Written and Photographed by Adrian Spinelli

Baseball season is less than two weeks away (!!!) and San Francisco is officially title town. It’s time to get excited and this Friday, the Giants will be inaugurating a brand new pop-up pre-game village adjacent to AT&T Park, complete with an Anchor Brewing Co. beer garden, food trucks, coffee, year round activities and more. It’s time to get to know The Yard, a focal point of the ongoing Mission Rock development project.

The Beer Garden

Let’s start with the good stuff. Anchor Steam is operating a 250 person beer garden that’s open year round from 11 a.m.-11 p.m. The capacity increases on game days and you’re literally drinking beers just beyond the McCovey Cove shore. Anchor is even planning a “Yard Series” of beers throughout the season, starting with a double IPA that’s “focused on cascade hops” and set to be released on April 2nd.

There are 16 beers on tap and I highly recommend the Brotherhood Steam. It’s a collaboration with The Chris Robinson Brotherhood (led by the eponymous former Black Crowes frontman) and dammit if it ain’t a perfect baseball beer. It’s dry hopped with crisp Nelson and Citra hops and adds slight tartness with Munich malt. I know what I’ll be drinking at the next day game.

Two TVs play the games at all times on either side of the long bar and the communal seating arrangement is beneath strings of lights, which will make for lovely summer nights by the Bay. Also contained within the beer garden is The Whole Beast, which touts “nose-to-tail cuisine.” Expect smoked and grilled BBQ fare, burgers and sandos that you can enjoy over your beers. BBQ and beer goes well together, right?

The Courtyard: Food, Coffee, and Ice Cream

The Courtyard features Off the Grid favorite food trucks in chicken extraordinaries Proposition Chicken and Filipino-Mexican fusion masters Senor Sissig. Peet’s Coffee has a sweet horse trailer setup for coffee and tea along the outside as well that’s open daily to grab coffee on the go. The Off The Grid wine bus will offer 12 wines on draft and as the season gets going, guest chefs will be holding food demos here, and there are plans for a guest food program previewing restaurants and other surprises curated by The Bold Italic’s own Tamara Palmer.

Oh yeah, Humphrey Slocombe has a devoted area where it’ll be set up with four varying flavors of ice cream. And don’t worry, its flagship Secret Breakfast (you know, that crazy delicious bourbon and corn flakes ice cream) will always be one of them. Look out for the limoncello sorbet, it’s loaded with lemon zest bits and it flat-out kicks ass.

Retailers

Bay Area based The North Face has a retail shop on the outside edge of the courtyard, where Giants President & CEO Larry Baer says, “There will be tons of orange!” SF Made has a location that will be showcasing art from rotating manufacturers like Les Mechantes, 3 Fish Studios, Lady Alamo, and Wildebeast. All in all, it just adds to the local feel of The Yard.

The “More” Part

The Yard is looking to be a part of the greater community and it has some cool weekly and monthly programs in store. Like a Farmer’s Market every Sunday and even cooking and workout classes. Does it get more San Francisco than that? I didn’t think so. The space will also be available for the occasional private event.

This is exactly the kind of project I personally want to see in Mission Rock, and I can see this area becoming a bustling entertainment zone like Wrigleyville in Chicago. I was initially disappointed that there isn’t a large stretch of 15 cornhole sets at The Yard like there is at the The Bullpen pre-game zone in Washington DC, but then I stopped being such a bro.

I rode my bike to The Yard, parked it right in front, and had sweeping views of the Bay, McCovey Cove, AT&T park and SOMA while I drank a beer in the most perfect sunshine. I can definitely get used to this place.

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