The 10 Best Bars in SF
San Francisco's bar scene has a strange superpower: a city of 47 square miles managed to fit a Polynesian rum cellar with the largest selection in the world, a cocktail bar that rebuilds its menu around a new theme every six months, a beer hall pouring 50 taps since the Reagan administration, and a Chinatown dive where Anthony Bourdain ordered the Mai Tai. Here are the ten we'd send a friend to first — ranked, with what each one is best for and where it sits in the city.
1.Trick Dog
The bar that taught a generation of SF drinkers what a cocktail menu could be. Every six months, Trick Dog rebuilds its menu around a new conceit — Chinese restaurant placemats, a Pantone color guide, a board game, a tarot deck. The drinks are reliably excellent, the room is a wide-open Mission warehouse, and the kitchen runs late. If you only have one bar night in SF, this is it.
Best for: ambitious cocktails with a sense of humor, a group, and a real meal after midnight.
Location
- 3010 20th St · Mission
2.Smuggler's Cove
Three stories of tiki built around one of the deepest rum collections on earth (north of 600 bottles). Martin Cate's bar is on every "best in the world" list it can fit on, and the drinks justify the wait at the door. The mug program is a destination of its own.
Best for: a destination tiki night and any rum nerd who's visiting from out of town.
Location
- 650 Gough St · Hayes Valley
3.Toronado
One of the best beer bars in America. A Lower Haight institution since 1987 with around 50 rotating taps that lean Belgian, sour, and Pacific Northwest. Cash used to be king; the list has always been the point. Walk over to Rosamunde next door, grab a sausage, bring it back — this is the move.
Best for: a serious beer person, any afternoon or evening.
Location
- 547 Haight St · Lower Haight
4.Verjus
The standard-bearer for natural wine in SF. Verjus is a wine bar, retail shop, and cave from the Petit Crenn team — by-the-glass list that turns over constantly, European-leaning small plates, and a calm, sun-washed room on a quiet corner of Jackson Square.
Best for: the city's most exciting natural wine list and a great snack with it.
Location
- 528 Washington St · Jackson Square
5.Zeitgeist
The biggest, gnarliest, best-loved beer garden in the city — a sun-drenched back lot at Valencia and Duboce that fills up the moment the fog burns off. Long picnic tables, around 50 taps, and a famously aggressive Bloody Mary. The quintessential SF afternoon when the weather agrees.
Best for: a sunny afternoon and a big group.
Location
- 199 Valencia St · Mission
6.Li Po Cocktail Lounge
A Chinatown institution since 1937 — red lanterns, sticky floors, a giant Buddha behind the bar, and a Chinese Mai Tai famous enough that Anthony Bourdain put it on TV. As classic an SF dive as exists, and the easiest first drink to plan around.
Best for: a first drink with someone new in town who wants the real SF.
Location
- 916 Grant Ave · Chinatown
7.The Felix
A dim, velvet-curtained lounge on Mason with serious cocktails and a back room that turns into a small dance floor late. Among the best after-dinner moves in the theater district and one of the few rooms downtown that holds energy past midnight on a weeknight.
Best for: dressing up, a date, and finishing the night with one more drink than you planned.
Location
- 138 Mason St · Union Square
8.Vesuvio Cafe
The Beat-era bar across the alley from City Lights Bookstore — Kerouac drank here on his way to Big Sur. Old, dark, two stained-glass floors, and still genuinely local in a stretch that mostly isn't. A short walk from any Italian dinner in North Beach.
Best for: a literary detour after dinner in North Beach.
Location
- 255 Columbus Ave · North Beach
9.Pagan Idol
A full-send FiDi tiki bar with a volcano that erupts on the hour, hand-carved idols on every wall, and a rum-heavy menu of frozen and stirred classics. Goofy in the best way after work, and a useful counterweight to Smuggler's Cove when you want the scene without the wait.
Best for: after-work groups in the Financial District who want a scene.
Location
- 375 Bush St · Financial District
10.The Detour
The Castro's expanded arcade-bar — a wall of pinball and classic cabinets, craft cocktails, a Pan-Pacific late-night menu, and neon enough to read a book by. The city's most committed barcade and the answer when a group can't agree on "drinks" vs. "something to do."
Best for: a group that can't agree on drinks vs. an activity.
Location
- 2200 Market St · Castro
See every bar on the map
All 180 SF bars plotted — find the one nearest your next place.
Open the bars map →Sources: The Infatuation's "Best Bars in SF" list, official bar websites, and SF Heritage Legacy Business records, cross-checked against current Yelp listings. Hours, menus, and ownership change — verify before you visit.