The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, a city commission empaneled since the 1990s to discuss local public records, and to find violations. It cannot meet right now because of new city rules....
I once ran afoul for briefly calling Dore Alley a "sex fair." And let's be honest for a second because yes: there's plenty of sex happening at it. But it is also more than that....
The landmark restaurant at 1541 Montgomery Street, tucked below Coit Tower with the Bay Bridge laid out beneath it, is set to reopen after a restoration that dragged on for more than a decade....
The Golden Gate Dozen borrows the same idea as the Crosstown Trails, those designated routes that thread SF neighborhoods together using stairways, paths, and sidewalks you already walk....
The old Chase Bank at 2500 Mission St. will reopen as Hidden Frequency, a small, immersive music venue built around a single listening room and a steady diet of electronic and experimental sound....
Iggy's Burgers, the family's own Sonoma County smashburger brand, is now open in the same room in Castro that was very recently an Argentinian steakhouse....
When you put the uniform on one of our teams in San Francisco, you represent something bigger than yourself....
We celebrate straight love in nearly every song on the radio and at all 2,430 ballgames a year. After the Giants' Pride Night, the comments still wanted to know when heterosexuals get their parade....
The business model focuses on three things: coffee, matcha, and scones. The scones arrive warm and split, spread with housemade jam and cream....
Arsicault Bakery went from an unassuming neighborhood storefront to a national sensation overnight, and they sold me the best croissant I've ever eaten....
In a move that's timed perfectly for Pride Month, and on the heels of D'Arcy Drollinger's SF film premiere: Oasis just announced it will reopen July 17th....
We love our mercurial weather pattern but apparently loathe its name. This wasn't always....
C-SPAN and maybe a dozen others decided to livestream the whole thing, so I saw a lot of foot-dragging, and name calling, and of course the live chat kept everything super mature....
For longtime San Franciscans, the goodbye of Park Tavern carries the weight of everything that came before it....
San Francisco did not invent the cocktail, but we have spent roughly 175 years acting like we did. If a drink made this list, somebody who actually sat on the stool swears by it....
The neighborhood that feels so permanent today was, in its moment, one of the most aggressive building sprees the city had ever seen....
The cool part is, we lived with a total fucking stranger and made memories....
The listing photos are lying to you. Here's what San Franciscans actually check in those nine frantic minutes before signing, from the trash chute to the rent-control loophole that decides whether you get to stay....
An exhaustive, possibly unhinged guide to every ice cream shop, cart, pop-up, and restaurant extra I could find in San Francisco....
Sam Smith ended a 20-night residency by walking Kim Petras to a Castro bar for one more round. That's the kind of night this map is made of....
We asked San Francisco where it likes to get stoned. The city refused to pick just one, so we mapped all of them....
San Francisco is seven miles by seven miles, which sounds adorable until you remember that many miles go straight up. You need shoes that won't betray you and the willingness to get gently lost....
Kesha at a piano bar. Adele in a brunch line. Zendaya at a worker-owned co-op. The most San Francisco thing about celebrity dining is how un-fancy it gets....
From Japantown's lined-up classics to a beef-bone bowl out in the Sunset, a map of San Francisco ramen that's actually open....
A field guide to ten free San Francisco views, with addresses, directions, and which ones win at sunset....
The mayor's slogan is "Let's go San Francisco." Someone built the X-rated remix called "Let's Blow San Francisco." The casting call is real, and we have the receipts....
From Mission taquerias to Richmond dim sum, a citywide map of where to eat well without blowing past $50....
A 2026 guide to the cats working San Francisco's corner stores, wine shops, and flower markets. Updated, mapped, and sorted by how sure we are they're still there....
She would have been Shane's mother, the one role in the whole series that made me weep. Then ICE fears and a second Trump term got in the way....
Elim Chan is coming to Davies in 2027, and the house she's inheriting at San Francisco Symphony is gorgeous, world-class, and a little bruised....
The charity bro pageant raised nearly $1 million for cancer research before disappearing into the pandemic. Also it was bonkers....
Yes, Bay to Breakers is a frat party. It is also, sometimes, the most San Francisco day of the year....
Long before any student paid tribute to Halston, he had already sold his name. He watched his legacy turn to addiction, mass-market deals, and a brand he no longer controlled....
Doris Fisher, who co-founded Gap Inc. with her late husband Donald in a single small store on Ocean Avenue in 1969, died Saturday....
'Art Bash' is less about the art and more about what people are wearing at a very prominent party....
If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say there's no fashion in San Francisco, I could commission a new ballgown. Or five....
'Wallbanger' reeks heavily of 'The Wedding Planner' without budget, charisma, or a single believable San Francisco apartment. And it’s directed by a Musk....
La Sylphide is an ethereal gut punch wrapped in tartan....
The San Francisco-born chain, with branding like the queerest coffee shop in town, briefly pulled its Pride flags from its stores. But I never liked you anyway, Philz....
You can still find a table on a Tuesday night. You just have to look sideways into the back rooms of dives, behind the jukebox, past the dartboard, occasionally under a chandelier....
San Francisco's dance party scene has splintered into parallel worlds: some sober, some chemically enhanced, some queer, some aggressively not, and most of them happening somewhere you have to know someone to find....
Buying your ticket and sitting in that seat is you saying: I'm choosing to be in a room full of people who believe art still matters....
These are the spots where you can walk in on a Tuesday, order a drink, and find a jazz trio or a blues band playing ten feet away from you....
Your complete guide to cheap bivalves across the city, from $1 holdouts to splurge-worthy shucks....
Hunky Jesus is queer church without the guilt. It is what Pride would be if corporations hadn't found it. And it is San Francisco’s most sacred act of nonsense....
North Beach is the neighborhood where you go to sit outside, watch people walk by, and eat something good without making a whole production out of it....
To eat outside in SF, we sit outside in 54-degree fog and call it "refreshing." We wrap ourselves in restaurant blankets like it's totally normal behavior....
By 11 p.m., throngs of Gen Z swayed to vibrating bass, clutching large cans of NÜTRL and Bud Light, while the stench of weed wafted overhead....
Great parties for me need conversation that goes somewhere unexpected, and they need to feel like you're both the audience and the show. Bouquets to Art was a great party....
Irving Street has more boba shops per block than some cities have total. It is a boba street that also has other things....
Now at the Ritz Carlton, the party intimidated me enough to park my Subaru down the street instead of using the valet....
The truth is that I go to these things for the people. The art is what sneaks up on me while I'm busy having a good time....
It is a meaningful moment for San Francisco's waterfront, which is a sentence I apparently mean without irony....
Half of SF metro area homes still don't have AC. The rest of us have developed coping mechanisms....
The Brides of March is what happens when you take the same anarchic DNA of SantaCon, but you let joy be the point....
SF Symphony's Lunar New Year gala was the most San Francisco thing you could do on the last Saturday of February....
Jackson Square somehow got even more expensive. We're going anyway....
These single-location coffee shops in San Francisco have poured their hearts into one space, one counter, one community....
If you walked into the War Memorial Opera House expecting ballet to stay quiet and pretty and out of the conversation, you weren't paying attention to this art form....
I want to keep this publication going because I think it meant something to the young generation of San Franciscans at the time. And maybe it can for the current one, or the next one. This is a bit tl;dr - apologies....
Hunter Pence asked SF locals for their favorite quiet spots. The answers were a love letter to the city....
We drank our way through San Francisco so you'd know exactly where to get your fix....
Looking down the long rows of tables, Grace Cathedral cathedral was awash in the vibrant, shifting colors of the Year of Resonance....
I had been dating Caleb for six months, and the honeymoon phase was officially over. We had entered the Parking Phase....
Postscript was a bougie café in Jackson Square that people often referred to as San Francisco's Erewhon — the Los Angeles grocery store that built an empire on $19 smoothies, raw sea moss gel, and unapologetic luxury-as-a-lifestyle aesthetics. But it is no more....
On rainy days like today, warm up with hot pots from Nabe or iPot. Or play a boardgame with a waffle sandwich in hand at Game Parlour. There's so much to love about Inner Sunset....
People tell me all the time how drab San Francisco is, as they might put it: no one dresses up, and where are the good parties? Glamour does exist in ye olde city of denim, hoodies, and Crocs — you just have to look a little harder....
This show is not based in reality. There’s nothing said about gender-nonconforming people, trans culture, or gay culture generally. And these are all men who pass as straight. (Well, maybe not Kip.)...
One man’s call for help uncovering a great mystery of 20th-century photography....
The blue Victorian on 712 Steiner is steeped in history, not just ‘Full House’ fame....
Coming from San Francisco, the stares and comments only fueled my sense of pride in breaking the mold at this historic event....
As one of the world’s best food cities, many San Francisco bars also serve killer food. Three newcomers to this scene are Movida, Bar Gemini, and Stoa....
While there are scant midnight offerings here, they are by no means gone entirely....
If you didn’t know: There is only one Blockbuster Video left on planet Earth. It is in Bend, Oregon, and it’s a relic of a bygone era when the country had more than 9,000 locations....
Does anyone in mainstream media have anything nice to say about San Francisco?...
Suits with backpacks, ugly shoes, and skinny jeans. Derek Guy spills the tea on everything we get wrong....
Adriana Roberts is a well-known burner who has gone for 30 years and needs to quit the playa. This is why....
People often talk about why they’ve decided to depart our City by the Bay. But I’m staying right here, and this is why....
Joseph Selle was an unheralded photographer and chronicler of San Francisco’s sidewalk culture in the 1950s....
The urban van lifestyle is definitely not for everyone, but it suits me well....
These are some primo spots to drop a deuce if you can’t wait to get home to do it....
Sex workers from the 1800s inspired some names for San Francisco’s walkable alleys and scenic drives....
When he got to me I accepted my fate, morbidly curious to experience the process, I thought, “If I can survive this I won’t be nervous about it again.”...
My good girl sensibilities finally discovered kink one sunny afternoon in the Mission....
Explaining the two worlds of the dating app....
A story of chaos, censorship, and cigarette rationing....
San Francisco’s style in the 1920s looked a lot more dapper than today. The Bay Area has fully embraced lounge chic, or maybe not so chic....
You wouldn’t even know what to do with me if you had me....
After hearing these, it’s going to be hard to believe anyone ever again...
A slow flow practice to align with your inner self-critic....
Learning to care for and support the people I love, not control them....
How I got a dozen free meals—and a big fat privileged wake-up call....
What happens when you get tipsy and decide to invite a building full of strangers to a party in your apartment? I recently drank a huge glass of wine and found out....
Remembering a different time in San Francisco....
Telesia Telsee, more commonly known as Lisa, closes her eyes and nods silently. She’s been working as a Muni operator since 2001—and she’s witnessed it all....
Atomic bombs, giant owls and the president’s pissing tree, deep in a forest north of San Francisco....
Given San Francisco's iconic chocolate “scene,” many cafes and bakeries add their own spin on this winter drink to make it one of a kind....
My interview for the position of food runner (a.k.a. all-purpose kitchen bitch) was quite brief. It was clear they were in need of any warm body possible to fill the role, because the restaurant was dangerously understaffed. I was also desperate for a job....
At one point, I found myself in the arms of a stranger while he apologized to me on behalf of all men....
Dixie has devoted her entire life to a subject that is usually talked about only in hushed tones: detailed sex stories....
Polyamory is one of those things that always sounded like a beautiful idea to me. But reality can be a real bitch, and any relationship can turn into somebody bleeding to death on the ground....
Witches across the world came together to set a spell on President Trump. Since then, some dedicated resistance witches have been casting spells every month....
Sure, Blue Bottle is good, but can it compete with the Asian palm civet, renowned for its ability to improve the taste of coffee beans that pass through its digestive system?...
What I saw when I stared into a complete stranger’s eyes....
If you’re into having some dirty fun with partnered professionals and are willing to play the long game, LinkedIn is your next great dating app....
Santa Rosa, the capital of wine country, can’t be beat when it comes to a grape-cation....
While I don’t want to say I would die without good Mexican food, I’m also not convinced that life would still be worth living....
Historically, when the going gets tough, civilizations have pulled together to accomplish incredible feats....
“They rip clothing off of men and … they burn it. Because Burning Man.”...
Maybe Pokémon Go was made by a bunch of horny dude-bros, or maybe the original designers back in the ’90s were naïve about the potential for innuendo in their creations....
Does this unit get much natural light? There’s just the one small window, and it seems pretty dark in here....
A popular myth states that you never see a stripper outside a club; yet the dancers at the Condor are different: most met their long-term loves right here....
Where the gym-shorts crowd drinks nowadays. Our guide to the Marina's frattiest bars....
A rundown of how people are getting high in the city....
When California wine is mentioned, it’s natural to immediately think of Napa and Sonoma. But these household names aren’t the only areas in the state burgeoning with vines....
San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area are home to a variety of places to experience all-star constellations (and even to discover a few new ones)....
After I showed up with a mysterious lump in my neck, my date recommended that I go to the hospital....
With the current tech boom, you can be excited again about all the inventions sprouting up right here in the city. Despite the newness of it all, San Francisco has always been a hotbed of innovation....
In my generation, it’s easier to find people who have longer relationships with their Lyft drivers than with their dates, let alone engage in this foreign concept of marriage....
Clothes: the last obstruction to the truly perfected working environment....
There is a moment (for some, that moment may be now) when it comes to your attention that some people don’t use a top sheet — the flat sheet that goes between your body and your blankets. For some, the realization is revolutionary and freeing. Those people are definitively gross....
I was recently hit with a twofer on the eve of my 27th birthday: my boyfriend broke up with me, and soon after, I was unexpectedly laid off from my job....
When you’re homesick, or tired, or cozy and happy, you don’t crave fancy foie gras or squid tentacles. You want something simple and familiar....
Here is my exhaustive ranking of the best uses of facial hair, from worst to first....
There are a few drawbacks to growing up and living in the City by the Bay that would make it difficult to live as successfully in any other city in the world....
IPA says, "Heyyy, this person is cool! Take your weeny beers somewhere else; my friend here wants a mouth explosion, STAT!"...
It can be a little demeaning, explaining that two working adults nearing our 30s share a 200-square-foot apartment....
It’s slightly chilly in SF. What better way to cure the cool-weather blues than with hot, chunky noodle soups?...
She insisted that only girls could be food reviewers because boys “would just punch everything and kick the food.”...
I met an SFMTA Parking Control Officer randomly at a bar earlier this year, and I was excited that he agreed to get buzzed over a couple beers, and let me pick his brain about parking in San Francisco....
The offer of gas money shows positive intent, but the money doesn’t automatically justify a ride at any time....
I’m conservative in the most liberal city....
Does it ever seem like all long term relationships are doomed in one way or another? My parents are divorced. My friends’ parents are divorced. Everyone is divorced....
Forged by the Gold Rush and Barbary Coast, San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood has played host to a variety of cultures and subcultures over the decades....
I’ve been living in San Francisco for almost two years now and I’ve made almost no friends. I’ve found that I can trick myself into feeling like I’m talking with a friend while I listen to a podcast....
Being single means having unattached sex with multiple partners whenever available, right? To varying degrees, yes, it does, but for me it meant being celibate — for an entire year....
Faced with the choice of having to accept my sexual orientation or disown me, my parents made the harder choice. They’re certainly never going to wave flags at the Pride parade, but they’ll also stand up for me if one of their friends or family members says something disparaging....
She is the youngest person to eat a full tasting menu....
The Presidio of San Francisco is 1,491 acres with 21 distinct neighborhoods, all converted buildings left over from its days as a military post. Each of these areas has its own unique look....
Hayes Valley is definitely a neighborhood that you can say, “I remember when …” about and be referencing vastly different phases of its history....
As many of us know, the fervor with which Burners talk about the festival rivals any religious fanaticism out there....
I’m pretty confident that 40ish percent of SF’s economy rides on selling embroidered fleece sweaters to tourists deceived by our palm trees. Even with the recent slightly-hot-spell, we all know that drastic temperature change can happen in mere blocks, and certainly once the sun goes down....
As a kid, you probably thought birthday parties were awesome. Too bad we all had to grow up because somehow, the default plan became the dreaded birthday dinner....
Nothing quite like a Pride parade through San Francisco! We sent Akshay Sawhney out to take portraits of Sunday’s Pride-goers, and as expected, they are so fun, and so gay!...
I spent some time at the San Francisco Public Library going through historical photo collections and found some fantastic prints from Pride parades over the last 40 years....
San Francisco is prone to disasters, but it’s also a place that knows how to bounce back like nowhere else. This city has been almost completely obliterated several times, from both natural disasters and bizarro development scenarios....
Somehow Craigslist has been good to me. And having spent the past few years in the lucky, slightly-drunk-with-power position as a master tenant, I always insist on putting any open rooms in our house back into the Craigslist pool....
Allegedly, upwards of 70 percent of all Fernet consumed in the US is drunk in San Francisco. To that end, I found current or former Bay Area residents who had a strong opinion on this inimitable elixir....
For those who live within earshot of the Golden Gate Bridge, that familiar moan of the foghorn is either a nice bit of ambiance or a reason to sleep with earplugs....
Let me be clear: I’m not a kleptomaniac and it’s not a compulsion. You can have me over without worrying that something will be missing after I’m gone....
I felt like one of the Goonies on my way to find One-Eyed Willy, albeit with fewer booby traps....
Here, we present a roundup of looks that are ideal for SF situations, because there’s really nothing like being schooled by a Shiba Inu....
We had a good thing, and we’re good people; but we weren’t good for each other....
You were cold at first, but then you offered me some of your delicious clam chowder, and we warmed up to each other....
We’ve come a long way together, baby. From the days when you used to run me from the Mission to the FiDi and back, through our brief estrangement while I experimented with your younger brother, BART....
No single nickname has ever really stuck for Saint Frank....
But when I first hit the market again, the teeth of my gears were spinning aimlessly. I had pizza four meals in a row. I wore my underwear inside out to avoid laundry....
It should surprise no one that SF-level apartment desperation + Internet strangers = inevitable housing nightmares, quietly marinating under that dial-up era homepage....
By the time my decades-long chemical spree had ended, I had published a memoir about my exploits that a sober friend called a “drunkalogue” — a reference to AA disclosures that painstakingly detail every gutter puked in, stranger punched and bedsheet peed upon....
Is your apartment “historically charming” — as in it’s too old to have proper soundproofing? Is your residential building incredibly close to the ones next to it? The answer to both questions is yes because you live in San Francisco....
It turns out the Radical Faeries are more than just a handful of beautiful weirdos living in San Francisco. They’re a part of a politically radical movement of gay men who’ve been around since the 1970s, and include millions of members around the world....
Since its days as a bawdy port city built on gold dust and dungarees, San Francisco has always been a town where open-mindedness reigns and people live whatever life they see fit....
Breaking down neighborhood stereotypes for apartment hunters....
It’s hard enough to park a car or even just walk on the especially crazy-steep SF streets, to imagine building a house on them would seem impossible if they weren’t already there....
Before the Castro, there was Polk. From the 1950s through the early 1980s, Polk was the gay center of San Francisco....
Still sporting looks from the early ’90s, we’ve been known for our “comfortable” shoes, white backwards baseball hats, unflattering flowy dresses, and too-small ironic boy T-shirts paired with too-big man jeans....
The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, a city commission empaneled since the 1990s to discuss local public records, and to find violations. It cannot meet right now because of new city rules....
I once ran afoul for briefly calling Dore Alley a "sex fair." And let's be honest for a second because yes: there's plenty of sex happening at it. But it is also more than that....
The landmark restaurant at 1541 Montgomery Street, tucked below Coit Tower with the Bay Bridge laid out beneath it, is set to reopen after a restoration that dragged on for more than a decade....
The Golden Gate Dozen borrows the same idea as the Crosstown Trails, those designated routes that thread SF neighborhoods together using stairways, paths, and sidewalks you already walk....
Let's be clear: No one was injured. Paul Pelosi's blood alcohol level was tested at 0.00. He has accepted responsibility and offered to pay for the damage to the other car....
The old Chase Bank at 2500 Mission St. will reopen as Hidden Frequency, a small, immersive music venue built around a single listening room and a steady diet of electronic and experimental sound....
Iggy's Burgers, the family's own Sonoma County smashburger brand, is now open in the same room in Castro that was very recently an Argentinian steakhouse....
Many of my progressive friends have stopped wanting to celebrate the country at all. But I would like to do the exact opposite....
When you put the uniform on one of our teams in San Francisco, you represent something bigger than yourself....
The Mill opened in 2012 as a joint venture between Four Barrel Coffee and Josey Baker Bread. Then it accidentally became famous....
We celebrate straight love in nearly every song on the radio and at all 2,430 ballgames a year. After the Giants' Pride Night, the comments still wanted to know when heterosexuals get their parade....
The business model focuses on three things: coffee, matcha, and scones. The scones arrive warm and split, spread with housemade jam and cream....
