What's going on in San Francisco / Bay Area

San Francisco's status as one of America's best book cities was somewhat threatened by closures over the last decade (RIP Stacey's and A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books). But City Lights is still going strong, and remains a linchpin of the city...

Audiences from the classical era didn't shell out massive quantities of cash to pack auditoriums and hold polite applause for the end. They hooted their appreciation at virtuoso playing as it was happening, and shouted suggestions for what to play...

We love the renovated waterfront. But it often feels — how can we put this? — municipal. It's too concrete, too safe; very little of it feels like salty-dog San Francisco, with undulating docks you can stroll down amidst wharf thieves sleeping off...

Alongside some of the greatest falafel in the city, this little hole-in-the-wall on Valencia offers up lamb and chicken schwarmas from Niman Ranch -- meaning the meat comes from sustainable family farms that use no antibiotics or hormones and ensu...

Part of the Landmark family, the Embarcadero Center Cinema is your most reliable bet for indie movies, friendly staff, and vegan cookies. It's so San Francisco, we almost hate it. To experience true bliss/hell, catch a Wes Anderson film on opening...

The piano bar is a dying institution ripe for resuscitation, a happier, friendlier retro-karaoke experience where an interactive audience is gathered around a live musician instead of a glorified jukebox, and a good time is had by all. The institu...

Nowhere else in San Francisco can the entrance chamber to a darkroom, a confessional door from a Catholic church, and a staggering mishmash of ancient televisions, forgotten radios, lamps, chairs, tables, and telephones be stacked from floor to ce...

222 Hyde has come a long way since its more modest years in the mid-'00s. A wild party space in the deep Tenderloin, for much of that decade it was defined by a scenester clientele and the lo-def ear-rape of blog-sourced hipster electro. A couple ...

Now that most of us have heard of izakayas, the Japanese pubs where salarymen and students gather to get red-nosed and snack on little plates, half of San Francisco's run-of-the-mill Japanese restaurants have renamed their hot menus "izakaya fare....

The pay-by-the-pound system makes shopping at Clothes Contact feel like a strategy game. You become more conscious of the fabrics as you weigh out everything by hand, trying to guess what your total will be. You also get to rummage through the $1 ...

Well-aged beef, a toasted brioche bun — this is a burger you want to order rare. It's made from ground short rib, chuck and skirt steak. It's a little secret bargain from this pricey hotel restaurant — you can get this burger at the bar with fries...

As the Giants made their epic run for the pennant and the World Series last year, it was surprisingly difficult to find good places to cheer on Buster, the Beard, Huff Daddy, and the Freak. Most of the sports bars had half their TVs tuned to other...