San Francisco is a bit like Ireland, don’t you think? Snug, surrounded mostly by water, Catholic in memory. Cramped by car, vast by foot. And divided into regions, too, which seem all alike to the tourist but are known to locals as wildly different.
So step aside, St. Francis: here’s seven ways to pay proper SF homage to St. Patrick this weekend:
St. Patrick’s Friday happy hour concert
When: March 15th from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Golden Gate Bandshell, 75 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr.
This free Irish singalong (and jig-along, I presume) with Shana Morrison and Caledonia is a BYO affair, with plenty of space for picnics.
If you’ve been to the Golden Gate Bandshell — augustly also known as the Spreckels Temple of Music, though the glorious age of names like that has passed — you know it’ll be breezy, so bring two blankets: one to sit on and one to use until you’re warm from dancing.
St. Patrick’s Day Parade
When: March 16th 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: 2nd and Market Street
“Day” parade here is a bit of a misnomer as it is in fact on the 16th (the good saint would prefer us to honor the sabbath, after all), but don’t let that keep you from turning out in green along Market Street.
The parade starts at 2nd and Market and ambles along for two and a half hours until it ends at City Hall, where you’ll find food, drink and live music, some direct from Ireland. Needless to say, choose your preferred viewing location early and park carefully. The only folks luckier than the Irish are the SFTMA meter maids.
Sip an original Irish Coffee at the Buena Vista
When: March 16th from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m.; March 17th, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Where: 2765 Hyde St.
It is a sorry San Francisco summary that doesn’t include the Buena Vista, which like the cable cars has survived cliché-ification and kept its soul.
The star of the show here is, of course, the Irish Coffee, first poured outside of the Shannon airport right here in SF, or so they say. In case you’ve been living under a shamrock: this is not your standard slurry of canned whipped cream, whiskey, coffee and Bailey’s. The cream is aged a bit and frothed before being plopped atop pellucid black coffee and whiskey, floating distinctly like a spring fog and blending only as you sip. Few imitators get this as reliably right as the original.
Go see the snakes at the San Francisco Zoo
When: March 17th from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Where: Sloat Blvd. & Upper Great Highway
Showing up in green this Sunday gets you $1 off each ticket bought at the gate. St. Patrick rid the island of both pagans and snakes, of course, and you can see plenty of the latter here alongside other beasts across seven biomes. For pagans, try Haight-Ashbury.
Run a 5k with the Dolphin South End Runners
When: March 17th at 9 a.m.
Where: Crissy Field
If running from snakes is more your thing, you can simulate that too with a brief jog on ever-green Crissy Field with the Dolphin South End Runners. You’re rewarded with a view of the Golden Gate that just keeps getting better and better alongside a steady, cool, salty breeze every step. Entry fee is $10.
Follow in Oscar Wilde’s footsteps at the Palace Hotel
When: 12 to 2 p.m. for lunch on March 16 or 17;
Hours otherwise are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Where: 2 New Montgomery St.
In March 1882, an Irish lad stepped off a boat and into a city which surely would have sainted him had he arrived a century later. Oscar Wilde proceeded to consternate the press, fascinate citizens and drink members of the Bohemian Club under the table on a nightly basis before leaving the town this parting gift: “It’s an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world.”
He lodged at the Palace Hotel, which lives on in its second form as the city’s grand old dame on Market Street. You might reflect on the man who had “nothing to declare but my genius” over a glass of absinthe at the Pied Piper bar or go for a more healthy but St. Patrick’s-appropriate option with the Garden Court’s famed Green Goddess Salad.
Sip a pint of Guinness at The Irish Bank
When: March 16th and 17th; 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Where: 10 Mark Ln.
You don’t have to walk far for an Irish bar in San Francisco, a descriptor mostly qualified by a preponderance of Guinness memorabilia and hee-haw Irish humor covering what is otherwise a sports bar. But perhaps you yearn for a place that better passes the Irish vibe check, as a 21st-century Wilde might tweet.
Thus, The Irish Bank: down a forever-shadowy alley off Bush Street and possessing that dank, former coal-cellar feel to it with ruddy lighting. It is the sort of place you can imagine Stephen Dedalus glowering in a corner, thinking about tundishes. And their Guinness pours are, importantly, quite patient.
Good pub fare, too, and one of the few places in the city where you can get black pudding. Going here means you will avoid “Lepracon” attendees, if their map is to be believed.
Honorable mention: St. Patrick Church
When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: 756 Mission St.
If you’re feeling pious Sunday, stroll down to San Francisco’s own St. Patrick Church, across from the Yerba Buena gardens on Mission Street. Alas, the Irish population for whom it was built it is all but gone. But this ruddy brick edifice, now darkened by less inspired shadows, still marries the earthy and the divine quite well — altogether an Irish trait, I’d say.
M. T. Eley is a San Francisco-based writer.
The Bold Italic is a non-profit media organization, and we publish first-person perspectives about San Francisco and the Bay Area. Donate to us today.
