Categories: Travel & Events; Local & Entertainment

San Franciscans are weird, but you can learn more about our quirks in this guide, PART TWO

By Juliette
updated about 1 month ago

This is PART TWO of my previous guide about San Franciscans. The first guide included Mission hipsters, Marina prepsters, Haight hippies, Castro gays, and Tenderloin crackheads. In this guide, we will look at SoMa techies, Noe Valley stroller moms, Potrero Hill "burners", North Beach guidos, and Lower Haight BoBos. Yes, this is a gross exercise in stereoptyping. But steretypes exist for a reason, and the day I stop generalizing will be the day when all the guidos in North Beach stop picking fights with one another outside of Golden Boy Pizza.

Type 6: Noe Valley Stroller Moms

Noe Valley is San Francisco’s West Village, a wondrous and manicured place resplendent in generic cafes, fine wine and cheese shops, gourmet bakeries, and strollers. You literally cannot go anywhere in Noe Valley without being almost run over by a stroller. The interesting thing about strollers in Noe Valley is the fact that they’ve become – in their own way – a status symbol. The Mercedes Benz of strollers is the Bugaboo Frog stroller, which costs $800 to over $1000. It costs more than many secondhand cars. You will see many of these Bugaboo Frogs in Noe Valley. Because these strollers are so expensive, parents want to get as much wear and tear out of them as possible, which might explain why – in Noe Valley – children are often found in strollers long past the age which it is appropriate to be transported in one. I’ve seen children as old as five or six sucking their thumbs as their parents wheel them around the various organic health food stores to get their special Spiderman themed Omega-3 children’s vitamins.

People in Noe Valley seem to love bistro fare but seem to hate ethnic food, which might explain why almost all the restaurants in this area have some sort of chevre or brie on their menu but lack completely in soy sauce, guacamole, or curry. There is, I believe, one sushi restaurant. There is, however, a Starbucks, which is interesting as it may be the only Starbucks in the Noe/Mission/Castro area.

That said, Noe Valley is a nice safe place to live if you have children. It’s also cute for weekend dates with the mister or missus. A little surreal, yes, a completely bubble, yes, but a pretty neighborhood that is fun to visit from time to time. Absolutely cannot imagine anyone living here though. It’d be a nightmare.

Starbucks Coffee

3995 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94114

I’m not saying you should go here. I’m putting this on the guide to show you that Noe Valley is definitely a place where you’d find a Starbucks, despite there being really amazing independent coffee shops nearby like Martha Bros. People still go to Starbucks. Why? Because this is Noe Valley and you have to expect this sort of thing.

Type 7: SoMa Techies

San Francisco = tech and start-up central. SoMa (South Of Market Street) is historically the epicenter of tech business HQs in San Francisco. Nowadays, it’s become less tech focused, but the reputation has lasted, as have the tech people. While the tech boom went bust, lots of former tech start-up CEOs and employees have stayed in the area, settling down and making the place somewhat of a cultural and business hub. As SF Gate (http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/soma/) puts it, “These days the industry most associated with South of Market has to do with that other Gold Rush: the dot com boom. Once buzzing with purple-haired programmers and hobnobbing young executives, South Park is noticeably more subdued since the Internet companies started closing shop, and probably all the more pleasant for it. The grassy square is a nice place to walk your dog or eat a sandwich, and is bordered by several good shops and restaurants.”

One way I’d describe SoMa is definitely “grown up.” Grown up as in, people who live in SoMa do things like go to Pier 38 to kayak when it’s nice out. Then they go to restaurants like CoCo 500. Or at least, that’s what the New York Times will have you believe in their travel section. (http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/03/03/travel/escapes/03hour.html)

What do I suggest you come to SoMa for? There are two parts of SoMa. (1) Nice, residetial SoMa. I come here if I ever have to go to Bed Bath & Beyond. And uhh, there’s a Trader Joe’s here. (2) Crazy, leather bar, Folsom Street type SoMa. So I come here if I ever want to go to an after hours party or hit up the End Up – the gay bar that is open all night which is the most notorious hook up scene in SF. And I go to the End Up to dance, FYI. Obviously not, you know, to pick up gay men.

Endup the

401 6th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Whether you want to be a gigolo or you just want to pick one up, come to The EndUp, because it’s probably the place where either/or is most likely to happen.

Coco500

598 4th St, San Francisco, CA 94107

This place is really famous for a reason. But don’t come here unless your dad’s or your sugar dad’s in town and he’s willing to foot the bill because it will be steep. They make yummy cocktails too.

Type 8: Potrero Hill Burners

What more can be written about Burning Man that hasn’t been written? Some people love it, some hate it, some – like me – are indifferent. Whatever, if people want to wear ugly fur hats, listen to bad techno, and look like extras from Tupac’s California Love video, let them go to Burning Man all they want, and pretend it’s still the 90s. It was probably the last time they remembered anything anyway, considering all the amount of drugs people ingest at Burner festivities.

I used to wonder though, why such a large number of Burning Man enthusiasts live in the Potrero Hill area. WTF, right? I then googled “Burning Man Potrero” and realized that the Burning Man Headquarters are located smack dab in the middle of the area. Not only is Potrero Hill the Burner HQ, but it’s also home to a huge community of artists, which explains the laissez-faire anti-capitalist attitude prevalent in these here parts. The area used to be the industrial hub of SF, with tons of shipyards, factories, refineries, and warehouses. These warehouses and factories have since been converted to offices, apartments, and of course – artists’ studios and workspaces. There’s a huge industry in SF for Burning Man specific art. People who go to BM appreciate a very distinct aesthtetic…

The prevalence of Burners here has to do not only with the number of artists but also with the number of techies in the area. Potrero houses a lot of tech offices, second only to SoMa, and there’s a weird correlation between people who are really weird into tech and those who are weirdly into Burning Man – you’d be surprised at the number of computer nerds who trade their Dockers for leather chaps, and let all their inhibitions go that one week of the year while they aren’t busy doing code in their cubicles. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google for instance, is himself a Burning Man enthusiast.You don’t have to be into fake fur Dr. Seuss hats or wear rainbow legwarmers over your vinyl platform boots to appreciate a good party.

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St, San Francisco, CA 94107

Bottom of the Hill is hands down one of my favorite concert venues in all of San Francisco. Saw Jens Lekman unplugged here, one of the best experiences of all time.

City Lights Book Store

261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

Founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the City Lights bookstore is an independent book seller committed to providing...

Founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the City Lights bookstore is an independent book seller committed to providing alternative literature and poetry. Located on Columbus Ave., just south of Broadway, the store is near the Montgomery St. BART station. Founded in 1953, City Lights was a meeting place for prominent beat poets Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs.

Le Cafe Du Soleil

200 Fillmore St, San Francisco, CA 94117

This cafe is amazingly cute. There is a great outdoor seating area and it’s just a wonderful environment for a pensive afternoon date with a book or a laptop. Why, oh why, does it have to be in the Lower Haight??

Le Zinc

4063 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94114

REALLY solid brunch fare. If StrollerCentral is good for one thing, it’s brunch. Not only is Noe famous for its fertile human eggs (as evidenced by growing number of babies seen everywhere) but it’s good for brunch eggs too, for those morning afters when you don’t know if your actual eggs have been fertilized and you’re too lazy to go to Walgreens for Plan B until after breakfast.

Trader Joe's

555 9th, San Francisco, CA 94102

So there are 3 Trader Joe’s in all of SF and I’m including the SoMa store on my guide because it’s the closest one to my apartment. Once, I got stranded to Trader Joe’s because I ended up buying WAY too many groceries and then I couldn’t get them all onto the curb to hail a cab and my phone had died and the store was about to close, and there was a crazy homeless man following me, and I started crying, and then the nice people at Trader Joe’s drove me home. True story.

Type 9: North Beach Guidos

You’ve seen them. You know exactly what kind of person I’m talking about. Think New Jersey, except in San Francisco, and you’ve got North Beach. Think ‘Growing Up Gotti’. Actually, just think ‘hair gel’ and ‘protein bars’ and you’ve got your mind around exactly the type of person I’m talking about. Yes, the in-your-face North Beach meathead.

Doing free-association word games with ‘San Francisco,’ a North Beach meathead is not the type of person you’d probably think of right away. You’d first imagine a Haight Hippie, I’d guess, or perhaps a bougie Marina type who likes to sit in a wine and cheese shop and watch the fog roll over the Golden Gate bridge. You’d definitely not picture a guy with fake tanner all over his face, who looks like he’s on a permanent steroid drip, about to get into a fight with some other dude at 3 AM because he thinks the other dude took the last slice of pepperoni pizza. But think again, becasue these people exist in SF, and in North Beach, the scene is alive and well.

North Beach is commonly known as San Francisco’s Little Italy, but it’s more than just a thoroughfare with a lot of Italian restaurants. The Beats loved North Beach, and Cafe Vesuvio is famous for being the haunt of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. City Lights Bookstore, the famous gathering place of the Beats, is a landmark to this day. In addition to being quite the poetic landscape, North Beach is the home of many of the city’s nastiest bars and strip clubs. There are more strip clubs in North Beach than there are Italian restaurants – Little Italy my ass, literally.

So yeah, with the clubbing comes the clubbing crowd. I’m sad to report that there are no longer poets in North Beach. Instead, there are juiced up steakheads with too small testicles and too big egos who love nothing more than to troll around the streets picking fights and then eating burritos really late at night with their club hos. PS: unsurprisingly, the North Beach guido crowd – men and women – are a good 20 pounds heavier, give or take a few standard deviations, than your average San Franciscan.

Vesuvio Cafe

255 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA 94133

This place is really famous for being on a street known as “Jack Kerouac Alley,” so named because it’s across the street from City Lights and therefore somewhat literary, I suppose.

Lusty Lady Theatre

1033 Kearny St, San Francisco, CA 94133

The most famous peep show in SF, because it’s a worker’s cooperative. It doesn’t get much more SF than that. I went here once and was pretty much really grossed out by the number of nasty nasty tissues in the peep booths – don’t touch anything EVER – but it was worth it for the novelty value. Will never, however, return.

Type 10: Lower Haight BoBos

Ahhh bobos. Such a modern day, urban phenomenon. Bobo, which stands for Bohemian Bourgeoise, is a term that perfectly describes the residents of San Francisco’s Lower Haight region.

Before we get any further, what is a bobo you might wonder? Bobo stands for ‘bourgeoise bohemian,’ a term that Wikipedia defines as, “a portmanteau of the words bourgeois and bohemian... ” Okay so everyone knows what a bobo is. Chances are, you know one. Bobos are, basically, bougie people who think they’re socially conscious. So they think they’re all leftist and great and ethical because they’re all going to vote for Obama, and they use Seventh Generation cleaning products, and use biobags or whatnot, but they’ll spend tons of money on espresso machines and Williams-Sonoma kitchenware, and they care a lot about the kind of olive oil is in their kitchen and that sorta thing… ew ew ew. You know.

These bougie people in the Lower Haight love to shop at boutique, specialty clothing stores like the Upper Playground, eat at Zagat Rated restaurants like Uva Enoteca, and sit with $4 espressos at Cafe du Soleil. It’s like the hippies trickle down from Haight-Ashbury to Lower Haight when they get real jobs. People in the Lower Haight think they’re ethnically tolerant because of the large number of Indian restaurants in the area, but they live in a predominantly white neighborhood and most people in the LH will go on for hours, if provoked, about why they’re glad they don’t live in the Mission because they’re afraid they’ll get shot.

In addition to Bobos, there is a small contingency of bobo hipsters who live in the Lower Haight. It’s like they’ll sorta go into the hipster lifestyle – dip their toe in, if you will. Bobo hipsters wear American Apparel and listen to Cut Copy, but they’ll stop at getting a tattoo or picking up a cocaine habit, or quitting their daytime office job. These Bobos think they’re edgy. They really do. Except everyone knows the Lower Haight is for pussies. Sorry, I just had to say it.