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

[JackInDaCrak]

Without reading this whole thread - Sunset at Bolinas Ridge (up Highway 1 through Marin like you're headed to Stinson Beach, then you turn right up into the Mt. Tamalpais National Park) is pretty much my favorite place in the whole USA.

[Snipe]

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Good places to find Basketball pick up games:

Park Merced (a.k.a San Francisco State University outdoor courts)

Sunset Recreation Center (a.k.a Lawton, located in the Sunset, lots of asians)

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Moscone Rec Outdoor Courts in the Marina (at Webster st. and Bay st.). Best pick-up basketball in the city if you want higher quality games.

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One good thing SF truly lacks - decent pick up hoops.

Marina is probably the best run, but you have to go with a solid squad so you can run a few games, otherwise, it's one and done due to an excrutiating wait.

The sunset rec games are hectic as the courts are about 45' end to end. Makes for a really bad game.

Haven't played at the State courts, but they didn't look too bad the one time I watched for a minute. Little tough to concentrate with the amount of coed eyecandy walking around tho.

[Taraz]

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One good thing SF truly lacks - decent pick up hoops.


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So true. It's killing me inside man.

[FastPlaySlow]

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One good thing SF truly lacks - decent pick up hoops.


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So true. It's killing me inside man.

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Eh... the public in general is never really any good.

I think you need to join leagues to find any real competition if you had a solid squad.

Another place I like to play at is Palega (Silver, it's uh... near San Bruno St.) and Chinatown Recreation Center (Although people complain that the people there are terrible.)

I play there because they're free, open gyms.

[Indiana]

#1 Golden Boy Pizza, north beach

#2 Slanted Door, ferry building

#3 Rub and tug(and a little more) on stockton.

#4 Coyote Point

#5 Twin Peaks

#6 Bay 101, Lucky Chances

#7 Century shopping center, San Jose

[Taraz]

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One good thing SF truly lacks - decent pick up hoops.


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So true. It's killing me inside man.

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Eh... the public in general is never really any good.

I think you need to join leagues to find any real competition if you had a solid squad.

Another place I like to play at is Palega (Silver, it's uh... near San Bruno St.) and Chinatown Recreation Center (Although people complain that the people there are terrible.)

I play there because they're free, open gyms.

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I'm in a few leagues and I drive to other places to play all the time. I've found pretty high quality runs with some Pro-Am guys.

It's just crazy to me that there aren't 20 basketball nuts like me in a city this big who would go out every day to play pick-up. I guess I could get a gym membership to the Bay Club or whatever it's called, but I'm broke.

[nolanfan34]

Bump from my previous post.

Ended up using Priceline to get hotel rooms for early-mid August. One Thursday night, and one Sunday night.

Finally got winning bids for $80 on each night. I was sticking with 4-star and boutique generally, before having to drop down to 3-stars.

Staying one night at the Warwick Regis. Seems to be in the Union Square area.

Second night is at the Club Quarters San Francisco. Upscale business traveller place I guess? Close to the Embarcadero Center apparently.

Shopping around, it looks like Priceline found me some decent deals. Looking foward to checking out the details of this thread some more when my trip approaches. Perhaps some of the San Fran crew will be interested in drinks on of the nights we're around.

[BretWeir]

I've only been there a couple of times on business, but two great old-school eating places are Tadich Grill and the Tonga Room. Tadich has good steak and seafood and a huge oval bar. Tonga Room is a throwback but somewhat upscale Polynesian tiki place (think Trader Vic's) with good tropical cocktails and a pool in the middle of the room with "storms" (rain + thunder) every 15 minutes or so. The last time I was there, they had a corny 70's combo playing on a boat in the middle of the pool.

[Taraz]

One last pick-up basketball related post . . .

Anybody gonna head out to the marina to play today? Seems like a good day out. I'm thinking of heading out around 5ish.

[crashjr]

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Tonga Room is a throwback but somewhat upscale Polynesian tiki place (think Trader Vic's) with good tropical cocktails and a pool in the middle of the room with "storms" (rain + thunder) every 15 minutes or so. The last time I was there, they had a corny 70's combo playing on a boat in the middle of the pool.

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I used to live half a block north of the Fairmont on Mason. Whenever I was entertaining out of town guests, the Tonga Room was always the last stop. Free mixed nuts, $9 hurricanes, and the water feature. Plus, there are some great photos in the hall outside of the old Fairmont from prior to and just after the 1906 quake (the hotel was under construction at the time of the quake, and was one of a very small number of significant structures to survive the quake for many miles around - it was damaged by the fire, but it was not yet furnished and there was little to burn.) The hotel lobby is not to be missed either.