Entertainment in San Francisco
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Noc Noc
Who’s there? Nearsighted graffiti artists, anarchist bike messengers moonlighting as electronica DJs, and other characters straight out of an R Crumb comic, that’s who. The sake cocktails will knock you off your stool.
reviewed
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B
San Francisco Giants
April to October, you can catch one of the 81 home games of SF’s National League baseball team in this intimate ballpark, which changes its name with every telecom merger. The Giants pack in huge crowds and often make the playoffs, but haven’t won the baseball big tomato, the World Series, since 1954 (the team called New York home in those days). Games are frequently sold out, but season-ticket holders often sell unwanted tickets through the team’s Double Play Ticket Window on the website; it’s also worth checking internet auctions like eBay.com and craigslist.org. A behind-the-scenes tour (415-972-2400; tickets $12.50; nongame days at 10:30am & 2:30pm) includes v…
reviewed
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C
Zeitgeist Bar
When temperatures rise, bikers and hipsters converge on Zeitgeist's huge outdoor beer garden for 40 brews on tap and late-night tamales.
reviewed
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Vesuvio
Guy walks into a bar, roars and leaves. Without missing a beat, the bartender says to the next customer, ‘Welcome to Vesuvio, honey – what can I get you?’ It takes a lot more than a barbaric yawp to get Vesuvio’s regulars to glance up from their microbrewed beers. Kerouac blew off Henry Miller to go on a bender here, and after knocking back a couple with neighborhood characters, you’ll get why.
reviewed
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E
Ritual Coffee Roasters
Blue Bottle and Ritual Roasters are the two big names in SF’s ‘Third Wave’ coffee movement, which esteems coffee as highly – and artfully – as fine chocolate and grand cru wine. We love bringing our laptop to Ritual’s Mission location to get jacked and eavesdrop on tattooed bikers, internet pros and coffee aficionados, but lament the loss of electrical outlets at some tables.
reviewed
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F
Specs’
Hidden on a tiny pedestrian alley, cavelike Specs’ draws barflies in the afternoon and hipsters, literary radicals and other colorful local characters in the evening. It’s also a sort of museum, packed with weird ephemera culled from ports around the globe – nobody’s sure which species’ desiccated penis hangs behind the bar, but everyone agrees it’s from a marine mammal.
reviewed
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Oakland A’s
When the Giants are away, the A’s are usually home, which expands the possibilities for those desperate for a summer baseball fix. BART stops just outside the ballpark. The A’s most recent championship came at the Giants’ expense in the quake-addled 1989 series, and they remain fierce contenders. If you want to catch them in an interleague-play game, get your tickets early.
reviewed
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G
Gold Dust Lounge
Precarious Victorian brass chandeliers hover over a bar full of visitors and a twangy rockabilly band at this Union Square anachronism, where the gold paint has lost its glitter and pints are no longer cheap. But there’s something of a time-machine effect in the swinging doors, coat stands and nude paintings – you almost expect someone to beckon you to a brothel upstairs.
reviewed
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Beretta
After a busy day shopping on Valencia St, nothing hits the spot like Beretta’s lip-smacking seasonal cocktails, made with fresh everything. But consider avoiding this place during peak dinner hours, when the small storefront restaurant-and-bar gets packed and deafeningly loud. Good cracker-crust pizzas.
reviewed
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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 once served sailors and cannery workers. The creaky Victorian floor manages to hold up carousers and families alike, served community-style at round tables overlooking the wharf.
reviewed
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Medjool Sky Terrace
SF’s only open-air rooftop bar has knockout views, a party crowd, Mediterranean small plates and tasty (cash-only) cocktails, but as of this writing, noise-sensitive neighbors were pressing the city to pull its permit. Great on a warm evening, but call ahead.
reviewed
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Badlands
The Castro’s primary dance bar gets packed with gay college boys, their screaming straight girlfriends and a few chicken hawks. If you’re over 30, you’ll feel old. Weekends, expect a line, which no self-respecting local would ever wait in.
reviewed
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Li Po
A fave of the Beat poets, Li Po’s fake-grotto decor comes with lurid 1960s-era plush red booths, bartenders shouting in Cantonese and an unexpected Chinese-meets-hipster clientele. On slow nights, it may be just you and the barkeep watching TV.
reviewed
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Doc’s Clock
Dig the dazzling neon sign at this happy-mellow, green-certified dive that’s always good for a few pints, shuffleboard and conversation. Every second and fourth Tuesday is local-filmmaker night, with screenings of indie shorts and $2 draft PBR.
reviewed
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Trad’r Sam’s
Snag a rattan island-themed booth at this threadbare faux-tiki gem. Classic-kitsch lovers order the Hurricane, which comes with two straws to share for a reason: drink it by yourself and it’ll blow you away.
reviewed
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O
Lusty Lady
It’s owned by women, the strippers are unionized, and it operates like an old-fashioned peep show. Drop quarters into a slot in a private booth, and a nekkid woman dances behind glass till your quarters run out.
reviewed
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440 Castro
The most happening bar on the street, 440 Castro (aka Daddy’s) draws bearded 30-something dudes in tight T-shirts, and an odd mix of Peter Pans for Monday’s underwear night.
reviewed
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Tosca Cafe
With red-vinyl booths and a jukebox of opera and Sinatra, Tosca is quintessential old-guard North Beach.
reviewed
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San Francisco Opera
SF has been obsessed with opera since the Gold Rush, and it remains a staple on the social calendar. Bluebloods like Ann Getty always book the Tuesday A-series – the best nights to spot fabulous drag. The gorgeous 1932 hall is cavernous and echoey, but there’s no more glamorous seat in SF than the velvet-curtained boxes, complete with champagne service. The best midrange seats for sightlines and sound are in the front section of the dress circle. The balcony has the best sound but you’ll need binoculars to see the stage, unless you come on ‘Opera Vision’ nights, when a huge screen shows the action on stage (don’t sit directly beneath the flickering high-def monitors; if y…
reviewed
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Blow Buddies
When it’s time to get laid, head to the Disneyland of cock. The original owner was a Disney fetishist and set out to recreate, with exacting detail, Disneyland-like attractions, with mazes and specialty-fetish rooms spread over 6000 sq ft of indoor-outdoor warehouse space. New owners aren’t detail-oriented, and rarely put money back into the club (the outdoor camouflage-berm tore away years ago, and the play area under the stairs closed eons ago when the barber’s chair broke), but for a sex club it’s the best in town. Some nights are positively dreary: count coats in the coat-check through the barred window by the entrance; if fewer than 30, don’t go in unless it’s early.…
reviewed
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Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater
This infamous strip joint remains open, long after one of the founding brothers murdered the other. Jim and Artie Mitchell opened the theater in 1969 and began making porno, including the legendary Deep Throat, starring Marilyn Chambers. At its prime, the Mitchells’ multimillion-dollar empire included a production company and 11 California theaters. But the Mitchell brothers went the way of Cain and Abel, when Jim shot and killed Artie in 1991. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served six years; a heart attack killed him in 2007. Despite its tawdry background, the O’Farrell Theater is generally regarded as a classy place (with a capital k). Even if you don’t …
reviewed
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Teatro Zinzanni
Inside a 19th-century Spiegeltent (an opulent Belgian traveling-circus tent), top circus talent flies overhead, a celeb-diva croons, and clowns pull wacky stunts as you dig into a surprisingly good five-course dinner. This ain’t no B-grade dinner theater: a ‘clown-wrangler’ seeks out world-class talent in Europe and Asia, and the acts, menu and performers are refreshed quarterly. Former stars have included Joan Baez and Broadway’s Liliane Montevecchi. Dress for dinner, and arrive early to see the over-the-top harmonium and boutique selling tiaras and ostrich-feather opera gloves (ideal if you’re underdressed). Be prepared for audience participation – especially if you’re …
reviewed
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Redwood Room
We love the landmark Redwood Room, with its walls paneled from a single ancient redwood tree. For years it was San Francisco’s most iconic bar, inside one of its most storied hotels. Then Philippe Starck got hold of the place, making it horrifically trendy, mounting plasma screens on the walls (sin of sins), installing his now-tired-looking signature furniture, and raising cocktail prices through the roof. Still, it’s worth seeing the room on a quiet weeknight, but never on weekends, when Carrie Bradshaw wannabes jam the place and aggressive bouncers fail to remember they exist in service of guests, not the other way round.
reviewed
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Oakland Raiders
With three Super Bowl championship wins, the notorious bad boys of the NFL have had their ups and downs over the years, but they have the staunchest, rowdiest fans in the western US. The team ungratefully moved to Los Angeles for 12 years, but returned in 1995, the prodigal football club, to Oakland’s open arms. It’s been football bliss in Oakland ever since, unlike in SF, where in 2009 the 49ers were in final negotiations with Santa Clara County to build a new stadium and leave SF behind. Given the choice between a 20-minute BART ride to Oakland and a 40-mile drive to Santa Clara…well, we wish the 49ers luck.
reviewed
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Poleng Lounge
Tea-infused cocktails and soju (grain alcohol) drinks are specialties at this Filipino-street-food restaurant that becomes a cool DJ lounge after 10pm, drawing scenester locals for underground hip-hop, rooted in late-‘80s, top-40, not gangster. Black Eyed Peas used to do a free weekly jam at Poleng years ago. Now it’s a hive of industry insiders – Rza, leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, hangs here. The front room is way sexier, with Asian statuary and water trickling down textured-concrete walls; the back room is for dancing (when it happens), but it’s little more than a box with kick-ass sound. No need to dress fancy.
reviewed
