See a movie at the Red Vic

While not nearly as cheap as the $2 shows at the Super Saver Cinema (RIP, Super Saver--sniffle) of your youth, the Red Vic Movie House is cheaper than most of the chain theaters around San Francisco. Run by a collective--it's a "worker owned and operated movie house"--it shows a mix of first- and second- (or thirtieth- and fortieth-) run movies.

The Red Vic is the place to see classic or cult movies, the SF premieres of new documentaries or other smaller films, and good mainstream movies that you wanted to see a couple of months ago when they first came out but didn't (go see them).

Cheap popcorn, candy and organic baked goods are for sale and clean bathrooms are available. You can choose to sit in well-worn examples of the standard movie theater seat or on wood-and-cushion "couches" perfect for snuggling up to your boyfriend or mother.

Around the theater are numerous food places, giving you a good one-two, dinner-movie punch on the first date, before heading home after the movie for the knockout.

Of special note is the 4:20PM, 4/20 showing of The Big Lebowski,


which comes projected through a haze of pot smoke and accompanied by a smattering of random coughing fits around the small theater. An anti-smoking public service announcement from John Waters precedes the film.

Regular admission to the Red Vic is $8.50, not counting the change you feel compelled to give to the gutter punk staring at your bike as you lock it to a parking meter (though if you ask most any employee nicely, they may let you park your bike in back).


The Red Vic is located on Haight, between Cole and Shrader. A calendar of movies and show times is available on the website; you can find a paper version, handy for tacking to your bathroom wall, at the box office.

Eat some fresh, locally harvested oysters

Given the proximity of Tomales Bay and/or the high concentration of lesbian in the city's water, oysters are popular here in San Francisco. You should eat some before you leave.

Oysters can be expensive, especially considering they're not exactly super substantive on a per-unit basis. Keeping this in mind, the following list of options is weighted towards the cheap-to-free end of the price range, allowing you to eat more oysters with the little money you have left over after paying the movers to ship all your worldly crap back to Minneapolis.

In San Francisco:

1. El Rio - Free oysters--fresh or barbecued--on Fridays starting at 5.30 until they're gone. (!!!--well, it is in Bernal Heights, and what better way to keep the neighborhood clientele happy than free oysters [well, maybe besides free Subaru and motorcycle valet parking or 2-for-1 plaid giveaways]?.) Don't forget to tip the oystress.

El Rio is a nice and divey place with pool, shuffleboard and a big back patio. It is also home to a Monday-Friday happy hour that has $2.50 beers and well drinks and that goes from 4 till 9.

2. Mecca - Half-price oysters (average price: $1.25) from 5 to 7 every day (including weekends) there's not a special event.

Mecca is a fancy place with expensive food and rich (or -looking--I never can tell) homos.

3. Hog Island Oyster Company - $1 oysters on Mondays and Thursdays, 5-7. (They also sell take-out oysters that you shuck at home.)

This bar in the Ferry Building gets crowded, so get there right at 5 or just cut in line and see what happens.

4. Woodhouse Fish Company - $1 oysters on Tuesdays.

Outside San Francisco:

Head up to Tomales Bay, where you can slurp from the source at a number of places, including Tomales Bay Oyster Company, Drakes Bay Oyster Farm, and Hog Island.


El Rio is located on Mission, south of Cesar Chavez. Mecca is on Market, east of Church. Hog Island is on the east side of the Ferry Building. Woodhouse is at the intersection of Market, 14th and Church. Tomales Bay is beautiful. Marshall and Pt. Reyes Station are two of the nearest towns to the oyster companies.

Go to Baker Beach on a nice day

Perhaps a banal suggestion, but it's probably one you haven't followed as often as you should have.

Nice days in the Presidio are like affordable housing in San Francisco, so if you receive reports that it might be fog-less and warm out there, go. However, it is likely that many will have been struck with the same idea, so avoid the crowded parking lot by taking the bus or riding that darn bicycle of yours.

List of things to bring:

1. Towel
2. Swimsuit (optional if you head to the north end of the beach--see below)
3. Tall boy(s) of Tecate
4. A soccer ball (or some other sporting good with which to hit oblivious sunbathers/little children running around in screaming packs/lecherous old men watching oblivious sunbathers and/or little children running around in screaming packs)
5. Sun block (in San Francisco?!)

Gratuitous and wholly unnecessary picture of naked people on Baker Beach:


Baker Beach is located in the Presidio. It is served by the 29 bus, which directly intersects the 1, 2, 5, 31, 38, and 71 lines, and (talking about the 29 still) is one block off the N-Judah at 19th and Irving in the Sunset. On bike, take Lake Street west from Arguello or, if you want to go through Golden Gate Park, exit the park and go north on 24th or 26th, changing to 25th as it descends towards the beach after Lake. (Here are a few online Muni maps.) Picnic tables and barbecues are available near the parking lot. Restrooms are available too.

Eat at Palace Steak House

While not quite as grand as the name suggests, Palace Steak House is nonetheless worth a stop on an "I'm out of here" tour of this city's notable culinary destinations.

Sure, Morton's it is not, but it's got a hell of a lot more character than the Sizzler's you grew up going to with your grandparents, your legs sticking to its vinyl booths and the odd garlic bread crumbs that dotted them uncomfortably embedding themselves into your sensitive adolescent flesh because of those stupid short shorts your mom used to make you wear all the time.

Now that you don't wear short shorts anymore, it's safe to again frequent inexpensive steakhouses with vinyl booths.

And in the case of the Palace, you get a great steak, iceberg lettuce salad, baked potato and garlic bread for about ten bucks ($10). Not fucking bad. (Whether you find added value in the odd, decades-old decor or the odd, decades-long owners is up to you.)

Bonus points if you realize after eating here that for years you'd been walking by the sun-bleached sign


in the parking lot of the gas station at 17th and South Van Ness under which the bums sleep without realizing that it was advertising the very-extant PALACE STEAK HOUSE.


Palace Steak House (also known, somewhat mysteriously, as Palace Family Steak House [not to be confused with the band of the same name]) is located at 3047 Mission, at Cesar Chavez and has been open since 1968. It does not serve Niman Ranch beef, you snob. Extra special bonus points if you take your boyfriend there for his birthday.

Take an old convertible on a road trip around New England

Oh wait, that was what I was doing last week.


More good San Francisco stuff starting again this week. Because there's so much more to this town than just the Marina, you schmuck.

Enjoy an ice cream cone from Mitchell's

Mitchell's ice cream is the perfect antidote for a postprandial and/or post-coital sweet tooth. Visit the shop at the edge of Noe Valley/the Mission/Bernal Heights, or look for the ice cream at restaurants around town.

Mitchell's has been open, in the same location and owned by the same family, since 1953.


It now offers everything from cones and cups to cakes and pies to sundaes, milkshakes and something called halo-halo (a traditional treat from the Philippines made out of "sweet beans and mongo beans, a blend of fruit, evaporated milk, shaved ice" and a scoop of ice cream).

Check out Mitchell's website for flavors, awards and more historical information. If you decide to visit, bring a book or someone to talk to/make out with, as you may have to wait in line.


Mitchell's Ice Cream is located on San Jose Ave. (Guerrero St.) at the corner of 29th. It is open 7 days a week, from 11AM to 11PM. Interestingly, Mitchell's does not distribute its ice cream outside of the Bay Area.

See a movie at the Castro Theater

Contrary to what you might think, the pink neon CASTRO sign that is visible from higher points around the city is not, or at least was not originally intended to be, a homing beacon for lost homosexuals separated from the queen mother ship. While it may occasionally serve this purpose, its principal function is to advertise a movie house built in the grand style of a bygone era.

The cavernous auditorium seats a total of 1400 people on the ground level and in the balcony, and is crowned by an Art Deco chandelier that resembles a jellyfish, a missile or an alien ship from Star Trek: The Next Generation.


A Wurlitzer pipe organ--the city's only regularly played theater organ, according to the American Theater Organ Society--plays before most shows, with the player and console popping up from beneath the floor in front of the stage and screen.

The Castro Theater was designed by Timothy L. Pflueger and built in 1922. Pflueger, who was raised in the Mission, designed a number of other movie houses in the Bay Area, including the amazing Paramount Theater in Oakland.



He also designed a number of other buildings, including the first major skyscraper in San Francisco (140 New Montgomery)


and the Medical and Dental Building at 450 Sutter.



The Castro Theater is located on Castro Street, between Market/17th and 18th. A program schedule is available on the theater's website. (Thanks to Jim at thedude.com for the interior pics of the Paramount.)

Go for a swim in Bass Lake

It's understandable that you may be antsy--this being one of your last weekends and all--about not having sampled enough of Bay Area nature since moving to San Francisco. Day-to-day life, with its chores and hangovers, got in the way, and suddenly your days are numbered and you've begun to sweat. Lucky for you it's the heat that's the cause, and that now you've got a beautiful way to cool off, Marin-style.

Bass Lake is part of the Point Reyes National Seashore and is located near the town of Bolinas. It's a pretty little thing that comes at the end of about a 2.5-mile easy-ish hike. Strip down to your bathing or birthday suit--nude bathing is supposedly common here--and jump in. There is a recurring rope swing somewhere on the shore, much to the consternation and resulting efforts of officialdom, so keep and eye out and be careful if you find and attempt it.


To get there, take Highway 1 north from Stinson Beach. Just north of Bolinas Lagoon, turn left on exit to Bolinas. (The welcoming Bolinas residents regularly tear down the sign that marks this turn-off, so you may have to resort to guesswork here.) Follow the road as it curves along the lagoon and eventually ends at Olema-Bolinas Road, and continue along Olema-Bolinas Road to the stop sign at Mesa Road. Turn right on Mesa and drive four miles, until it becomes a dirt road and ends at a parking lot. Take the Palomarin Trail from the dirt lot. After a couple of miles you'll come to a junction. Continue left on the Coastal Trail. You'll eventually see the lake, so at this point begin searching for a small path to the water's edge.

Eat at Spices

I understand if you've given up on Chinese food, having scavenged leftovers from twice-weekly catered lunches since you first started at whatever boring office job you've got going these days. In your book, Mr. Henry Hunan and all his culinary cousins can go to hell--though far be it for you to refuse a free meal, so you'll just go on reheating your kung pao chicken and pork fried rice, silently vowing to never again actually pay for this shit.

Well, it's time to discover the cure for the common Chinese place: Spices.



With two in the Inner Richmond and one in Oakland, you've got a few choices. I recommend Spices II on 6th Avenue at Clement, though epileptics and those easily distracted may want to avoid this location because of the neon! Chinese music videos! disco ball! twirly laser lights! hot, girlish waitresses!

The food here is great and the portions are huge--one entree, two starters for two people is more than enough--and cheap. Make sure to try the spicy cucumber, salt and pepper chicken, pork shoulder (ignore the squeamishness-inducing jiggling mass of fat in which the good stuff comes enveloped--the waitress will cut through all that for you, no prob), or anything labeled "Explosive Chili Pepper".

Sure, your waitress may look indifferent as she snaps her gum when she's taking your order or absentmindedly twirling her hair just before delivering your plates--but she's hot--and you may realize hours later that "Spices" could probably refer to both the start and finish of the digestive process--but the food tastes great and you've most likely got leftovers--and the front of the place vaguely resembles a Chinese-language cell phone store--I've got nothing on this one--but it's worth it.

Besides, there probably is no place like this where you're moving.


Spices and Spices II, mere blocks from each other, are both in the Inner Richmond while Spices III is in Oakland's Chinatown. Be sure to check out their odd--what, no Oakland location?--website before you go.

Visit the Marin Headlands

The Headlands are the brown/green hills you can see--when there isn't fog, at least--directly across the Golden Gate Bridge. The road that snakes up to the top of Hawk Hill "affords spectacular views of San Francisco" and is a part of the popular "Headlands Loop" bike ride that many cyclists make a part of their training regimen. (For those who don't know, this is easily doable after work during the summer months.)

It is likely that you visited the Headlands if you came to San Francisco as a tourist before moving here. Ditto if you've lived in the city for a while, have a bicycle or access to some kind of personal motorized transport and have entertained out-of-town visitors. But if you're like my friend who recently left San Francisco after living in the Bay Area for six years and had never been to the Headlands and didn't have a car...take the bus--see below.

Lots of good stuff to do/see here. There's Point Bonita Lighthouse, a Nike missile silo, a beach, a lagoon, a hostel, lots of hiking and mountain biking trails and a nice place to view the sunset (when there isn't fog).


The 76 Marin Headlands runs only on Sundays and holidays. Here is a schedule and a route map.