San Francisco Bay Area: Your favorite things to do or places to go

[cbloom]

I'll try to do a roundup of my favorite (indie) live music places :

Great American Music Hall - tons of great music, awesome space, 5 thumbs up!!!
(bad neighborhood though, so not a place to bar hop)

Bimbo's 365 - really cool place but only has bands like once in a while, definitely go if you see a good show scheduled here

The Independent - meh space, big enough, lots of good bands

Hotel Utah - never been here, someone else has to review

Bottom of the Hill - I hate this space, it gets way too crowded and the bar is right on the floor, but they have lots of good bands, so check their listings, also out in the middle of nowhere which is annoying

Make out Room - not bad, has some pretty good bands now and the cover is like $3-5

Amnesia - little joint with great hipster Gypsy and Klezmer and Balkan music a couple nights each week, very fun; no hard liquor & very tiny so if you're not into the band it sucks.

Elbo Room - very rarely has decent bands but it's actually a really nice space, fun crowd, band on one floor and just a bar on the other floor so you can pick your poison

[Justin A]

Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers is a really great place, there's a few locations but the one I'm thinking of is just off of Lombard near the Marina.

Mt. Diablo is a good destination in the east bay, on a clear day it's got the second best visibility in the world. You can drive all the way to the top, but there's a lot of fun hiking spots, including a really cool place called rock city.

A great place to take kids is Tilden Park, also in the east bay area. There's a mini train that you can ride and a merry-go-round. Really good botanical gardens there also to keep the ladies happy.

Cable Car Museum is very interesting also if you're into that sort of thing.

Lastly, Fior d'Italia, pretty much the best Italian food I've ever had.

[El Diablo]

c,

Excellent list. Comments on a few of those + a couple others.

GAMH - Not a big fan. I think the acoustics generally suck.

Hotel Utah is a cool little place, small, more singer-songwritery acoustic stuff than rocking music. Doesn't get all that much really good stuff, but a fun place to have a couple of beers.

BOTH - Hah, I love it. Best place in the city to see punk/indie shows. Yeah, it can get way too crowded, but has incredible energy.

Bimbo's I agree is a great place to see shows, usually the stuff they book is more on the low key side.

Elbo Room, I agree w/ your review.

Slim's is one of my favorite places to see shows, small club that gets lots of good shows.

Cafe du Nord is another great small venue, with more low-key pretty sounding and jazzy stuff, though they also do some cool rocking indie shows.

The Hemlock Tavern has some great shows that really rock out including some cool punk shows. The front half is a really good bar separate from the music part.

The Red Devil Lounge gets a lot of old 80's/90's acts coming through, plus the occassional new stuff. OK place.

[nubs]

[ QUOTE ]
Mt. Diablo is a good destination in the east bay, on a clear day it's got the second best visibility in the world. You can drive all the way to the top, but there's a lot of fun hiking spots, including a really cool place called rock city.

[/ QUOTE ]

The "fact" that Mt Diablo has the 2nd best visibility in the world was actually started by a real estate promooter around 1915. It just isn't tall enough.

I actually grew up right at the base of Mt Diablo and believed this myth until I recently stumbled upon the wikipedia article about the mountain.

There is actually a flower called Mt Diablo buckwheat only found there. It was thought extinct since 1936 but was rediscovered in 2005.

My personal favorite place to hike is Morgan Territory park east of Mt Diablo. There are lots of great trails, it's not very popular and a great place to take your dog for an off leash walk (dont know if it is technically allowed). The road to the park is a great one lane winding road which is a very fun drive, but be careful several people have died plunging off the side of the road.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If it's the beach in the pic, it's Baker Beach. not really a swimming beach, as the water's cold, the currents can be ripping and it's a popular fishing beach for striped bass, halibut and perch. the eastern end (towards the ggb) is affectionately known as man-fort beach by the local fishermen. basically, it's a nude beach that's frequented mostly by older men.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yea, that must be it, there was a naked guy that seemed to be doing laps around the beach or something. We didn't go in the water so I'll trust you about it being cold. It was in May so the weather hadn't totally warmed up yet, although it was pretty hot that day.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, that's bakers beach...I have a painting of it at my house. It's always effing freezing there no matter what.

[/ QUOTE ]
It must have been 80+ that day, by far the hottest weather I've seen in SF or Santa Cruz (I've spent a lot more time in SC). Really nice place to hang out though, the bridge/cliffs in the distance look really cool.

[PITTM]

wrt san francisco clubs.

my FAVORITE club EVER was the Cocodrie, which is now closed down. article.
i remember reading that article and almost being in tears as i read it.

My favorite sf club at this point is the fillmore, mostly because of the insane amount of ridiculously cool, historic artwork everywhere.

put me up for one vote for the pound, which is super underrated and fun.

[claudenm]

Memphis Minnies is not good BBQ no matter where you are from. I've eaten there twice, don't think I will go again.

Ali Baba (19th and Valencia, Haight between Steiner and Fillmore) makes pretty damn good Shwarma and Falafel, IMO.

Lots of people (myself included) like the atmosphere at Zeitgeist they have a nice little out door patio, but it is often times quiet crowded.

La Randia (20th and Valencia)- Decently strong $12 dollar pitchers of margarita, mariachi band, a bit of a dive though. Good value I think.

Majoul- 22nd and Mission- I don't know why I like it. It's not my scene (trendy/ European) and the drinks are weak. There is something about sitting on a rooftop staring out at the city chatting comfortably with friends that I find pleasant.

Edit to add Fort Funston. Nice little lookout spot about 150 feet over the ocean. Nice short walk, and cool to watch hang gliders do their thing. The sunsets are nice, but I prefer Muir beach for sunsets in the bay area.



Claude

[M2d]

[ QUOTE ]
The sunsets are nice, but I prefer Muir beach for sunsets in the bay area.

[/ QUOTE ]
muir is a nice beach, but the sunset views are compromised vbecause it's a north facing beach. some of the beaches along point bonita provide great unobstructed sunset views, though.

for the record, muir is another manfort beach, but sunny summer days (especially during the weekdays) sees some hot younger and milf-ish residents from nearby homes sporting what god gave them.

[M2d]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If it's the beach in the pic, it's Baker Beach. not really a swimming beach, as the water's cold, the currents can be ripping and it's a popular fishing beach for striped bass, halibut and perch. the eastern end (towards the ggb) is affectionately known as man-fort beach by the local fishermen. basically, it's a nude beach that's frequented mostly by older men.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yea, that must be it, there was a naked guy that seemed to be doing laps around the beach or something. We didn't go in the water so I'll trust you about it being cold. It was in May so the weather hadn't totally warmed up yet, although it was pretty hot that day.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, that's bakers beach...I have a painting of it at my house. It's always effing freezing there no matter what.

[/ QUOTE ]
It must have been 80+ that day, by far the hottest weather I've seen in SF or Santa Cruz (I've spent a lot more time in SC). Really nice place to hang out though, the bridge/cliffs in the distance look really cool.

[/ QUOTE ]

baker can actually be a very nice respite from the heat during the three days of heatwave that the City experiences every year. when it's 90 downtown, it's usually high 70's at the beach. it's really nice when it's clear at the end of summer and the baitfish are hanging around. the bait attracts the stripers and the stripers attract porpoises. very cool sight to see the sun going down and porpoises playing in the surf

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]

The "fact" that Mt Diablo has the 2nd best visibility in the world was actually started by a real estate promooter around 1915. It just isn't tall enough.

I actually grew up right at the base of Mt Diablo and believed this myth until I recently stumbled upon the wikipedia article about the mountain.


[/ QUOTE ]

This news crushes me. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I just read the wiki article and it looks like it's not even close. Oh well, there are still some pretty good views from up there.