San Francisco - Alison Bing [142]
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NORTH BEACH
CHURCH KEY Map Bar
415-986-3511; 1402 Grant Ave; 5pm-2am; 20, 30, 41, 45
If there’s a connoisseur’s beer from Belgium, Japan, Canada or New Zealand that you’ve been dying to try, chances are you’ll find it at this sparsely furnished hole-in-the-wall, with a little upstairs mezzanine, off North Beach’s main strip. The local crowd means good conversation about all things SF. Beer, wine and cash only.
ROSEWOOD Map Bar
415-951-4886; 732 Broadway; 5:30pm-2am Wed-Fri, 7pm-2am Sat; 12, 30, 45
This unmarked bar delivers on its name with sleek floor-to-ceiling rosewood-paneled walls, dim lighting and low-slung tufted black-leather sofas. It’s a cool first-drink spot and there’s a bamboo-enclosed smokers’ patio, but too many hard surfaces make conversation nearly impossible once crowds arrive and the music amps up.
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CASH ONLY
Some small mom-and-pop bars don’t take credit cards, so start the night with $40 in pocket. When you’re trawling the streets hungry after bar shut-off at 2am, you’ll be glad for that leftover five-spot when you espy a sausage vendor on the corner.
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SALOON Map Bar
415-989-7666; 1232 Grant Ave; weekend cover $2-5; noon-2am; 20, 30, 45
A stalwart North Beach dive, the Saloon survived the 1906 fire when its loyal patrons brandished buckets of beer and wine to quench the flames. Today it’s the oldest bar in SF, dating from 1861, and hasn’t had a coat of paint in decades, which is exactly why disheveled old-timers and local hipsters love it. Blues and rock bands perform nightly and from 4pm weekend afternoons.
SPECS’ Map Bar
415-421-4112; 12 William Saroyan Pl; 5pm-2am; 1, 20
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.
TONY NIK’S Map Bar
415-693-0990; 1534 Stockton St; 4pm-2am; 30, 45
Think Rat Pack lounge, c 1956, and you’ll conjure retro-cool Tony Nik’s, a tiny cocktail lounge with glass bricks, vintage granite floors and period wood-paneling. Good acoustics make for easy conversation. Aim for the cocktail tables in back, or hang with old-timers at the bar.
TOSCA CAFE Map Bar
415-391-1244; 242 Columbus Ave; 5pm-2am Tue-Sun; 1, 20
If Francis Ford Coppola had filmed The Godfather in San Francisco, he would surely have set an operatic bloodbath or quiet strangling in Tosca. Coppola, Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro or Bono might be lurking in the VIP room, but we’d rather hang at one of the round red-vinyl booths, Irish coffee or retro-classic cocktail in hand. The place has that self-assured Italian American brusqueness, with a smoke-stained ceiling, a worn linoleum floor and an all-opera jukebox (with genuine 45rpm platters).
VESUVIO Map Bar
415-362-3370; 255 Columbus Ave; 6am-2am; 1, 20
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.
CAFFE TRIESTE Map Cafe
415-392-6739; 601 Vallejo St; 6:30am-11pm Sun-Thu, to midnight Fri & Sat; 20, 30, 41, 45;
Poetry on the bathroom walls, opera on the jukebox, monthly Saturday accordion concerts, and occasional sightings of poet laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti: this is North Beach at its best, as it’s been since the 1950s. Linger over a legendary espresso, join aging anarchists debating how best to bring down the government, or just sit with your sketchpad and watch the world go by outside.
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HUSH-HUSH HOOCH