I'm in!

Now I'm worried that I scared everyone else off.

You did not scare me away! I would love to meet up!

Financial District-y isn't bad, maybe? We normally end up downtown or in the Mission because that's where BART stops, but the Mission on a Friday night is generally a bit more than I like to deal with.

But I can't say I'm particularly knowledgeable about bars down that way.

We definitely don't need to stick to the Financial District. I'm sorta familiar with the city and can get around easy enough. So whatever location is convenient and fun!

One of my favorite bars from my time in the Bay Area was the Plough & Stars. Though they're likely to have a music act on Friday nights, so maybe something more conversation-friendly would be better.

It's more an issue of other people getting around -- if anyone's coming from the East Bay, anything other than downtown or Mission gets hard for them.

On the other hand... downtown is looking a bit barren, and like I said, Mission's a bit disastrous on a Friday.

Hrrmmm... sorry, I'm bad with decent bars on weekends... Things get crowded and/or full of live music... and they obviously inspire too many ellipses... :)

I certainly wouldn't mind the Richmond or the Sunset (especially since they're close to ikkyu and me), but my mind is blanking on actual locations.

Anyone else? Help?

I can't help. I can only offer encouragement.

Zeitgeist was good, right? Outdoor, close to Market, easy to get to....

Is Hobson's Choice on Haight as much of a disaster (yes, I'm stuck on that word) as it seems it might be? It always looks like a bar that I *want* to like.

Zeitgeist depends muchly on the weather... I don't tend to like it at night, really. Plus, very very loud.

/me only has one or two SF bars to use as empirical evidence, and one of them is dismissed!

There's Specs, in North Beach, that I've been to once and always wanted to go back to, but I have no idea what it's like on weekends.

/me only has one or two SF bars to use as empirical evidence, and one of them is dismissed!

/me posts multiply, gets confused

Hee. Sorry.

Seriously, I have separate categories in my head for "weeknight bars" and "weekend bars" and I don't yet have any SF bars that successfully populate the second category. Mainly because I am old and crotchety and like to shake my fist when the music gets too loud.

(Also because I don't get out on weekends enough. I am convinced there are bars in the city that are perfectly lovely on Friday nights, I'm just not sure which ones they are.)

Club Deluxe, on Haight? I'm not sure why I'm stuck on the Haight, except that it's walking distance for me. I've never been to this place, but the outside has always looked cool... one of the other sites wasn't showing any live music for that night, but I can double-check that with the bar if there's interest.

I wish I could be more helpful. Most of my nights out in SF involved overly-busy bars that my friends dragged me too. There were a few better ones though--I remember having a nice time at Savoy Tivoli in North Beach.

Perhaps Thursday night would be better? I know ikkyu2 said he couldn't make it on the weekend, but I can't remember why I went with Friday over Thurs.

My crazy list from two meet-ups ago (planning a weekday night outing):

21st Amendment – 562 2nd Street (near the ball park) – probably too far from BART, no full bar, good food

Annabelle’s Bar & Bistro Restaurant – 68 4th Street (between Market & Mission) – possibly too expensive

Cha Am Restaurant – 701 Folsom Street (near 4th) – has full bar, is inexpensive, but reportedly too crowded

Cha Cha Cha – 2327 Mission Street (at 19th Street) – sort of in-between 16th Street and 24th Street BART, this place is fun with good food but it might be a bit chaotic for people to meet each other

The Chieftain Irish Pub & Restaurant – 198 5th Street (5th & Howard) – too crowded

Elephant & Castle Pub & Restaurant – 424 Clay Street (near Battery) – a short hike from BART, not too bad

E&O Trading Company – 314 Sutter Street (between Grant and Stockton) – may be too expensive

Lalita Distinctive Thai Restaurant & Bar – 96 McAllister Street (near Leavenworth) – near Civic Center BART, inexpensive, not too crowded as not hopping/popular

The Liberties Irish Bar & Restaurant – 998 Guerero Street (at 22nd) – this is located near to 24th Street BART, but I’ve never been there so I don’t know if it’s crowded

Maya – 303 2nd Street (at Harrison) – large bar area, good “upscale” Mexican food, a bit far from Montgomery Street BART, I don’t think it would be too crowded

Pickwick Hotel, the lounge on the ground floor – 85-5th Street (at Mission) – kind of boring, a hotel lounge

The Rite Spot – 2099 Folsom Street (at 17th Street) – – a few blocks from 16th Street BART, not too far but a bit of a deserted walk, can get too crowded toward 9 p.m.

Soluna Café and Lounge – sort of in a less-popular part of town, but close to Civic Center BART, we’d probably more or less have the bar area to ourselves


Thirsty Bear – 661 Howard Street (between 3rd and 2nd) – sort of frat-boy-ish and generic/ loud, but large enough for any crowd

Zebulon – 83 Natoma (alley near 2nd and Mission) – too crowded in my opinion, plus service is slow

Zeitgeist – 199 Valencia Street (near Duboce aka 13th Street) – not that close to BART, plus sorta grimy (though I do like it sometimes)

Can I like, totally jump in this thread and mention that I will be in town on the nights of the 19th and 20th...? So don't wear yourselves out with mullaccy goodness...

Yay, gaspode meet-up!

I've been to Savoy Tivoli only once, but I really liked it a lot.

Maybe we could do a North Beach/China Town excursion and include dinner for those who want to do dinner? I still haven't been to House of Nanking, which I hear is more fun with a group, or there's various pizza-y places, and most of the bars I really like in SF (Vesuvio, Specs, Savoy Tivoli) are up in North Beach.

As far as North Beach area goes, I've been to Specs once or twice on the weekends and it was never packed. There are also a couple of Chinatown dives nearby . . .

North Beach is very cool -- I spent all day this past Saturday there. Took the F train down to the Embarcadero, walked up the Filbert street steps, ate pastries, drank coffee, looked at books.

(Obligatory $.02 -- NanKing is pretty cool, but pretty crowded, usually requires long wait. But it would be cool. If there's a big group maybe Lychee (sp?) Garden (Chinese) or Viva (Italian).)

An ex of mine bartends at Hobson's -- it's a nice crowd -- friendly. For me a bit young-ish, straight-ish, semi-mainstream. But not like the Marina or anything. Often the place is a mob scene, though. (If we ever really had an organized event, we could rent the upstairs room at Hobson's.)

Specs Specs Specs!

:-)

If other people don't mind the transportation hassle that North Beach requires, then that neighborhood would certainly be my preference. Specs is nice because it's divey; Savoy Tivoli is nice because it's very Italian.

I really liked Lichee Garden (apparently it's with an I) the one time I went. I've also been thinking that I should do better at exploring various China Town places, so I'm up for other suggestions, too.

And I seem to remember there being a lot of neat looking restaurants near Savoy Tivoli, but they all seemed to be expensive-looking neat restaurants...

I heart Specs. For restaurants I love L'Osteria del Forno, especially if it's a small-ish group. There are a couple of roasted chicken places. Bocce Cafe is cool for weird and interesting ambiance. Any of the Italian places will have good pasta (I'm thinking of the Italian place on the corner of Columbus and Vallejo on the same side of the street as Stella Pastry). Viva is dependable for pizza oven and pasta, and can seat a large group.

L'Osteria del Forno is my absolute favorite restaurant in North Beach, but it's kind of expensive and I don't think they can seat more than five people at a table? I may be wrong on that. But it's super teeny.

And I start to get a snobbish about pasta fairly quickly, which makes me a difficult North Beach date. :-)

Given it's still a month away, maybe we can kind of figure on Specs for drinks, and then closer to the date do a headcount and see how many we're actually talking about for dinner, then make plans for that? Because if it's just three or four of us, that's a different set of restaurants than if it's going to be a bigger group.

Does that make sense?

occhiblu: I think that makes sense. Ill repost this closer to the actual date.

And thanks for all the good ideas, occhiblu and ClaudiaSF!

Looking forward to seeing you, mullacc (and gaspode, later!).

(oh i totally know what's gonna happen -- mullacc's gonna wear you all out with his awesomeness and then you'll cancel on me...)

/instilling guilt trip early

gaspode: I made the people in IRC promise not to do that. But I'll tone down my awesomeness anyway. ;)

I may even consider wearing a bag over my head during the meetup.

No, you see, we'll show up for yours, but spend the entire night whining that you're not as cool as mullacc, that this bar is not as good as the one we went to when mullacc was in town, that we can't wait for mullacc to come back...

(Actually, given that you'll be here on weeknights, we'll probably spend much less time whining about how noisy and crowded SF bars are.)