San Francisco

Recommended Parks

• Ina Coolbrith park (map)

  Has a really nice view of the Bay Bridge and Coit tower.

• Salesforce Park (map)

  An elevated park on top of the transbay terminal. Has some really nice plants.

• Golden Gate Park
• Corona Heights (map)

  Also a pretty good view

• Presidio Tunnel Tops
• Ocean Beach
• Baker Beach

  Has a pretty good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s also apparently a nude beach, and I did see some—gasp—exposed women’s nipples here.

Tourist Recommendations

If you’re a tourist, here are some things I recommend.

• Powell Street cable car

  It’s popular for tourists, but I actually do recommend it. I think the Powell Street one is better than the California street one, just in terms of view. Actually, there’s a third cable car route, but I can’t remember that one at all. The Powell Street cable car goes by Lombard Street (map), has a decent view, and ends up near Ghiradeli Square. If you’re going towards Ghiradeli Square, you want to be on the right side (I think).

  A possible tip: If you don’t want to wait for the long line, I think you can go up a few stops and catch the cable car later. They usually leave a few spots open for later passengers.

  Tickets are $8. If you find you really like cable cars and want to know more, the Cable Car museum is free (though I haven’t been).

• Chinatown

  Kind of a tourist trap, but still fun nonetheless. Grant Avenue is the main touristy area and Stockton is where a ton of Chinese people actually shop.

  I haven’t really been to the Fortune Cookie Factory, but it might be nice. I like going to Li Po Lounge, Dim Sum Bistro, and Portsmouth Square.

• Coit Tower

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been, but it probably had a pretty good view. Maybe you’ll see the wild parrots of Telegraph hill. Or you could also watch the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. SF has parrots. They’ve been here long enough that they’re basically native now. But if you prefer other birds, there are lots of seagulls and pigeons.

• Fisherman’s Wharf/Pier 39

  Another tourist trap, but still probably fun. Check out the sea lions (map) lounging on some docks.

  To eat: get a clam chowder sourdough breadbowl. You can go to Boudin (map), but there’s also some casual places on the corner of Taylor and Jefferson (map).

  Also check out Musée Mechanique (map) when you’re in the area.

• The Presidio

  A nice area, but don’t park here.

  The old batteries are nice, and you can get a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

• Golden Gate Park

  Lots to do here. I like the Japanese Tea Garden (map). There’s also the California Academy of Sciences (map) and the DeYoung Museum (map). I have not been to the Botanical Garden, but I should check it out.

• Dolores Park (map)

  Lotta people smoking weed on the grass here, but the park has a nice view and you get to see where a lot of San Franciscans hang out. Being in the Mission, you should also grab a Mission burrito (though I don’t know the best place for it, sorry).

• Alcatraz

  Interesting for historical reasons. I went when I was a kid. I remember it being really cold.

• The Castro

  Lot of LGBT culture, but I actually don’t know the area really.

• If you like hippies (or these days just hip people in general), check out Haight Ashbury
• If you like beat poets, check out City Lights Bookstore

• What to eat

  Off the top of my head, the foods most associated/special to SF are seafood (like a clam chowder sourdough breadbowl or also cioppino) and the Mission-style burrito. Sourdough, as a bread, is also strongly associated with SF.

  Food products associated with SF. Ricearoni (“The San Francisco Treat”!). I don’t know anyone that eats it, or really associates it with SF anymore. It’s-It ice cream. I like it, it’s pretty good, but their factory is like south of South SF.

• What to buy

  In terms of clothes, Levi’s and Gap are both from SF. Gap’s main store on Powell (near the cable car) closed though.

  More special things would be gear associated with bicycle messengers. Mission Workshop, Timbuk2, Rickshaw Bagworks, and Chrome Industries all have ties to SF. The bags they make are super utilitarian and pretty waterproof. These places would all be in the Mission District. I have a Mission Workshop backpack. It’s really expensive but really good.

• Smash and grabs

  SF is somewhat safe in terms of safety of your person, but not safety of your property. If you leave any valuable things in your car, they will be stolen.

  If you want to avoid this, do not leave valuable items in your car (even for a short duration). In fact, here’s what I think makes you a target:

  • Items (especially luggage) visible in your car
  • Out-of-state license plates
  • Rental cars
  • Cars whose trunk can be accessed by a lever in the back seat
  • Looking like a tourist in general. Like walking around with big cameras.
  • Parking in one of these locations:
    • The Presidio, Palace of Fine Arts
    • Twin Peaks
    • Street parking anywhere that tourists go.

      I think you’re better off using SFMTA’s garages and lots. See sfmta.com/garages-lots for their map of parking lots.

  From what I’ve seen, the police aren’t of much help here (though I’m sure they’re sympathetic). I saw a woman go up to a cop and the cop just said something like “sorry, we get X many reports every day”. (This was also a weird situation for another reason: The cop had just pulled someone with a Bay Wheels bike off a bus, and they tried to put the bike (not the person!) into the back of their car.)

  Honestly, driving and parking is tough in a city anyway. If you can, take public transportation, Bay Wheels, scooters, or maybe a Lyft or taxi. If you’re driving from other parts of the Bay Area, park at a BART station and take the BART into the city. Remember, you’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.

• Lombard Street

  Lombard Street is known for being a curvy road (map). It has a pretty good view, but I think that Vermont Street (map) might actually be curvier. I don’t think it has as good a view, though, but it is next to a nice park called McKinley Square (map).

Bars and Nightlife

• DNA Lounge (map)
  • Check out Death Guild, the longest running goth/industrial night
• If you want a view:
  1. Cityscape Lounge on top of the Hilton (map)
     • The bar with the best view, in my opinion.
  2. Top of the Mark
  3. The View
• Chinatown
  • Li Po Cocktail Lounge
  • Moongate Lounge (map)
  • Cold Drinks (map)
  • Blind Pig (map)
• Tiki Bars
  • Zombie Village (map)
  • Pagan Idol (map)
  • Last Rites (map)
  • Tonga Room (map)
  • Trad’r Sam (map)
  Haven’t been to:

  • Smuggler’s Cove (see below)
• Other bars
  • PCH (Pacific Cocktail Haven) (map)

    Pretty good cocktails.

  • Stookey’s Club Moderne (map)

    An art-deco-themed bar that serves drinks from around that time period.

  • The Library/Bourbon and Branch (map)

    Speakeasies. Bourbon and Branch requires a reservation and doesn’t allow phones, The Library doesn’t require a reservation. The password for The Library is “books”.

  • Local Edition (map)

    Located at 691 Market Street. It’s newspaper themed. Has a lot of old newspapers and typewriters. Also has live music fairly often.

  • Whitechapel (map)

    I remember their punch being pretty good.

• Has games/entertainment
  • Thriller Social Club
  • Golden Gate Tap Room
  • Emporium (map)
  • Musée Mécanique (all ages)
  • Urban Putt

    Indoor mini-golf and bar, but you gotta be 21 or over.

• Karaoke
  • Festa Wine Bar & Karaoke
  • Club Mari’s/Mogura
  Haven’t been to:

  • The Mint
• Breweries
  • Sequoia Sake does sake
  • (See the beer page for notes on beer.)
• Miscellaneous places to remember

  (That I should probably write about)

  • Beep’s Burgers
  • Good Good Culture Club, Liholiho Yacht Club

    Well, I haven’t been inside LYC, but I did get takeout during the pandemic. They’ve recently reopened.

  • B. Patisserie
  • The Stinking Rose
  • Rintaro
  • One65 (or really just Elements, which I’ve been to)
  • Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers
  • Super Duper Burgers
  • Sam’s Pizza and Burgers
  • Bandit (Burgers)
  • Rosamunde’s
  • Original Joe’s
  • The Internet Archive

    One of the best libraries in the world. I’ve only seen the outside of it.

Neighborhoods

• Japantown
• Chinatown
• The Tenderloin

  The seedy underbelly you’ve heard about.

  Saigon Sandwich has pretty good banh mi sandwiches for $5. Cash only.

  Turtle Tower has pretty decent pho.

  Mensho Tokyo has pretty good ramen.

  Pakwan has pretty good Indian/Pakistani food. Actually, that specific section has like 4 different Indian places: Pakwan, Shalimar, Red Chilli, Chutney. But I’ve only been to Pakwan and Chutney.

• The Mission

  Here are some miscellaneous places until I clean this up more.

  • Noisebridge is a pretty cool hackerspace
  • The Roxie is a good movie theater
  • Bernal Cutlery sells knives and kitchenware
  • Dandelion Chocolate makes pretty good small batch chocolate, which I think also make pretty good gifts
  • Mission Workshop (not sure if they still have a retail location as of 2023) sells fantastic messenger bags and backpacks (but they’re expensive)
  • La Taqueria has pretty good burritos. I don’t live in the Mission, but it was recommended by someone who does. I went there and I agree with them.
• North Beach

  Check out

  • The Stinking Rose

    It’s a garlic-themed Italian restaurant. They’ve moved recently, but I’ve liked this place since I was a kid.

• Haight-Ashbury

  The Haight is pretty well known for hippie/summer of love culture from the ‘60s, a lot of which is still shown today. Definitely a cool area to check out if you’re a tourist, as this kind of culture isn’t available in most cities.

  I haven’t explored the area too much, but here are some places I thought were cool.

  • Bound Together Anarchist Bookstore (map)

    Has books about anarchy, Noam Chomsky, and a lot of zines. The “Anarchist Cookbook” they sold there, though, talked more about organizing and making granola than about, well, what you probably read about on the internet. Or maybe I just skipped past it.

  • The Love of Ganesha (map)

    Has a lot of Tibetan (or Nepali) clothes and gifts. Think incense, singing bowls, rocks/crystals, and that kind of thing.

  • Haight Jewelry (map)

    Got my watch battery replaced here for $12. The guy working there seemed pretty chill. They’ve got some old refurbished watches for around $20.

  • Amoeba Music (map)

    Amoeba is originally from Berkeley, but they’ve got a pretty big SF location. Good place to buy CDs (well, I haven’t from this location but I have from the Berkeley one).

• Inner Sunset

  Haven’t explored this area too much, so I’ll mostly make notes of places I need to check out.

  • Oriental Art gallery (map)

    I went here a while back, maybe in 2020 or 2019. They have, like, a lot of small pins or stickers. I remember thinking it was pretty cool. Kind of reminded me of some places in Korea that sold stickers and patches for jackets.

  Here are places I haven’t been, but need to check out.

  • Arizmendi (map)

    A cooperative bakery, kind of like Cheeseboard in Berkeley. I’ve heard they have good pizza.

POPOS (privately owned, public open spaces)

• Rooftop garden on top of Crocker Galleria
• Outdoor terrace on top of the Westfield Mall
• One Kearny

  You have to talk to a security guard to get in, but just tell them you’re there for the public open space. They’ll guide you to the elevator and pick the button for you. It’s a pretty good view, and when I went there weren’t any other people there.

Places to Check Out

Places I haven’t been to yet

• Church of 8 Wheels (map)

  This is a roller disco place. I haven’t been here, but I have been to their “San FranDISCO” pop-up.

• Smuggler’s Cove (map)
• Charmaine’s
• Kaiyo Rooftop
• Daeho ☑

  Pretty good place. Need to add photos from visit.

• Biergarten ☑

  I went here briefly with my partner some Saturday afternoon and we got some waffles, which were pretty good. We didn’t actually get any beer though, haha.

• Zeitgeist ☑

  Has a pretty good selection of beer.

• Teeth (map)
• Paxton Gate

  Actually, I’ve been to the one in Portland.

• Arsicault
• Double Decker (burgers)

  Recommended on r/AskSF.
• Free Gold Watch (arcade?)

  See their website. Recommended on r/AskSF.
• Foreign Cinema
• Cat Club ☑

  (map)

  My partner and I went here for a synthwave event on a Sunday night in June. It’s a pretty casual atmosphere, which we liked. We’d definitely come back here again.

  They have a goth night, like, once a month. I haven’t been to it yet. Their website is sfcatclub.com.

• Madrone Art Bar

  (map)

  An artsy place, I hear. Seems interesting. Their website is madroneartbar.com.

• Golden Boy Pizza (map)

  Not sure if they’re good, but they’ve got a long line.

Other To-dos

• Check out Raining Chainsaws

  Recommended by Albert. It looks like their website is rainingchainsaws.ju.mp and their phone number is 415-WORD-BUG.

Miscellaneous

• You’ll see a lot of self-driving cars in SF.

Events

Regular Events

Events to check out in SF.

• Farmers Markets
  sfenvironment.org has a list of farmers markets. Heart of the City Farmers Market near Civic Center is Sundays and Wednesdays.
• Death Guild at DNA Lounge is on Mondays.
• See also meetups.

Special Events

Events that happen like once a year.

• Bay to Breakers

  A footrace from the bay to the ocean (“breakers”). Lotta people in costumes, but also people in their birthday suits. Happens the third Sunday of May according to Wikipedia. Their site is baytobreakers.com.

• San Francisco Pride

  Happens the last weekend of June. Website is sfpride.org.

• Cherry Blossom Festival

  See the Japantown page.

• Folsom Street Fair

  A very classic San Francisco event, but you probably don’t want to bring your kids.

• The San Francisco Marathon

  Their website is thesfmarathon.com.

• Fleet Week

  Website is https://fleetweeksf.org/.

Other Events

• Check out SF Funcheap, which usually has a pretty good list of events.
• 19hz.info has a Bay Area list of music events.
• DoTheBay
• SF Station calendar
• the list of punk shows
• Internet Archive events
• sf.gov/events seems to offer workshops and have city-organized events