Going to San Francisco for first time in March, and I seek recommendations!

In My Humble Opinion
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Basically the title says it all. I am going to San Francisco for the first time in March, and I would love some destinations, activities, and restaurants to visit. I am staying at the Holiday Inn San Francisco Golden Gateway Hotel at 1500 Van Ness Avenue, which, according to the website, “is located in the center of downtown San Francisco, just steps away from the historic California Cable Car turnaround.” I won’t have a car, so anything within walking distance or trolley/cable car/cab ride distance is imperative.

I’ll get in on a Thursday and leave early on a Sunday. I’ll be staying with my girlfriend who is attending a professional conference, so I’ll probably have good chunks of Friday and Saturday during the day to spend by myself, and then I’ll be with her the rest of the time. We’ve heard about a coffee shop Jack Kerouac used to hang out at that might be cool to visit, and I for one would love to check out Chinatown and/or Little Tokyo for authentic eats and toy shopping. Neither of us are loaded, but a nice romantic dinner at least one night would be wonderful, and great funky restaurants with unique local flavor would be ideal for most of the time (especially if they are moderately-priced or better yet, cheap!) We both love to eat.

Anything else we GOTTA do? How does one get to Alcatraz? I wouldn’t mind doing that. What are the cool live music venues, so I could check in advance to see if there are any good shows the nights we are in town? Is the area generally safe? I’m a big guy who usually gets left alone, but I’d much rather avoid trouble spots since I’ll have my girlfriend with me and she is tiny and has a disability.

I know a few Dopers live in San Fran, so if you have any particularly good advice, I’d love to hear it! Please don’t be shy!

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I recommend you wear some flowers in your hair. Be sure to.

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I should add that neither of us will be doing any drinking, so we’re not concerned with bars unless there is food or music that we can’t miss.

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My faves:

Golden Gate Park - and I’ve become a huge fan of the de Young.

Sutro Baths/Cliff House

Coit Tower

Lombard St.

Musee Mechanique

Palace of Fine Arts/ Exploratorium

Fort Point

More than the actual sights I just enjoy walking around the city.
I think the Haight and the Castro are probably my favorite neighborhoods.

Cool music venues:
The Independent – saw Bob Mould here a couple of years ago
Café du Nord – saw The Divine Comedy here, neat little speakeasy type place
The Fillmore – We’ve seen a few shows here including Stereolab, TMBG, Son Volt, and a few others.
The Warfield – Haven’t been there yet. It’s usually more hardcore bands that play there, and I don’t think the area is all that great. That’s not what’s kept me there though, they just haven’t had a band I like recently.

I think Snoooopy and woodstockbirdybird are more hip to the music venues than I am.

I don’t live in SF, but I’m there enough (about twice a month or so) and always a tourist. We just spent a week there in November for vacation, and we’re heading there in about 2 hours for the weekend.

Food:

My head will explode. I’ve been to too many places, and not nearly enough.
Definitely check out the Ferry Building. I haven’t been to The Slanted Door but here good things about it.
I like the burgers and stuff at Taylor’s Refresher.
I love going to the crab stations on the Wharf for crabbie patties and clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.
I love the breakfast at Magnolia and The Pork Store in the Haight and at the Beach Chalet just outside of Golden Gate Park.

I’m just going to copy the list of places still on my ‘SF to do list’ as far as restaurants go. I haven’t eaten at any of these places, but I’ve done some searching and they each have something that intrigued me enough to put them on the list.

Citizen Cake - Actually, we had dinner here, it was very good, but it’s all about dessert which we did not have, so we’ll have to go back soon. Maybe tomorrow.
Chow
The Blue Plate
Fog City Diner
Sauce
Lime - (for Sunday brunch - all you can drink Mimosa’s for $4.00!!)
Memphis Minnie’s
One Market
The House
The Slanted Door
Zazil
Hog Island Oyster Co.
foreign cinema
The Cliff House
Marrakech (mostly because I hear they have a hookah bar in the back.)
Fifth Floor

If we come across anything that’s a must do this weekend I’ll keep you posted.

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Alcatraz tours

SF “indie” newspapers tend to have more info on clubs and music than the “mainstream” news:
http://www.sfweekly.com/ (local print home of the Dope)
http://www.sfbg.com/

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House of Nanking (I’ll get back to you on the location, but close to the transamerica and the citylights bookstore)

Bambinos
corner of Cole and Parnassus, near the park, walkable from HaightAshbury

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About Alcatraz: My father and I went to San Francisco last February, and we enjoyed Alcatraz. We got there by ferry, which we took from Pier 41 at Fisherman’s Wharf. There were plenty of accomodations for the handicapped (which we didn’t use, but I noticed because my mother would have needed them if she’d been with us).

The only thing I didn’t expect was for the Alcatraz tour to be pre-recorded: you get a Walkman-type device with headphones. You can go at your own pace and rewind and fast-forward, but essentially you take the tour on your own. I guess I’ve watched The Rock too many times, because I was expecting a tour led by a park ranger. :slight_smile: I think you get the opportunity to walk into a regular cell (I didn’t do that), and you definitely get the opportunity to walk into a solitary cell (I did that; creepy!). It’s a neat tour if you’re at all interested in Alcatraz, which it sounds like you are.

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I’ve stayed at the Golden Gate Holiday Inn several times and really like it. The cable car stop is only about 100 feet out the front door. You can get a pass for all SF mass transit (except Bart) in the gift shop by the front door. It’s a real deal at something like $20 for a week.

You might want to get your tickets to Alcatraz ahead of time. It’s a popular destination and seats on the ferries are limited and do sell out.

The Empress of China restaurant in Chinatown is excellent, IMHO. Call ahead for reservations and ***MAKE SURE * ** you ask for a table by the windows with the view of the bay.

Fisherman’s Wharf is touristy, bum ladden, knee deep in gift shops selling pure schlock, and dirty: thusly is a hoot and you should check it out. There’s always a bunch of street entertainers. See the see lions and take the tour through the WWII submarine and Liberty ship. Some good seafood and you can watch them make soredough bread alligators.

The Legion of Honor museum, and the park around it, is really nice.

You can take the cable care up Hyde street to the top of Lomard street and walk down the crooked part.

Haight-Asbury is a nice trip down memory lane for us children of the 60’s.

There’s a number of really good Italian place in North Beach along Columbus street. It’s right next to Chinatown and just a short walk to Coit Tower which has some great views.

Golden Gate park, the zoo, and the Presido are well worth your time.

We really enjoyed the walk across the Golden Gate bridge. There’s a small park on the north side with an incredible view of the the bridge, bay and city.

There is a large shopping center just across Market street from the end of the Powell street cable car line. Ms Hook always likes to make a run at that.

Mission Delores isn’t too far from your hotel either.

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I love Golden Gate Park, and be sure to check out Lloyd Lake: it’s the only memorial to the 1906 earthquake.

And for gosh sakes, bundle up! San Francisco is cold.

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It’s a fairly huge shopping center now that the Bloomingdales has opened. If you do nothing else there, go up to the fourth or so floor and gawk at the dome. The building is a few months old, but the dome is 100 or so years old and they did an amazing more or less in-place restoration of it. It was amazing to watch them from my office window as they built a huge steel frame in the old Emporium building, jack up the dome, then demolish the old building.

The rest of the place is just a modern high-end mall, but the dome has decades of history.

About a block away, pay a visit to one of the largest and most tangible things that Sony has produced that’s unique, really neat in concept, but ill-conceived and poorly supported - the Metreon at 4th and Mission. Recall they called it “retail entertainment” where the idea was you’d have so much fun there that you didn’t realize you were spending money. The game arcades and interactivity are gone now, as are most of the original anchor tenants like Microsoft and the Discovery Channel, leaving just the movie theaters upstairs and the Sony museum of retail products. (Supposedly, you can buy a TV or laptop there, but at full MSRP, I don’t think they get many customers!) If you were going to be here this month, I’d suggest a visit to the Titanic exhibition that’s there for the rest of the month.

I’m sorry to hear Alcatraz has become a self-guided audio tour. I’ve been through there a couple times in past years when park rangers led tours and they’d put you into a cell and each had their own particular style, and was able to answer questions along the way. Unfortunately, the place is literally falling apart, and they’ve had to put various bits off-limits from time to time as things get too dangerous for the public.

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Of note: bring umbrellas. If this year is anything like last year, you’ll need them. (It rained 25 of 31 days in March*). Now, I like the rain. San Francisco does gray, foggy, rainy, etc, very well. But that could just be me, grateful it’s not snowing.

*Granted, this was a record. It’s not normally that bad, but it was pretty rainy the last El Nino year, I believe.

Be carefull with the hills (I noticed you said your girlfriend has a disability). A lot of tourists going to Chinatown seem to park up on the top of California street at the deck by Grace Cathedral and walk down (the garage has a lower-level exit that you can get out of-- you can NOT get back in there). Then you see these exhausted (and sunburned) people at the end of the day dragging kids, strollers, bags, etc, up a hill that seems way steeper than it did on the way down. Start at the bottom.

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Well, if you like Keroac, you have to go by the City Lights bookstore, which is a pretty unique bookstore. Then Keroac alley or street is right there, and on the street is the Vesuvio Bar where Jack, ginsberg, et al used to get plowed. Now, I haven’t done any of these in about 10 years so a SF doper might wanna chime in here.

City Lights is also more or less on the border between north beach and chinatown.

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You must do the classic photo-op of the Painted Ladies from Alamo Square Park. Saw this view in a scene from “So I Married an Axe Murderer” yesterday!

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**BBVLou **- you can email me for specifics. It has been a few years since I lived in SF but I lived there for a number of years and grew up right below it in Redwood City. Just a few things:

  • best Chinese - is not the House of Nanking, which is great and a very popular tourist spot. You would do well going there, but the insider place is U-Lee at the corner of Hyde and Jackson. Go for lunch or dinner but note that it is very very small. You must order the potstickers (I believe this may be a legal requirement :slight_smile: ) and I strongly recommend the curry shrimpt and the asparagus chicken. The Potstickers alone qualify for Got on a Plate™ status.

  • best Thai - outside Thailand - the place where all the Thai locals hang out - is Menora’s on 12th and Folsom. Get the Beef Larb appetizer, the Tom Yung Gong soup and the Red Curry Duck, Green Curry Chicken and their Pad Thai. You will experienct God on a Plate™ once again.

  • clubs - you have to check out Slim’s but more importantly Bimbo’s 365 club. It was where the Chris Isaak show was filmed and where Brian Setzer sets up shop when he is in town. Do I need to say anymore?

  • Places (coffee house cafes) like Vesuvio, Tosca, Caffe Trieste, the Savoy Tivoli and a few others in North Beach are incredibly cool - or were, if they haven’t been overrun by developers…excellent people watching…there also is (I assume it is still there) a great little insider bar on 17th and Folsom (just down the street from Menora’s) called the Right Spot. Small, piano player there on the odd night - great place to see Beats, bikers and gays all hanging out - quintessential SF at around midnight…

All for now…

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That’s *shrimp * :smack:

That’s *God * - and an effective way to kill my own joke. :smack:
Guess He didn’t find it too funny…

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Went to San Francisco four years ago. Did:

Alcatraz
Rode a Cable Car
Drove down Lombard Street (though you say you won’t have a car)
Exploratorium
Golden Gate Bridge

We only spent one day in the city proper - the rest of our trip was all over northern California. But I think we covered the most iconic San Francisco experiences that don’t involve dining (and as Kosher observers, we really can’t).

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A bay cruise at night. One moment of my life I’ll never forget was coming around the bend as a hush fell over the whole ship. Turning to look, we saw the Golden Gate Bridge and the city on a hill slowly being revealed. Honestly breathtaking. A must see. (Take a heavy jacket.)

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San Francisco… one of my all-time favourite places. In another life I am sure I was born there.

:: sigh ::

People have said so much more than I could, but I’ll add a few things.

Ride the BART train. At least when I was on it (last time 1998), it was a funky retro-futuristic-styled experience. Going through the Transbay Tube is slightly unnerving, though (earthquakes and subsea tunnels do not mix in my opinion).

The San Francisco International Youth Hostel is in a beautiful spot as well, in the Presidio (the old military reservation that is now a park); the area commands some of the best views of the bay and the islands and the Golden Gate.

Drive north over the Golden Gate Bridge, take the first exit, and go up into the hills. You can get to a ridgetop that has an amazing view, but it’s really really windy. A warm coat, or a windbreaker over a warm sweater, is a must.

Speaking of driving… I don’t know what it’s like now, but when I was there, the drive west over the peninsula to Half Moon Bay was really nice.

:: rereads OP ::

Bother. You won’t have a car. That lets out those things… most of the times I’ve been there, I’ve been staying with friends in Santa Clara and Fremont and not in the city itself.

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We really enjoyed wandering through Muir Woods - but you’ll have to either rent a car or buy a tour. Their are San Francisco City Tours that will do Alcatraz and Muir Woods (or, for a fuller day, Alcatraz, Muir Woods and Sausalito). Get your tickets for Alcatraz in advance, it does sell out. The ferry leaves from Fisherman’s Wharf (or very close) so you can do your touristy thing there before or after boarding.

Golden Gate park is HUGE. It does have a great Japanese Garden.

If you are a wine drinker - and willing to give up a day, taking a bus up into Napa and seeing a few wineries is a good investment in a day. However, it will be a full day out of a short trip.

San Francisco is a cool city for taking the bus somewhere, getting off, and walking the neighborhood. I like Cow Hollow. Do know your neighborhoods, some of them are more dodgy than others. Between the buses and your feet, you can get pretty much anywhere easily in town.

And I’ll second Eve’s advice to bundle up. I’ve been there several times in the California winter - from Minnesota - and always have found it chilly.

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Speaking of driving, take a taxi ride. They drive really fast. It’s like the world’s biggest and longest roller coaster. I remember thinking, between stomach churning changes in vertical direction, that there must be a boatload of brake and transmission shops in the city.