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Bloom's Saloon
Any given Saturday afternoon, you can't tell if owner Rico is the barkeep or one of the glass-tipping customers, because it's that kind of sports bar. A rounded glass brick exterior, nice pool table and patio doesn't keep Bloom's from being a little rough around the edges, complete with the obligatory working-class Irish supporters.
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Blow Buddies
When it's time to get lucky, head to the Disneyland of dick, with 6000 square feet of playland and an outdoor zone. Don't wear cologne: sweat is the preferred scent. Believe it or not, it's one of the cleanest clubs in town and high on safe sex practice.
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Boom Boom Room
Cooking continuously since the '30s, the Boom Boom Room is an authentic relic from the jumping post-WWII years of Fillmore St. Blues, soul and New Orleans funk (and sometimes even gospel) are performed six nights a week, and top touring talent make frequent stops here. A large dance floor, killer cocktails and cool old photos lining the walls may encourage lingering til . Shows usually start at .
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Bottom of the Hill
Top of the list when it comes to seeing fun local bands, like punk-polka Polkacide and goth-psychedelic Bellavista, with a rowdy, appreciative crowd. It's a little out of the way - literally at the bottom of Potrero Hill, meaning you have to walk back up it when you're wasted at night's end - but worth the trouble. You can buy advance tickets to the shows on the club's website.
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Brainwash
In the am get some suds in your duds over coffee in this sunny café/laundromat; stick around in the pm for fluff-dry action with live music and beer. The washers and dryers have cheeky names in case you forget where you stuffed your pants.
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Brava Theater
These women sure know how to put on a show - Brava's been producing women-run theater productions for 20 years, and it's the nation's only theater company whose main purpose is to produce original plays by women of color and lesbians. As a nod to the neighborhood's Mexican heritage, Brava puts up hand-painted billboards like the kind you'd see in Mexico back in the day - check out ones for past shows in the lobby.
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Bridge Theater
Come here for weeknight international indies you have or haven't heard of, or weekends for Midnight Mass, featuring camp movies that were supposed to be serious drama but now are fodder for a good laugh (like the sleaze fest 'Showgirls' or 'Mommie Dearest,' the Joan Crawford biopic) introduced by your wisecracking hostess, Peaches Christ .
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Bruno's
The stage spilleth over at this little joint with a big sound: 20 brass-wielding masters often cram in for Jazz Mafia Tuesdays. Multiple chambers include the narrow, padded-wall Cork Club with a Hammond organ for weekend funk nights, and a swanky piano lounge, where students and well-dressed jazz aficionados arrive early for the Tuesday night around US$8 beer-burger-fries special.
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Bubble Lounge
Couples snog on the velvet couches of this champagne bar modeled after the New York one and, apparently, Sex and the City . Later, upstairs house and downstairs hip-hop attracts giddy girls and an assortment of straight men trying to impress them. Arrive early to skip the velvet rope and snag a sofa, or you might have to wait and perch on a pouf instead - not so easy by your third flute-full.
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Buddha Lounge
This sedated little den of iniquity feels like a South Pacific shore leave, c 1946. The Buddha is staunchly of another era, from its irreverent name and shapely bar stools to the grumpy barkeeps. If settling in for the long haul seems risky, pull a curiosity seeker's quick-Bud-and-bail.
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Buena Vista Café
Warm your cockles with a prim little goblet of bitter-creamy Irish coffee, introduced to the US at this destination bar that used to serve sailors and cannery workers. The creaky Victorian floor still manages to hold up carousers and families alike, served community-style at round tables overlooking the wharf by the cable-car turnaround.
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Butter
Tank- and mullet-sporting barkeeps, a fine selection of tallboys and cocktails mixed with Tang, and a porch full of old sofas: Butter is trailer-trash done hip, a refreshing contrast to the VIP clubs across the street. Flirt with the electric guitarist wailing at you from atop the bar, or just order some Spaghettios and Frito pie, and trash-talk away between gulps of your Bitchin Camaro.
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Café Du Nord
Push past the curtains to the downstairs speakeasy for front-row dinner seating, and enjoy a burger and beer practically in the laps of the rockers, chanteuses, comedians and raconteurs who perform here nightly. The joint still looks the way it must've done in the '30s, but on weekends, the place jumps with an alcohol-fueled exuberance rarely seen since Prohibition was repealed.
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Café Royale
A Parisian tiled floor and semicircular fainting couches lend atmosphere (and acoustics) to this laid-back lounge, which hosts film screenings, open-mic poetry slams and jazz. Walk by during the day and you'll sometimes hear musicians rehearsing in the basement studio.
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Cafe Tosca
Tosca Cafe did not need a mink coat to become a legend. The old-world bar, the tall espresso machine and the opera on the juke box set a nice stage and the celebrities (local and otherwise) sprinkled in the crowd put on a little show. A great place to sink back in a Naugahyde booth and savour a midweek martini.
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Castro Theatre
The best organ on view is here on a Saturday night, and that's saying something. The mighty instrument rises from the orchestra pit to cheers and whistles, pounding out tunes until your classic movie or avant-garde film starts. Every night is audience participation night: wisecracks during Rock Hudson and Doris Day kisses are a given. Seats under the giant chandelier are the last to be filled, but film fests and Fellini tributes fill every one.
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Cat Club
You may think you know your friends, but have you ever seen them bust highly anachronistic moves while belting out the lyrics to A-ha's 'Take On Me'? This is what happens when you mix Cat Club's powerful drinks with 1984, the Thursday-night dance party that gets two jam-packed, sweaty rooms bumping to one-hit wonders. The second and fourth Fridays of the month, Hot Pants brings the girls out for queer Chelsea Starr's lesbian '80s dance party.
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Cav Wine Bar
Let your palate rack up frequent flyer miles at Cav with weekly wine tours to specific growing regions (around US$50 per tasting class). Otherwise, assemble your own taste tests with 40 wines by the glass - most are priced in the single digits, with 2.5-ounce tastes at half the price. Don't expect many California choices, though.
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Cellar
Atmospheric, sexy and moody, this dark, basement-level lounge is removed from the Polk Gulch scene by a couple of walkable blocks. Friday happy hour ( to ) jumpstarts the weekend; DJs start spinning at . You can rotate between two dance floors, or snag a secluded alcove to make a move on the cutie you're scoping out.
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City Beer Store & Tasting Room
Enjoy your tasting of exceptional local and Belgian microbrewed beer (6oz to 22oz, depending how thirsty you are) with a cheese sampler right there in the store, and assemble your own six-pack to go. It's not even stinky and the floor's not sticky, either. The residents in the lofts above descend on Sunday afternoons.
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Clay Theater
In business since 1913, the Clay is a single-screen cinema that regularly features both independent and foreign films. Midnight Saturday screenings are fun events.
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Club Six
Bi-level Club Six defines casual cool, with lumpy sofas and worn hardwood floors. Weekly parties delve into hip-hop and dancehall reggae and draw a mixed crowd with an up-for-anything attitude. You can hang in the street level lounge or dive into the thick of it on the basement dance floor.
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Cobb's Comedy Club
There's no room to be shy at Cobb's, where bumper-to-bumper shared tables make for an intimate (and vulnerable) audience. Before long, you'll be choking on your fries while your neighbor's belly-shaking sloshes your beer, but you'll be too busy holding your sides to care. The comfy little club loves its local talent, but plays host to national names on occasion.
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Coffee to the People
The people, united, will never be decaffeinated at this utopian coffee shop with free wireless, folksy open-mic nights every Tuesday, and enough Fair Trade coffee to revive the Sandinista movement. Five percent of your cappuccino and vegan cookie purchase goes to support community organizations, and baristas donate 3% of their tips to send children in coffee-growing regions to school.
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Commonwealth Club
The nearest thing to blood sport in the Bay Area are the debates that rage before, sometimes during, and after panel discussions at the Commonwealth Club. Whether the topic is food politics or nuclear proliferation, odds are you'll have to take the discussion outside after the ceremonial cheese and crackers, and over to House of Shields for a resolution over Scotch.
