What It's Like at The Riptide in the Outer Sunset

This is part of a series called "What It's Like" where we at The Bold Italic tell you what a place in San Francisco is actually like. Based on our own experiences and those of our readers.

The Riptide: 3639 Taraval Street, between 46th and 47th Avenues, the Outer Sunset. Open Monday through Saturday 3 p.m. to 2 a.m., Sunday 1 p.m. to midnight. (415) 681-8433.
Order a Bloody Mary, which comes with a Guinness float and bacon from the shop across the street. Sit near the fireplace.

The Riptide sits at the far end of Taraval, two blocks from the ocean, a knotty-pine cabin of a bar with a wood-burning fireplace. The building went up in 1941 when this was the city's beach-shack frontier, and according to the city there has been a bar in it since the day it was built. David Quinby and Les James took over in 2004 and made it the Outer Sunset's living room: live music with no cover, ever, played ten feet from the fire.

On the morning of August 18, 2015, a two-alarm fire tore through the building and the market next door, doing an estimated $600,000 of damage between them. Manager Jean Fontana later said it destroyed the entire space and only the shell was left. The owners rebuilt, and regulars raised money for the staff while they did. Almost everything you see inside is ten years old, including the caribou head over the room, a replacement for a 150-year-old one named Boo that didn't survive.

How to get there

The L-Taraval stops at Taraval and 46th, a block east, and trains returned in 2024 after five years of construction. Rail runs until midnight, and after that it's the L Owl bus every half hour, which is the relevant fact if you're closing the place down. The 18-46th Avenue stops at the same corner but quits at 10 p.m. And there's always Uber and Waymo.

What it's like

High ceilings, brick floor, knotty pine, taxidermy, and a fire going. There's no kitchen, so people bring food in from nearby. Dogs doze under the stools. It's a room built for staying a while rather than eating and leaving. The music is the other half of it, and it has never had a cover charge.

I don't go in nowadays but I remember on all my visits how much it felt like the townie bar you wanted to visit. Bingo nights. Once I interviewed Fontana, who could not have been sweeter.

What people say

Our reader Chuck Guest has played there: "Loved playing there! The fireplace was toasty and the beers were cold. Plus, musician-owned." Roger Hand had gone for the first time the night before he commented and caught "a nice DJ set of rocksteady."

Shelley Suggett added: "After the fire broke out, the whole neighborhood chipped in to help with the rebuild. Long term neighbors like me love this place and we were happy when the doors reopened."

Not everyone thinks the rebuild was an improvement. JD Jenkins: "Used to be more beat up. Too bad."

Several readers on Facebook remember a bar here under other names, the Oar House and the Sand Bar. There was a Sand Dunes Tavern one block east at 46th, a real jazz room where Jerry Garcia played Mondays in 1974, which may be the one they mean.

Check Instagram for the schedule, not the website

There's something most nights, but the lineup is booked show by show, so the night you turn up decides whether you get bluegrass, a punk DJ, karaoke or bingo. The calendar on riptidesf.com is not currently working. @theriptidesf on Instagram probably has a better calendar.

The Riptide · 3639 Taraval St., San Francisco · Mon–Sat 3 p.m.–2 a.m., Sun 1 p.m.–midnight · (415) 681-8433

Been somewhere we should cover? Tell us in the comments or send an email to saul@thebolditalic.com