Street at Geary 415-397-7720 kuletos.com). This place has great Italian food if you just want to chill and not traipse out to North Beach. Get the radicchio appetizer, it is the bomb diggety. The service is top notch. I’m a local and I eat here frequently, it is just that great.
DRINK:
Gold Dust Lounge (247 Powell Street at Geary 415-397-1695). Charming dive bar in the heart of Union Square.
The Tunnel Top (601 Bush Street at Stockton 415-986-8900). Set over the Stockton Tunnel (hence the name). Great music, live DJ most nights. Two floors, very cool bar.
Geary Street from Powell to Polk (Cantina 580 Sutter Street cantinasf.com, Rye 688 Geary Street ryesf.com, Whiskey Thieves 839 Geary Street, Bourbon & Branch 501 Jones Street 415-931-7292 bourbonandbranch.com). This is a great area if you’re in the mood to have a cocktail crawl. Bourbon & Branch is a “modern day speakeasy” where you have to make reservations (really) unless you want to drink in the “library”, in which case the password at the door is “books”. Yep, it’s like that. Slightly pretentious, but fun. Cantina I can’t recommend highly enough, and the owner (Duggan McDonnell) is a babe. If he’s working, just tell him what you like and he will devise a cocktail on the spot. Rye has the most amazing and freshest ingredients, and their bartenders are top notch.
DO/MISC:
Union Square is a great area to stay, very central location. It is also the main theater district for SF. Lots and lots of shopping: Saks, Neiman Marcus, Tiffany’s, and Macy’s, they’re all here and more. For lodging, I think the Joie de Vivre Hotels (jdvhotels.com) are pretty neat (not necessarily cheap) and I’ve heard good things about them. JdV owns the Hotel Drisco which is in the middle of Pacific Heights, miles from downtown. Another place that looks interesting to me is The Hotel Vertigo on Sutter Street (TenderNob area) hotelvertigosf.com.
FINANCIAL DISTRICT
EAT:
Alfred’s (659 Merchant Street 415-781-7058 alfredssteakhouse.com). Reservations recommended. The interior is a red womb of sin. The steakhouse to end all steakhouses. Very cool bar if you just want to pop in for a drink. The most bang for your buck, meat-wise, if you want to get your steak on in SF.
DRINK:
Rick House (246 Kearny Street at Sutter 415-398-2827 rickhousebar.com). Good drinks, incredible décor. Check out the ceiling when you’re there, very cool interwoven planks from old bourbon casks.
SOMA
EAT:
Tres Agaves (130 Townsend Street 415-227-0500 tresagaves.com). Bow down to the wall of tequila in the bar. Very good but not terribly authentic Mexican food. The Queso Fundido and their Albondigas are the bomb nom noms. Also, the Posole is pretty damn delicious. Open for brunch on the weekends.
DRINK:
21st Amendment (563 2nd Street at DeBoom 415-369-0900 21st-amendment.com). Delicious beer, very good pub grub. If you’re a beer fan, look for my earlier article “A Beer Geek’s Guide to SF”. This and many other SF beer favorites were included in it.
DO:
AT&T Park – Home of your San Francisco Giants (24 Willie Mays Plaza sfgiants.com). Booya, they did it! If you’re in town when baseball season is on, go see a game. Bundle up though, the ballpark is on the water and it is super cold once the sun sets, especially if you’re in the cheap seats. No joke.
SFMoMA (151 3rd Street at Howard 415-357-4000 sfmoma.org).
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (701 Mission Street 415-978-2700 ybca.org). From their website: San Francisco contemporary arts center offering visual arts, performing arts and film and media exhibitions.
The Metreon (101 4th Street 415-369-6000 westfield.com/metreon). Located on the same block as YBCA, a complex with restaurants, a movie theater, shops, and also home to a daily farmer’s market (more info at islandearthfarmersmarket.org).
TELEGRAPH HILL
DO:
Coit Tower (1 Telegraph Hill Boulevard 415-362-3516 Wikipedia). At the top of Telegraph hill is Coit Tower. You can take an elevator to the top. Nice views of the Bay and city.
Also, the Filbert Steps are awesome (Sisterbetty.org). Start at Sansome Street and crawl your way to the top. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for the Wild Parakeets of Telegraph Hill on the way up.
FISHERMAN’S WHARF/GHIRADELLI SQUARE
EAT:
Not much to recommend down here for eats. Scoma’s (Pier 47 on Al Scoma Way, 415-771-4383 scomas.com) or Alioto’s (#8 Fisherman’s Wharf at the Foot of Taylor Street, 415-673-0183 aliotos.com) for seafood are your best bet. Or buy some steamed crab and get an Anchor Steam at one of the crab bars on Jefferson and eat al fresco.
DRINK:
Buena Vista (2765 Hyde Street Beach 415-474-5044 thebuenavista.com). Have an Irish Coffee at the place they were allegedly invented. Great place for a night cap.
DO:
Alcatraz Island (Pier 33, Hornblower Alcatraz Landing 415-981-ROCK (7625) alcatrazcruises.com). Welcome to The Rock! Reservations recommended, especially in high season. If you don’t buy your tickets ahead of time then you should just do something else that day.
Blue and Gold Fleet (PIER 39, The Embarcadero at Beach Street 415-705-8200 blueandgoldfleet.com). Sightseeing tours around the Bay. Also ferry service to Tiburon (and elsewhere). If the weather is nice you can hang on the deck at Sam’s (samscafe.com) in lovely Marin County and have a pink lemonade. No reservations on the deck, so get there early.
THE MISSION
EAT:
So many places to eat here. Pancho Villa (3071 16th Street 415-864-8840) is my favorite burrito place. La Taqueria (2889 Mission Street at 25th 415-285-7117) is a must if you like authentic tacos.
DRINK:
Dalva (3121 16th Street at Mission 415-252-7740). Great jukebox, comfortable place for a drink.
Monk’s Kettle (3141 16th Street 415-865-9523 monkskettle.com). Nice place to grab some fancy beers and a nosh. Beer nerds this might be a place you want to check out.
DO:
Creativity Explored (3245 16th Street 415-863-2108 creativityexplored.org). This is such a cool place. From their website: “We are a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art.”
Valencia Street (from 16th to 24th or so). Lots of cool shops, vintage furniture stores, bookstores, restaurants, etc.
El Rio (3158 Mission St at Cesar Chavez 415-282-3325 elriosf.com). This is actually a bar but the reason I mention it under “do” is they have a really fun Salsa Sunday in the summer out back on the patio. Live bands, instruction beforehand, and gay friendly but a very diverse crowd.
THE MARINA
EAT:
The Tipsy Pig (2231 Chestnut Street 415-675-9876 thetipsypigsf.com). Gastro-pub. They have a wonderful patio out back. Comfort food. Be on the lookout for SFGiants, I’ve heard several of them like this place.
A16 (2355 Chestnut Street 415.771.2216 a16sf.com). Seriously delicious pizza to be had here. With an egg on top, if that’s how you roll.
DO:
Chrissy Field (parksconservancy.org) is a delightful way to spend the afternoon. House of Air (houseofairsf.com) looks like a blast but I haven’t made it out there yet.
FILLMORE/JAPANTOWN/HAYES VALLEY
EAT:
SPQR (1911 Fillmore Street spqrsf.com). Reservations a good idea. Never had a bad meal here, excellent food and wine. Italian inspired cooking and focused on local and seasonal ingredients.
DO:
Japantown is on Post Street up to Laguna. The Japantown Center is a mall with lots of restaurants and home to the Kinokuniya Book Store. Hardware stores are my personal kryptonite, and Soko Hardware (1698 Post Street) is the best one in town.
Fillmore Street from Pacific to Geary is a nice walk down the hill towards Japantown, lots of people watching.
Hayes Valley from Laguna to Franklin. Fancy shoe stores and lots of small shops.
Ok, that’s all well and good, but I want to spend some serious coin on a nice meal in a fancy place. Reservations recommended for all.
Gary Danko (800 North Point and Hyde 415-749-2060 wgarydanko.com).
Boulevard (One Mission Street 415-543-6084 boulevardrestaurant.com).
Slanted Door (1 Ferry Building #3, 415.861.8032 slanteddoor.com). I love this place. Vietnamese food, incredible views of the Bay. Also a cool bar to have a drink, or even eat at the bar. Try the Ginger Limeade made with local Hangar One Kaffir Lime vodka, yum.
Zuni (Upper Market – 1658 Market Street at Gough 415-552-2522 zunicafe.com). Try the roast chicken for two.
Delfina (Dolores Park – 3621 18th Street at Guerrero 415-552-4055 delfinasf.com).
FAMOUS OTHER LANDMARKS
Golden Gate Bridge (goldengatebridge.org) – (Editor’s note: The Bay Bridge is way cooler than the GG, plus the Bay Bridge goes to Oakland.)
Ferry Building (ferrybuildingmarketplace.com). A historic building at the foot of Market Street with shops, restaurants and ferries to the East Bay and Marin. Try the Hog Island Oyster Company (hogislandoysters.com) for lunch. Several al fresco Farmer’s Markets here during the week.
Golden Gate Park (golden-gate-park.com)
The Presidio (nps.gov)
Twin Peaks – at Castro Street. View of city and downtown.
Culture and Museums
Academy of Sciences (55 Music Concourse Drive 800-794-7576 calacademy.org). Located in Golden Gate Park, this is an incredible museum and the building itself is groundbreaking. Tickets are not cheap here.
de Young Museum (50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive 415-750-3600 deyoungmuseum.org). Also in Golden Gate Park, this fine art museum. Incredible copper building. Nearby is the Japanese Tea Garden (japaneseteagardensf.com).
The Exploratorium (located at The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina, 3601 Lyon Street 415-561-0360 exploratorium.edu). Science museum.
The Walt Disney Family Museum (104 Montgomery Street, in The Presidio 415-345-6800 disney.go.com). Haven’t been here yet but thought I’d throw it in.
Palace Of The Legion Of Honor (Lincoln Park 100 34th Avenue 415-750-3600 legionofhonor.famsf.org). Another fine arts museum.
Random Interesting things to do
Pacific Heights – Lyon Street Steps (Broadway & Lyon). Work off your lunch on your way back from the Marina.
The Castro – Seward Street Slides, Seward Street & Douglass Street, San Francisco, CA 94114. Go down a concrete slide, you can probably find cardboard (or an old lunchtray if you want to fly) laying around here to use.
The Marina – Palace of Fine Arts (3301 Lyon Street 415-563-6504 palaceoffinearts.org). Nice place to take some pictures.
TIPS:
WEATHER
It’s cold. Even in the summer. Especially in the summer. Be sure to bring layers, otherwise you will end up with one of the ubiquitous “San Francisco” fleece jackets. Not for nothing is Mark Twain quoted as saying “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” Though the attribution of this quote to Twain is in question, it is still a true statement.
GETTING AROUND
There are plenty of hills, but I think walking or using public transportation is the best. Driving is expensive, you have to worry about parking nearly everywhere, plus I don’t want anyone to get their car towed, and the signs can be ultra confusing sometimes. Citypass (citypass.com) is a good option if you know you want to go to some attractions while you are here. SFMuni (www.sfmta.com) operates buses, streetcars, cable cars, the muni underground and they sell 1 day, 3 day or 1 week passes (sfmta.com) which are your best bet especially if you are going to be taking the cable car anywhere. Which brings me to:
CABLE CAR TIPS
1. NEVER pull the cord. Tell either the “grip” (operator) or “brake” (conductor) which stop you need about a half-block before. The cord is only for the grip and brake, it is how they communicate, especially when the cable car is packed full of people. If you disregard my advice and pull it anyway, you will likely get a scolding.
2. Don’t stand on the floor where it is painted yellow (i.e., don’t stand behind the grip, don’t block the doorways, don’t block the brakeman’s working space at the back of the car – they really tug on the brake going down hills, and you can get an elbow to the ribs if you aren’t careful).
3. Take off your backpack when you are in the car, or riding outside. And yes, they really pack you in when it’s busy, so be ready to share your personal space. Your mantra is “make two rows standing, and face the windows” when you are in the car. If you are standing on the running board, keep your eyes open for clueless drivers and side windows of parked cars/trucks, and always keep a hand on the bar.
4. Hang on, and have fun!
Also, all cable car lines are scheduled for ongoing work this spring, at different times some lines will be down and shuttle buses will be provided.
Readers, please let me know what I missed in the comments. We also have many street fairs and festivals year round that got left out due to length issues.
Much thanks to coffee&cigs and Duo_tone for their input.
