A new upscale billiards lounge with a cocktail bar has just opened on Mission Street, in the space that was formerly home to ECHO nightclub.

The Hall, which aims to "fill a unique gap in SF's nightlife" by offering a high-end billiards experience with food and cocktails, opened last weekend at 2565 Mission Street, across from Alamo Drafthouse. The two-level space has been transformed into a moody lounge and pool hall, featuring eight new professional pool tables by Diamond Billiards.

Each pool table is accompanied by floating, focused lighting, keeping the light where it needs to be and keeping the mood lighting dimmer in the lounge space.

The team behind it hopes that weekly pool league nights and corporate events will fill the space on weeknights, and table (not pool table) reservations are available seven nights a week for drinks and food, starting at 5 pm. Pool tables are available first-come first-served, and will run you $15 per hour for one person — or it'll be $25/hr for two people, and $30/hr for three people. There's a two-person minimum on tables during peak hours.

The venue offers a menu of signature cocktails and globally inspired street-food bites, with Brazilian cheese bread bites (pao de queijo), tandoori chicken kabobs, and corn-edamame fritters among the options. There is also a sandwich from the Brazilian street food tradition, the paozinho Brasilia, that features a grilled Brazilian steak skewer served on French bread with melted provolone cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, arugula, and spicy cilantro-garlic crema.

Cocktails include a plum gimlet, a Black Manhattan, a lychee Mai Tai, and an Old Fashioned with tamarind and date. There is also a passionfruit whiskey sour made with Kikori Japanese whisky, and Thai basil margarita on offer.

Beers are all priced between $7 and $9, with a couple of local brews offered including Original Pattern's Hazy IPA, and Harmonic's Skydog IPA. And wines are very reasonably priced at $12 per glass, or $50 per bottle, including a couple of good sparkling options (Moet, even).

The Hall is a new venture from a trio of entrepreneurs and friends, Modi Shantharam, Yuko Takahashi, and Joina Liao.

"We saw a gap in San Francisco's nightlife — a place that combines the sophisticated ambiance of a high-end cocktail lounge with the timeless appeal of billiards," says Shantharam. "The Hall isn't just a bar; it's a social destination designed to bring people together, whether they're a seasoned player or simply looking for a new spot to connect."

The Hall - 2565 Mission Street, between 21st and 22nd streets - open Sun-Thur 5pm to midnight, Fri-Sat 5 pm to 1 am - reserve here

It's become a bona fide thing to host a holiday-themed pop-up or "experience" in your bar for the month of December, and that is happening once again at a bunch of spots around San Francisco and beyond.

Whether you feel the need to put on a Christmas light necklace and antlers and go a-wassailing with friends, or you're just a fan of a well crafted toddy, 'tis the season for garlands and kitsch and festive drinks to drown our election sorrows.

These six bars and pop-ups around town offer the most optimal holiday-themed libations and cheer for your money.

The 3rd Annual Causwells Holiday Experience
Over in the Marina, there are a couple of holiday-themed things going on (see Mistletoe, below), but the most interesting drinks in this year's holiday-themed array can probably be found at Causwells. Bar manager Elmer Mejicanos has gone wild with some original Xmas-season creations both here and at the newer, next-door, low-ABV sister spot Lilah — if you're looking to be less tipsy or start slow, don't miss the spiced Old Fashioned at Lilah, or one of the showy kakagori (shaved ice) drinks. In addition to the full menu of Causwells classic drinks and the stellar food menu, the holiday experience menu features two frozen cocktails — I recommend the Elvis Christmas, featuring whiskey, banana, peanut, oloroso sherry, and oat milk — and there's a great tarragon and cranberry-infused Mistletoe Negroni. Also recommended, both for the flavors and the 'gram, The Grinch, which features Cenote blanco tequila, Liquor 43, fig leaf, kiwi, and pandan, and a printed rice-paper image of the Grinch himself, seen above.
2346 Chestnut Street, open daily until 9 or 10 pm

Miracle @ PCH
Maybe the first bar in town to go all-in for Xmas was Pacific Cocktail Haven, which gave itself over to the Miracle pop-up in December 2017 and never looked back. Miracle is now an international phenomenon, with its own merch and a cocktail menu that is standardized across its 120+ locations (including more in the Bay Area), so if specific San Francisco quirk is what you're after, this may not be the place. If, however, you want a brandy drink in a barrel-shaped mug that says "Fa-La-La-La-La" on it that you can purchase and take home, this is your spot. Do note there's a $10 cover, and they take reservations for groups of 6 or more via Tock.
550 Sutter Street, Mon-Sat 3 pm to midnight through December

Mistletoe (multiple locations)
Another multi-location pop-up is happening in three spots around the city this year, and that is Mistletoe, which has taken over The Summer Place on Nob Hill, Wizards & Wands on Lombard, as well as a spot a couple doors up from Miracle at 580 Sutter Street. The space at Wizards & Wands is the largest, next-door to country bar Westwood, and the menu features an Espresso Martini variation, as well as a rum-spiked hot cocoa called the Apres Ski.
801 Bush Street, 580 Sutter Street, 2030 Lombard Street

Sippin' Santa @ Kona's Street Market
Sippin' Santa is the tropical-themed off-shoot of Miracle, and also now happens across dozens of locations around California and the country — including one up at the Flamingo resort in Santa Rosa. Kona's, which is co-owned by PCH founder Kevin Diedrich, gets covered in Christmas lights and other kitsch, and the menu, created by Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, leans heavily toward Tiki drinks, with a spiced White Russian variation called Holiday on Ice, and a Sugar Plum Mai Tai. Like at Miracle, there's a $10 cover.
32 3rd Street, Tues-Thurs 4pm to 10pm, Friday 4pm to 11pm, and Saturday 6pm to 11pm

Winter Wonderland at the Vault Garden
It's the third year of this holiday pop-up at the Vault Garden, with a menu of festive drinks served both cold and hot. This year's menu features a Cognac and rum milk punch of sorts, with persimmon, pineapple, allspice, citrus, and gingersnap-washed milk whey, called Beautiful Sight; and there's a warm drink with chocolate liqueur, Green chartreuse, cinnamon, brown sugar and oat milk, called Happy Tonight. This place has the added bonus of a full, all-day food menu, so you could make lunch or dinner of it, with a solid burger and some Dungeness crab dip.
555 California Street, Monday to Friday 11:30 am to 9 pm

Victorian Holidays @ Elixir
One of the OG cocktail spots in the Mission District, Elixir, serves up some unique holiday-time finds, including aged egg nog — which gets aged in glass for a year before coming out each December. You can also get the regular house nog mixed with the spirit of your choice, and there's a Hot Butt Rum, featuring Elixir's signature Hot Buttered Rum batter, which includes vanilla ice cream, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, vanilla and cardamom.
3200 16th Street at Guerrero; Mon & Tues 4pm - 10pm; Wed  4pm-12am; Thurs, & Fri 4pm-2am; Sat 12pm-2am; Sun 2pm-10pm

Stoa, the one-year-old cocktail bar with food in the Lower Haight from the team behind Nopalito, just landed on a national list of the best new cocktail bars in the country.

Punch Magazine, a cocktail publication for booze nerds and aficionados, just unveiled their 2024 list of the best new bars — a brief list of just five, spanning the entire country.

"It's 2024, and the bar world is not immune from the algorithmic flattening of culture that has shaped so much of our modern world," the Punch editors write. "While the past few years have seen a steady rise in cocktail quality across the board, there's been a palpable rise in sameness occurring in lockstep."

While trends come and go, Punch seeks to honor cocktail spots that more idiosyncratic, bars, they say, "that can tap into the tastes and techniques of the moment and make them [their] own."

In addition to honoring Bar Contra in New York, Miami's Viceversa, and a pair of Midwest newcomers, Public Parking in Madison and Cobra in Columbus, Punch bestows high praise on Stoa, calling it "an altar to quiet minimalism."

They praise bar manager Yanni Kehagiaras, who previously managed the bars at Nopalito and Liholiho Yacht Club, who created a menu of classics and twists on classics where all cocktails "clock in at four ingredients or fewer." This means that Kehagiaras relies "on his studied expertise and deep understanding of his backbar to find perfect balance.

"The fewer the elements, the better," Kehagiaras says.

The editors especially call out the Hedge Maza (a personal favorite), a subtle but delicious riff on a Martini with St. George Spirits Terroir gin, green Chartreuse, and Dolin Blanc vermouth. The recipe is here.

Stoa - 701 Haight Street at Pierce - Open Monday to Saturday at 4 pm

Photo: SFist

Yes, the menu looks like a Playbill for a musical called Dogs, styled after Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, and many of the drink names are, also, spoofs of character names from Cats.

For its semiannual menu switchup — a tradition that's been ongoing since the bar's inception over a decade ago — Trick Dog has a pup-tastic little show to share: Dogs, The Musical. It arrives, tongue firmly in cheek, just in time to quench our mid-summer thirst and distract us from election-related anxieties. (And Trick Dog already did an election-themed menu back in July 2016, which, in retrospect, seemed like an act of hope and optimism that was thoroughly quashed by November.)

As owner Josh Harris and general manager Nick Amano-Dolan told SFist last year, the process of incubating, creating, and implementing each new menu is an arduous one, and some ideas don't become realities for years. Dogs, The Musical, came together with the help of bar manager Travis Howse, and it features an array of unique concoctions with a focus on sustainability — like any good dog, the bar is putting every last scrap of its ingredients to use.

"We've had Dogs, The Musical, waiting in the wings as our understudy for a while, but we needed the right cast and energy to bring it to life," Harris says. "So often people ask how long it takes to develop a menu concept. The anwer is complex, and this menu is a perfect example of how a concept can live in a state of incubation for years and then finally come to life with the right team at the bar and collaborative creatives."

Harris notes that Howse has a background in theater, and brought that to the menu, along with the entire "team's love of pups."

Like I said, a bunch of the drink names are spoofs of the cat character names in Cats, like the Mr. Woofistoffeles, which is made with Herradura Silver tequila, Iichiko shochu, Martini Bitter, watermelon, kimchi, and lime. Every part of the watermelon is used to make the drink — its juice is made into a cordial, the rinds are quick-pickled and fermented for a kimchi garnish, and the juice from the kimchi is also mixed into the cocktail.

There's also the Grizabona, made with Botanist gin, Midori, Martini Bianco, aquavit, celery, apple, and yuzu.

Out of the 16 new drinks, all of which you can see below with their character avatars — faces were painted by local artist Rachel Levine — three are non-alcoholic, in keeping with Harris's commitment to making delicious and unique N/A options. (Harris himself has been sober for over two decades.) The art direction for the Playbill menu was done by Alyssa Rusin, and as always, the menus are for sale as keepsakes — the $30 for each goes toward the Bon Vivants Scholarship program.

As always, Trick Dog also offers a full food menu, and they are open seven days a week — 4 pm to midnight Sunday to Thursday, and 4 pm to 2 am on Friday and Saturday.

The new menu launched at 4 pm on Wednesday (July 10).

Top image by Nicola Parisi

State Senator Scott Wiener has introduced new legislation to create "Entertainment Zones" to help San Francisco's downtown with its economic recovery, activating certain designated areas where people would be free to roam with their booze.

They're called "Refreshment Areas" or "Entertainment Zones," and some cities around the country established them during the pandemic to promote business at local bars and restaurants, giving customers more outdoor space in which to move with their to-go cocktails and beer.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, for instance, created a "Refreshment Area" in July 2020 that has held on to today, in which people can carry open containers of alcohol, as long they're designated containers, up to 16 ounces, and Ohio created a similar designation that allows cities to design their own within certain parameters.

San Francisco had street-closure areas like Valencia Street and Hayes Street that two-block areas with a lot of outdoor seating in the street, but these stopped short of letting people wander freely (technically) with the drinks they ordered. And while there was some talk about loosening up the laws around open containers, New Orleans-style, back at the height of COVID, that never actually happened.

Now, as KRON4 reports, Sen. Wiener has proposed SB 969, which would create the ability for cities to establish temporary, open-container "Entertainment Zones" where brick-and-mortar bars and restaurants could all sell to-go drinks, like when a street festival is going on.

The law would also enable brick-and-mortar businesses to better profit when actual street fairs are happening — the law, as it's currently written, allows booth vendors to sell to-go drinks at fairs, but local businesses can't do the same. (Those rules have been relaxed at Folsom Street Fair and Castro Street Fair in SF, but not generally.)

"Getting people back out in the streets is key to the economic recovery of cities across California," Wiener says in a statement.

"The COVID-19 pandemic devastated foot traffic to downtown businesses," Wiener continues. "Cities in California vary widely in their recovery trajectories, but none has yet reached the levels of foot traffic seen in 2019 in their downtowns. This reduced activity threatens to stymie economic recovery in San Francisco [in particular]."

The law would restrict these "Entertainment Zones" to specific boundaries, and hours of operation, and law enforcement would need to be made aware of when they are open business.

Mayors London Breed of San Francisco and Matt Mahan of San Jose are both behind the bill, saying they think it will help bolster foot traffic in their cities' downtowns.

"This legislation will help revitalize and diversify Downtowns that need support, boost local economies, and support small businesses,” Breed said in a statement. “In San Francisco we are bringing different strategies to create more dynamic neighborhoods, especially in areas that for too long have been focused on simply being a 9-to-5 destination. Entertainment Zones are exactly the kind of creative, flexible tool we need to help local jurisdictions build an even stronger economic recovery."

If and when this legislation passes and gets signed by the governor, it's set to take effect in January 2025 — so we're still 11 months away from random weeknight drinking in the streets. But just in time for Dry January next winter, there may be a new temptation for you downtown!

Previously: 4AM Last Call Bill Voted Down Once Again, This Time In the Assembly

Photo: bingbingdimsum/Instagram

It's officially hot cocktail and mulled wine season, and we have a quick guide to eight of the best examples that SF bars and restaurants have to offer.

You can always find a classic Irish Coffee down at The Buena Vista Cafe, but across the city this holiday season — and in the dead of January — you'll find plenty of other, very delicious warm and wintry beverages to help take the edge off your seasonal stress.

Eight of our favorites, below.

Hot Buttered Cider at The Beehive
The Beehive is an all-around cozy spot for wintertime drinks, and this winter, if you haven't already, you ought to try their Hot Buttered Cider, now on the seasonal menu for the fourth consecutive year. It's a terrific twist on a Hot Buttered Rum, and combination of brandy, house apple cider, and apple butter.
842 Valencia Street

Wassail at Alembic
I'm not sure that there is another bar in town this season making wassail, so if you want to try a version, head to the upper Haight for Alembic's mix of red wine, cherry brandy, rhubarbaro, bay laurel, orange, honey, and winter spices.
1725 Haight Street

Aged Eggnog at Elixir
One of the Mission's finest cocktail spots, and the second-oldest bar in the city, Elixir, always offers up some delicious holiday cocktail treats. (The holiday menu goes live Friday, December 1.) They make house fresh eggnog every year that you can have with the spirit of your choice mixed in, but the special thing here is the aged eggnog — mixed a year in advance with Ferrand Ambre Cognac and Plantation Original dark rum, and aged in glass. It's served on ice, and it might sound crazy or gross, but it's bomb.
3200 16th Street at Guerrero

Over the River and Through the Woods at The Vault Garden
The Vault Garden is one of a number of SF bars ringing in the holidays with a special, highly Instagrammable themed pop-up, called Winter Wonderland. This year's edition features two hot cocktails, either of which can be served booze-free or boozy. One is the Over the River and Through the Woods — a mix of hot spiced cider, ginger, pear, rosemary, and lemon, which is perfect with a shot of bourbon, rum, or brandy. And you can have it served in a kitschy Santa mug.
555 California Street

Hot Brown Buttered Coffee at The Snug
A delicious and unique mashup of the Irish Coffee and Hot Buttered Rum, The Snug's Hot Brown Buttered Coffee features bourbon, house chestnut liqueur, and salted amaro cream.
2301 Fillmore Street

Hot Toddy at Casements
In addition to a terrific Irish Coffee made with Andytown Roasters coffee, you can find a proper, flavorful hot toddy at Casements in the Mission, featuring Lost Irish whiskey, allspice, cinnamon, clove, star anise, nutmeg, honey, and lemon. Enjoy it in the cozy bar or by a heatlamp on the huge back patio.
2351 Mission Street

Jingle Balls Nog at Miracle @ PCH
The uber-popular, no-reservations, holiday cocktail pop-up at Pacific Cocktail Haven is in its seventh year. And back on the menu you'll find the Jingle Balls Nog, which features Cognac, cream sherry, almond milk, cream, egg, vanilla, and nutmeg. If you're in the mood for something warm, though, they've got mulled wine and a great Hot Buttered Rum as well. You should note, though: Miracle, the pop-up, comes with a $10 cover charge.
550 Sutter Street

Chartreuse Cappuccino at The Morris and Maison Nico
As Chartreuse lovers surely know by now, the herb-y delicious green stuff has been extra-hard to find this year because of rising global demand and the stubbornness of the Carthusian monks who make it, who don't want to increase production. But Paul Einbund, all around beverage guru and owner of The Morris and Maison Nico, has his own deep supply. And on both menus is a Chartreuse cappuccino, a delicious wintry beverage that was recently included in the book But First, Coffee... — and you can make your own if you can find any Chartreuse with this recipe.
2501 Mariposa Street and 710 Montgomery Street

Previously: 12 Best Bars With Fireplaces or Fire Pits In S.F. (And One In Berkeley)

With some summer weather finally hitting San Francisco, nearly a full month into official summertime, you may have a hankering for a frozen adult beverage to beat the (modest) heat.

It's gonna be a scorcher this weekend around the Bay, and even though it may only hit 70 in parts of SF, we'll take it. July has never been the kindest month in this town, after all.

You may still work up a sweat walking around or basking in the rays, and so it seems a good time to round up the city's best spots for frozen adult beverages. Since this isn't New Orleans or Miami, there isn't a frozen drink machine behind every bar you come across, so let this serve as a handy guide to the ones that do exist that are not margaritas.

Bar Nonnina
This one-year-old, tucked-back rooftop bar at Fiorella's Inner Sunset location offers a very Italian take on the frozen drink called the Slushy di Modena. Featuring fresh-shaved ice, the drink includes Occitan gin, Amara d'arancia rosso, lemon, strawberry, pomegranate, and a float of Lambrusco.
1240 9th Avenue

The Beehive
Retro Mission District cocktail spot The Beehive offers their take on a Miami-style frozen Tiki drink called the Miami Nice, featuring Santa Teresa 1796 Rum, pink guava, coconut, allspice dram, and lime. They've also occasionally offered a vodka slushy called the Flower Child, with Reyka vodka, Meyer lemon, caraway, chamomile, and lemon.
842 Valencia Street

The Dorian
SF is sorely lacking in places to find frosé, perhaps because most people most days would rather just drink their rosé straight up. But on a hot day, frozen-drink lovers love a good frosé — which The Dorian offers by the shot as well as by the full glass or the liter (!), which comes in a souvenir cup. And this isn't just frozen and blended wine, it's vodka, rosé wine, watermelon, and lemon, so it's a legit drink with a kick. You can also opt for an optional Campari float.
2001 Chestnut Street

The Detour
Castro arcade bar The Detour offers a good, old fashioned Pina Colada in their frozen-drink machine (note, as of this week, 7/14/23, the machine is down for maintenance, but it should be back up soon). It's made with a house rum blend, and you can opt for an additional rum float for two bucks extra. No better way to loosen up your reflexes for a round of Super Smash Brothers.
2200 Market Street at 15th

Heartwood
New downtown bar Heartwood offers both a boozy and a non-alcoholic slushy, for those wanting to cool down over a sober lunch, say. The boozy one is a frozen Saturn, which is a classic Tiki drink made with gin, passionfruit, orgeat, falernum, and lemon; and the n/a one is a Mint Slushy, made with mint, lime, and cane syrup.
531 Commercial Street

Hi Tops
The frozen Cosmopolitans have been a hit at Hi Tops in the Castro since they installed a slushy machine last year. And it seems, just like with ice cream, San Franciscans don't care how cold it is outside — they will still order frozen Cosmos even if it is Arctic tundra temperatures out on the street, just because they can. These Cosmo slushies are tart and not too sweet, and they give good brain freeze.*
2247 Market Street

The Morris
The annually recurring Chartreuse slushy on the menu at The Morris is back in time for SF summer, and it comes at a time of a worldwide shortage of Chartreuse, so be grateful. This unique concoction that you won't find anywhere else in the city (or the state?) is a great aperitif when dining outside on a warmish night, and it may lead you to getting curious about the bottles of vintage Chartreuse that owner Paul Einbund keeps on hand.
2501 Mariposa Street

Pagan Idol
Kitschy downtown Tiki spot Pagan Idol has rotating boozie slushies on offer under the heading "Frozen Potion," and it could be a Pina Colada variation or something akin to a Hurricane — you'll have to ask! There are also plenty of other drinks here served over crushed ice, so, same difference.
375 Bush Street

Palm House
Cow Hollow's Palm House always has boozy-fruity slushies on the menu, made with rum, lemon, and agave, along with your choice of strawberry, guava, or prickly pear. You can get a rum float on top ($4), and the novelty here is the Big Swig — you can order a full liter ($39) of the slushy in a clear-plastic carton, for easy swigging.
2032 Union Street

Smuggler's Cove
Most of the menu at SF's premiere Tiki bar, Smuggler's Cove, is served on crushed ice, and you can't go wrong with any of their drinks. Classics like the Jet Pilot and Three Dots and a Dash are good places to start. Scared of rum? They have a few offerings made with other spirits, like the Saturn, which is made with gin.
650 Gough Street

The Snug
Upper Fillmore cocktail spot The Snug offers two regular slushies in the warmer months: a Paloma slushy, and a Cosmo slushy. But don't sleep on the excellent Wagyu burger here, to go with your drink.
2301 Fillmore Street

Related: The 34 Best Cocktail Bars In SF

*Disclosure: SFist editor Jay Barmann host trivia nights at Hi Tops, and may be biased.

A bar/nightclub in SoMa has used an AI chatbot to design a new cocktail, and they are using this to market themselves on local television. Maybe San Francisco is doomed.

Raven Bar (1151 Folsom Street), the bar/nightclub that used to be known as Club Eight, has a new "signature cocktail" on their drinks menu called CraftGPT — which was apparently created by asking ChatGPT to make up a craft cocktail recipe.

Bartender Adam was on KPIX's morning program this a.m., and morning anchor Amanda Starrantino seems amused/confused.

The CraftGPT is a mezcal cocktail, and Adam says the team thought this "would be a really cool way to keep up with the times," and since mezcal is "extremely popular right now," they thought they'd let the bot come up with a "smoky mezcal cocktail with a little bit of spice and sweetness."

To be clear, the recipe is not exactly mixology brilliance — and Adam says that the team "brought [it] to life" after some trial and error, but the bot got them "90% there" on its first try.

The recipe contains Guajillo mezcal, lemon, mango, honey, blood orange bitters, firewater bitters, and mint.

You can watch it being made below, and maybe because it was like 6 a.m., Starrantino decided not to take a sip — she just smelled it.

Photo via Raven Bar

San Francisco is stupid with great cocktail bars — though sadly we have fewer than when a pandemic decided to kill some off. But how many actually double as great date spots where you can sit down, hear each other, and get a complete meal?

Chef Seth Stowaway appears to have created a hit fine-dining restaurant with Osito, his ode to live-fire cooking and some of his own food obsessions — a recent menu focused on childhood memories finished with a Texas-inflected barbecue course. With its lively communal-table setup and nightly soundtrack of alt-rock and vintage pop, it's a unique fine-dining experience for SF — but with tasting menus that start at $215 per person, it's going to be a special-occasion spot for most.

Not so with next-door, attached bar/lounge Liliana, which enjoys the use of many of the same ingredients and farmers' market bounty being used on the Osito menu, but also a full list of thoughtful, delightfully balanced cocktails from Beverage Director Uzziel Pulido.

The cocktail menu features a few plays on classics, like a Gibson that's tarted up with some brine from ramp pickles, and a white Negroni with fennel-infused gin, blanc vermouth, and garnished with dill flower.

Pulido also decided to play with the classic Espresso Martini — a drink that's been having a comeback moment for a couple of years – adding cacao-infused sweet vermouth and cassis, and garnishing with dehydrated blueberry dust from the restaurant's larder.

There is also a rotating spot for a clarified milk punch on the menu — the current version features rum, a 'Chapparal' amaro from local brand Brucato, Cocchi Americano bianco, lime, honey, and herbs. And a mezcal flip called the Market Run, which currently features stone fruits, olive oil, and several types of basil.

The food, which comes out of the Osito kitchen, is a collaborative effort led by Sous Chef Cameron Sycks, and it is pretty next-level as cocktail-bar food goes.

The seasonally driven menu has, during late summer and early fall, featured dishes highlighting tomatoes and perfect summer melons. And there is a charcuterie board on the menu that makes use of whole animals that have come through the kitchen, currently featuring a delicious ciccioli and house-made coppa.

Another smaller but hearty dish is a buttermilk biscuit with fresh ham, summer peppers, house-made butter, and peach jam.

The mains are sizable — again, especially for what seems like a cocktail lounge — with a whole grilled Mt. Lassen trout, a grilled half-chicken, and a $75 grass-fed ribeye with salsa verde. And there's a barbecued romanesco dish for vegetarians as well, served with pickles and farro.

After a few cocktails and a few dishes, this may not be the cheapest of dates. But it is bound to impress — and being able to hear yourself talk and not having to elbow your way to a bar (like at nearby Trick Dog) are definitely pluses!

Liliana features a half dozen seats at its bar, as well as a handful of small tables, so reservations are recommended. But for the moment, walking in for a bar seat or a table remains a decent option most weeknights.

You could also just pop by for a dessert date with an Espresso Martini.

Liliana - 2875 18th Street near Florida Street - Open Tuesday to Saturday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

For budgetary reasons, SFist editors and contributors occasionally accept complimentary meals from restaurants and their publicists. More often, we pay out of pocket for our meals. While we mostly refrain from writing formal reviews, we make every effort when giving opinions about restaurants to be objective, and to focus more on food and ambiance than service in order to make up for any possible bias.

Fans of good cocktails in cozy spaces can rejoice, at long last, over the reopening of Dalva's Hideout, the separate, semi-secret bar back behind Dalva on 16th Street that hasn't welcomed guests since early 2020.

Eater caught the news of the reopening this week — though unfortunately calls the main bar "Davla" — and The Hideout made the announcement on Instagram that tonight is the night of the big reopening, starting at 8 p.m. (Though Dalva opens earlier, the Hideout never opened much before 7 or 7:30 back in the day.)

Dalva is one of the OGs in the Mission bar scene as we know it, having opened in the pre-dot-com era of 1993, back when Bill Clinton was president and The Slanted Door was still on Valencia Street around the corner.

The larger bar underwent a major pandemic renovation and reopened in January, with owner Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud telling Eater that he brought in partner Eric Ochoa to help revamp the bar program from top to bottom. Where once it was a bar that served a lot of vodka sodas and whiskey-gingers, it now has a whole new look and serves things like The New Wave Fix — a mix of Italian gin, French wine, pineapple, and coconut Chartreuse.

The Hideout, which debuted amid a larger craft cocktail renaissance across the city in 2007, has long been a beloved late-night pitstop for industry folk and cocktail connoisseurs.

The Hideout also underwent some renovation, but mostly only behind the six-seat bar itself. And the new menu is more of a return to the classics, with a Martini, Manhattan, Negroni, Daiquiri, and Gimlet all featured, along with a Gin Rickey, a Dark & Stormy, and (ugh) a Mojito. Gone are some of the more creative concoctions on the former menu — Ochoa has opted to flip things around, with the more out-of-the-ordinary cocktails featured in the front bar these days, and The Hideout bar staff working with a more limited number of ingredients.

There's talk of pop-ups happening at the space, and the 40-seat, two-level Hideout is also available for private events.

Reichborn-Kjennerud tells Eater he hopes to see industry folks return for after-work "classic cocktails done with really good booze."

The Hideout at Dalva — 3121 16th Street, in back — reopens Friday, August 19, 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Top image: Photo by Nicola Parisi via Instagram

That pesky “bona fide” meal requirement for to-go cocktails could be 86’ed under proposed revisions to California’s carry-out cocktail rules, as the state senate just unanimously approved an expansion of legal to-go booze sales.

The very awesome to-go and delivery cocktails phenomenon arrived early in the pandemic, in March 2020, when the California ABC temporarily suspended the rules for alcohol “consumption off the licensed premise,” effectively giving us a period of New Orleans-style take-out booze from bars. That temporary relief measure would be extended through 2021, but new rules took effect on January 1, 2022 that watered down your to-go cocktail rights.

The ABC added “bona fide meal” requirements on the first of the year, meaning you have to buy a substantial order of food just to get one measly to-go cocktail. SF Bar Owner Alliance founder Ben Bleiman told Mission Local it was “a bunch of bullshit” that many bars who specialize in craft cocktails were now effectively shut out of the to-go cocktail game.

But a new bill was unanimously approved by the state senate Thursday, and if eventually passed, it would eliminate many to-go cocktail restrictions according to KRON4. The bill called SB 846 would throw out the meal requirement, and also allow for cocktail delivery from bars and restaurants with an alcohol license.

“Our restaurants and bars were hit hard by the pandemic, and allowing flexibility to sell to-go cocktails has been a lifeline,” the bill’s author Senator Bill Dodd said in a statement (our own Sen. Scott Wiener co-authored the bill). “To ensure a strong recovery and to answer consumer demand, we must expand this successful provision in ways that will make sense and will be beneficial to all.”

The text of the proposed law says it will “eliminate the requirement that the sale include a meal.” It also allows for delivery of alcoholic beverages, either by the establishment itself or third-party delivery app.  

The unanimous passage (32-0, which means eight senators were not present) is surely a good omen for the bill. It’s now in the state Assembly, who may put it through committees before a full vote. Should it get through the Assembly, Governor Gavin Newsom has a history of signing the temporary to-go cocktail bills. And while he’s put his interest in his bar and restaurant company the Plumpjack Group in a blind trust while he’s in office, it’s fair to guess he will be very receptive toward any legislation that benefits the beverage service industry.

Related: To-Go Cocktails Become Fully Legal Statewide on Jan. 1, But With a Bunch of New Rules That Make the Law Pointless [SFist]

Image: Cocktail Solutions To-Go via Facebook

Faux Real is a new high-end mocktails shop with no booze, as the alcohol-free, mocktail trend spawns ever more ways to recreate the spirit of drinking without the spirits.

It’s no secret that the Bay Area has been getting drunk as hell during the pandemic. But we are now in the second year of this public health disaster, and some people are finding the wisdom to hit the brakes. And for those people, there is now a Santa Clara County retailer catering specifically to your non-alcoholic needs. The Bay Area News Group brings us the story of a non-alcoholic mocktail store called Faux Real, which opened earlier in February in Los Gatos.

“Faux Real came out of wanting to live a healthier lifestyle,” owner Yvonne Khananis told the Bay Area News Group. “Especially during COVID, because once the pandemic hit, we all started drinking way more than normal.”

There does not appear to be a website or any social media presence yet for the store, which is 300 North Santa Cruz Avenue, a few doors down from Khananis’ other specialty food store Grocer + Goddess. But per the news group, the shop “carries dozens of zero-proof spirits like gin, tequila and rum, non-alcoholic wine and beer, aperitifs and more,” which “typically come from small batch, family-owned businesses.”

The shop also carries an array of shakers, mixers and cocktail accessories to recreate the experience, and hosts a “sober hour” every Saturday from 1-3 p.m.

Ironically, the name Faux Real itself came from a drunken story. After a round of daytime drinking earlier in the pandemic, Khananis says she told her boyfriend, “I need to stop drinking, like, for real.”

“I was like, ‘We just came up with the name for the store!’”

Related: Bizzy's Dry Bar Debuts In Oakland With An All Alcohol-Free Mocktail Menu

Image: Helena Yankovska via Unsplash

The arguably exploitative business model of companies like Postmates and DoorDash has inspired some spirited innovations from bars and booze businesses, and some are turning to old-fashioned methods.

The buzz is still strong for alcohol delivery in San Francisco since the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) temporarily relaxed the rules to allow pre-packaged booze to go, which may or may not have caused the current mason jar shortage. But anyone who's ordered cocktails for delivery has probably experienced the drastic sticker shock of insanely high prices, thanks to the price-gouging of delivery apps, taxes, delivery fees, tipping, and the insane nanny-state requirement that we order solid food with our alcohol. The cocktail order with the obligatory accompanying food ends up being a terrible deal for both the consumer and the establishment, where bars and restaurants are not enjoying good profit margins on these transactions.  

Today’s Chronicle reports on a new booze delivery venture called the San Francisco Cocktail Club, which launches Tuesday. The initial offer is an artisan mezcal drink with a dish from Cole Valley’s Padrecito, where “$48 plus sales tax gets you four servings of the drink and a food item, in this case a gordita.” The same deal would cost you nearly $65 on Caviar, and you would also get four less ounces of delicious cocktail on that third-party platform.

This is still not an ideal arrangement. There are no menu options, there’s only one meal or beverage offered. Moreover, the Chronicle adds that “Customers must pre-order at least 48 hours in advance,” which personally is not how I handle my drunken urges for more food and alcohol.

Other establishments are doing what they can to deliver the hard stuff, but everyday, on-demand service is often not an option. Duboce Triangle watering hole Blackbird has introduced the rather attractively packaged canned cocktails seen above, available on Fridays from 2-8 p.m., along with empanadas from René's Kitchen. (They don’t deliver, but they are doing pickup and sidewalk seating). The Oasis’ drag-queen delivery Meals on Heels is making blockbuster national headlines with its booze-and-food delivered with a lip-synch performance, and is available Thursday and Friday nights, while the Oasis rooftop is doing  rooftop dining with drag shows on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

DNA Lounge has gotten around the third-party delivery gouging by just creating their own online ordering site. “We are still listed on the other delivery sites (except Postmates because fuck Uber) so that if someone does happen to find us via Grubhub or whatever, well, I guess we'll take it? Even though their hidden 15% fee eats up almost all of our profit,” owner Jamie Zawinski said in a blog post, encouraging people to use the DNA Pizza online store to order food and cocktails “if you would like to order from us and ensure that we get your money and don't have to give away a huge chunk of it to a middleman.”

Parenthetically, we will add that DNA Lounge has dabbled in delivering other things as well, like toilet paper, to get through the COVID-19 downturn.

Related: These SF Bars Are Offering To-Go and Delivery Cocktails

Image: DNA Lounge via Twitter

Down at China Live, in a cloistered spot upstairs from the six-month-old Market Restaurant, there now sits a fancy, semi-hidden cocktail bar with a menu centered on scotch — a spirit beloved by some and loathed by many, wrongly or not, and which has not yet formed the backbone of cocktail bar in San Francisco to date. We have the rum-centric Smuggler's Cove, its gin-focused cousin Whitechapel, the whiskey-focused bar at The Saratoga (and many others with a penchant for whiskey), the brandy-inclined Trou Normand, and a full complement of tequila and mezcal at Mosto, Mezcalito, and elsewhere. But not until owner George Chen and beverage consultant Duggan McDonnell decided to open Cold Drinks have we had a bar bold enough to build an entire menu around scotch.

In a piece about the bar in the Chronicle, McDonnell tells drinks writer Esther Mobley that he's been surprised by the reception for some of the drinks made with the more hard-to-like Islay scotches he has in stock, as opposed to the somewhat more palatable Highland varieties. "People want bold flavors,” he says. “Women want bold flavors. I think of it as parallel to this era of mezcal, and people drinking more spirit-forward cocktails."

McDonnell has played a significant role in the evolution of the SF cocktail scene over the last decade, beginning with work he did at the long-gone Frisson (anyone remember his squid-ink martini?), and then with his Latin-centric, fresh-fruit concoctions at Cantina (R.I.P.). More recently he's headed up an SF-based brand of pisco, Campo de Encanto, and written a book about San Francisco cocktails in which pisco and other spirits from the southern Pacific coast (which arrived here in early Gold Rush-era ships) play a big role.

Now he's created an easy-drinking, largely tap-based cocktail menu for China Live, and a more refined, nuanced, and expensive cocktail experience for Cold Drinks — the name, by the way, comes from a possibly mythic cocktail bar in Shanghai a century ago that got the name "because it had ice," as McDonnell tells the Chron.

And topping the menu, price-wise, is a $52 cocktail called the Royal Salute Rob Roy — a spin on the classic Rob Roy using the pricey Chivas Royal Salute 21-year, which can retail for upwards of $180 a bottle, and Glenlivet 12-year, along with Lustau and Chinato vermouths and bitters. It's an expense-account choice to be sure, or one for a baller type trying to impress a date, maybe, and as Mobley writes, "Would I order it again if I weren’t expensing it for a review? No."

http://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Cold-Drinks-mixes-it-up-to-bring-scotch-into-the-12177756.php&cmpid=twitter-premium

A post shared by Duggan McDonnell (@dugganmcdonnell) on Sep 6, 2017 at 8:43pm PDT

Other drinks on the menu include the above-pictured, very pretty Long Islay Iced Tea ($22), which comes heavily garnished in a copper pineapple cup; and the Al’s Cut ($18) — which Mobley describes as "a vegetal take on the gimlet with black pepper, peat syrup, and teapot and mushroom bitters."

You'll note that these lower-priced drinks are still higher priced than at most SF bars that are not in fancy hotels — these are New York prices to be sure. But we always have a way of catching up to New York in these ways, and as McDonnell puts to the Chronicle "Luxury is play." And yes, this may be a reason why there haven't been more scotch cocktail bars: the price of admission to this luxe club is high.

There is a third bar/lounge space in the China Live complex called the Gold Mountain Lounge, which is sumptuously decorated like Cold Drinks but is currently only available for private events (with drinks likely arriving from downstairs). And these should be joined soon by Chen's promised fine dining venue Eight Tables, which the website says is still opening in "Summer 2017."

Related: China Live Gets A Hidden Cocktail Bar
All About China Live, Debuting Its Main Floor Food And Retail Complex On Wednesday

The #thirst is real! 👅 #sundayswag

A post shared by Moscow Mule (@the.moscow.mule) on May 21, 2017 at 10:06am PDT

It's a trend widely noted in the last half-decade at craft cocktail bars and otherwise regular bars that have tried to spruce themselves up with cocktail menus and bourbon flights and the like: the proliferation of copper mugs for Moscow Mules. But now a state health agency is calling into question whether they might be poisoning people, based on FDA guidelines on the use of copper vessels for serving food.

Once mostly just an old-timey gesture at Southern California bars like the now long-gone Cock 'n' Bull on LA's Sunset Strip — where legend has it the cocktail was invented — and Starlite in San Diego, copper mugs are now found all over the country as vessels for mules (both the Moscow and Kentucky varieties, and some others). But the Iowa state Alcoholic Beverages Division issued an advisory last week noting that the FDA's Model Food Code specifically prohibits copper or copper alloys from coming into contact with foods with a pH below 6.0, i.e. anything with fruit juice in it like the lime juice found in a Moscow Mule. Acidic liquids like vinegar, wine, or cocktails with fruit juice can cause copper in unlined mugs to leach into a drink, potentially leading to copper poisoning.

While there have not been widespread reports of such poisoning — which San Francisco's CBS 5 reports can cause stomach pains, diarrhea, vomiting, and yellowing of the skin — the advisory calls to question how many bars around the country have been serving the drinks in mugs made only of copper or copper alloy, without a lining made of something like stainless steel or nickel, which are harmless. Also, how has no one noted this part of the FDA code before with all the copper mugs everywhere?

The story goes that the Moscow Mule was dreamed up by a liquor distributor and a bar owner at the Cock 'n' Bull in the 1940's — the former, John Martin, owned Smirnoff Vodka and was having trouble selling it to American consumers, and the latter, Jack Morgan, had been making his own ginger beer as a side project and was having trouble selling it. Copper.org includes part of the legend that there was a third person involved, a woman with a stash of copper mugs she couldn't sell, and the drink came together with lime juice and their inspiration, made all the better because copper vessels help keep drinks cold.

The drink gave birth to a whole ad campaign by Smirnoff in the 1950s and 60s, including this ad featuring Woody Allen, helping popularize Russian vodka to gin-drinking Americans by way of the Moscow Mule.

Fast-forward to the late 2000s, when the craft cocktail craze began reviving all things vintage, and the explosion in popularity of ginger beer in bars over the last six or seven years — with Eater calling this "the golden age of American ginger beer" in 2015. Now copper mugs are available for cheap in every hipster housewares store.

I should note that the more expensive varieties of the mugs, like this $40 set on Amazon, tout the fact that they're made of "pure copper" and are "unlined."

The more you know...