Gone are the days of free love, free LSD, and freedom to eat whatever you want. After last week's historic decision to make San Francisco the first in the country to ban the sale of cigarettes in pharmacies Walgreens and Rite Aid stores, City Hall isn't stopping there. The Board of Supes also wants to bar you from lighting up in city parks, ATM lines, and common areas of apartment buildings; voted for chain......

So far eight businesses in the East Bay have been held up by robbers in the past couple of weeks. Last night at around 9 p.m., two suspects hit Restaurant Furenzu on Adeline Street in Emeryville, according to CBS 5 (via Bay City News). While police can't be sure that last night's heist is related to the other ones that have been hitting East Bay restaurants, it does follow the same pattern: "[o]ne of......

Everyone's had to do the dreaded parent intro dinner at one point or another and The Gate's Michael Bauer put up his list of suggestions of where to go. On Mike's list, we've got Cafe Majestic, Rubicon and Perbacco among others. Personally, we liked the suggestions of commenters more: Cassis, Zuni Cafe (pictured at left) and Rivoli for East Bay'ers. Commenter Neil posted up his two cents on Bauer's blog and wrote up his detailed......

Sure, these places look like the types of fine dining establishments none of us could afford. Nevertheless we were delighted to read in this morning's New York Times ("Coast to Coast, Restaurants That Count") that San Francisco's Coi and Napa Valley's Ubuntu (a critically-acclaimed restaurant that also doubles as a yoga studio, oh my God) made Frank Bruni's top ten restaurants in the country. Yay us! Regarding Ubuntu, Bruni says: What kind of Kumbaya......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Zipcar, for renting cars by the hour or by the day. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Busted Tees, where they're selling three colors of the LED scrolling belt buckle. If you're interested in advertising on SFist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Dewars Repeal Day, because you shouldn't take the right to have a drink for granted. Go Eight, a Hanukkah party on December 8th at The Independent. Zipcar, for renting cars by the hour or by the day. Sony Card, because you'll get a free MP3 player if you apply. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Love is a......

A website where official restaurant food safety rankings are easily accessible...

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Dewars Repeal Day, because you shouldn't take the right to have a drink for granted. Go Eight, a Hanukkah party on December 8th at The Independent. Sony Card, because you'll get a free MP3 player if you apply. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Busted Tees, where they're selling 12 shirts......

Gavin wants your fat. According to Renewable Energy Access, yesterday our dear Mayor implemented a new program that will collect fats, oil, and grease from the city restaurants free of charge.Why? So that they can be to turn into biofuel to power city-owned vehicles. The program is called SFGreasecycle. Ew. But: awesome. Said fat and oil, when poured down the drain, "solidifies into thick layers inside drainpipes and sewer pipes, constricting water flow the......

In North Beach fights breakout and mild vandalism occurs after bars close at 2 a.m. This chaos, typical for any city, makes some of our sensitive city dwellers cranky before bedtime. Or whatever. So, the City Planning Commissioners somehow got it into their heads that closing pizza parlors on the the Broadway strip, pizzerias that normally stay open until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., before 2 a.m. will solve a slew of problems. According to the Examiner:...

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Dewars Repeal Day, because you shouldn't take the right to have a drink for granted. Go Eight, a Hanukkah party on December 8th at The Independent. Sony Card, because you'll get a free MP3 player if you apply. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Wristcutters, which is in theaters now. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Busted......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Go Eight, a Hanukkah party on December 8th at The Independent. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. Junkestra, a symphony played on junk and opening today! The California Wellness Foundation, presenting the winners of its 2007 California Peace Prize. Sony Card, because you'll get a free MP3 player if you apply. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants.......

Eater SF uncovered something new and morally-questionable -- two of our favorite topics -- TablePronto, an online service that scalps restaurant reservations. Basically, it's a site that allows you to buy and sell reservations for a price. As of now they have a scant few available for SF: - Perbacco, 11/16, 9pm, $18; Foreign Cinema, 11/16, 8:30pm, $15; Town Hall, 11/16, 9:15pm, $10; Aqua, 11/16, 8:45pm, $10 Oh, all prime dining hours, too! But......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. Go Eight, a Hanukkah party on December 8th at The Independent. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. Junkestra, a symphony played on junk and opening next Friday. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Wristcutters, which is in theaters now. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Busted Tees, where they've thrown their weight behind Hillary in '08.......

As Financial District blocks go, the 200 block of Front St. is notable for the human scale on which it’s built. The tallest buildings here between Sacramento and California rise a mere five stories. There’s plenty of potted foliage to counteract those “concrete jungle” accusations often lobbed this neighborhood’s way. No less than three popular, sit-down restaurants line its sidewalks. And unlike how things get on canyon-shadowed Sansome St. two blocks to the west, sunlight enjoys more than 15 minutes of daily fame on this stretch of Front. There’s more white-collar bustle than hustle occurring here toward the latter end of the lunch hour on an autumn Friday. Women slow their usual breakneck gait on the return to the office, while men dressed down to the eights in business-casual wear (it is a Friday, after all) appear to have dialed down their strides as well. Some women are decked out in heels and skirts, while others go less formal in flats and pants, but to their credit, it’s clear there’s no single look among them. The men? Not quite. We see the same striped shirt (always tucked in, of course) on three different men between the ages of 25-40 in under an hour....

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. NY Times Home Delivery, with 50% off home delivery. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Wristcutters, which is in theaters now. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Busted Tees, where you can get free shipping with the purchase of three shirts! If you're interested in advertising on SFist or any......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. NY Times Home Delivery, with 50% off home delivery. Cazadores, the one with the deer head. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Wristcutters, opening next month. Beating the Babushka, available for purchase on Amazon. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. If you're interested in advertising on SFist or any other......

Back in high school, we had an English teacher who really drilled the Transcendentalists into our brains, especially that one Thoreau Emerson quote: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." What can we say? It still makes us think. Like about restaurants that have hardly changed in at least 20 years (the amount we can vouch for, since that's when we moved here from Southern California) if not 35 -- Juan's Place, in Berkeley. We......

First the love between Gavin and his hysterical girlfriend, now this. We were so wrong about the hot weather being over! It's blistering hot today. Well, for us it is. Ick. Flip-flop sightings and men sporting tanktops in local restaurants were reported. (Note to restaurants: stop serving men wearing tanktops. Bushy armpit hair and a prix fixe lunch? It's vile.) Looks like we might be stuck/blessed with this weather for most of the week.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on SFist. NY Times Home Delivery, with 50% off home delivery. Cazadores, the one with the deer head. Truly CA, stories about California on KQED. World War Z, perfect as Halloween is coming up. SF Dish, where AMEX cardmembers can dish about restaurants. Interpol, tomorrow at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. Wristcutters, opening next month. Stylized Sculpture, at the Asian Art Museum. Travelzoo,......

As is the custom around these parts, we would like to take a moment to thank this weeks' advertisers on SFist. NY Times Home Delivery, with 50% off home delivery. Cazadores, the one with the deer head. Stylized Sculpture, starting today at the Asian Art Museum. Walk for Hope, in town this weekend. Interpol, which is on sale now. Look Me In the Eye, which is apparently an instant best seller. SF Dish, where AMEX......

San Franciscans have already had a year to enjoy the Green Zebra Guide coupon book. We here in the East Bay wouldn’t know about that, since we’ve never seen that book ourselves, although we’ve heard tell of its exploits. However, when we found out that a coupon book specifically for East Bay eco-minded businesses, organic food, restaurants, sustainable living services, and entertainment was on its way to our little forgotten corner of the bay, we......

Aspiring painters of urban village scenes would do well to get themselves to Bernal Heights at once. From the armada of sandwich boards and the pony-tailed guy enjoying a pensive cup of coffee at Progressive Grounds, to the verdant street trees and the pair of rowdy sidewalk philosophers holding court near the eastern end of the block, it’s quite the bustling display along Cortland Ave. Private lives seem a low priority here, as even the back yards of local bars, cafés, and restaurants are open for business. Sidewalk rest stops are a big calling card on Cortland between Andover and Bennington, the heart of Bernal Heights’ vibrant commercial district. There are benches in front of restaurants (Valentina Ristorante), benches in front of salons (Bernal Heights Nail Care), benches in front of markets (The Good Life Grocery), benches in front of saloons (Wild Side West). The result: A remarkable feeling of community, evinced by how it appears as if everyone might actually know everyone else’s name. It’s like a West Coast version of Andy Griffith’s Mayberry...only on Cortland, there’s no Barney Fife. Auditions may or may not be held regularly at Skip’s Tavern and Wild Side West for the role of Otis the Harmless Town Drunk....

Man, we can tell how long we've been doing this by the number of Zagat posts we've amassed! The 2008 edition is out: your nice alphabetical list of restaurants with a grade for food, decor and service, as rated by the users of Zagat. This year, it is going 2.0, with the introduction of such spiffy new things as colors, as in two of them, black and red! Post-it "love it" tags to customize your......

When you live in a neighborhood overrun by donut purveyors and nail shops, with a fair number of fairly unappetizing Chinese restaurants sprinkled in between, the arrival of a new joint featuring a new regional cuisine is cause for at least a little salivation. In the Grand Lake district, we now have a Flavors of India restaurant, second outpost -- the first opened in Rockridge in 2006. It's not great Indian food. We'll be......

This Saturday at the San Francisco Embarcadero Hyatt Regency from noon-4 p.m., you can join KGO Radio and the Mendocino Wine Growers Foundation in celebration of the wines and other good stuff from Mendocino County. The event, called "Wine By The Bay 2007,", is $35 if you buy your ticket now; it'll be ten buck more ($45) at the door. What's exciting to us is that Friend of SFist, Destination Dinners' Lisa Diamond, is scheduled to be interviewed by KGO's Gene Burns during the event for his "Dining Around" program....

Andrea Froncillo and Jennifer Jeffrey teamed up last year to write stinky prose. (We'll re-use that pun as much as we please.) He is a chef/partner in a bunch of restaurants in the city, including the Stinking Rose and the Crab House, and she's a San Francisco-based freelance writer. We'll link to Andrea's blog too, but he hasn't updated it in a year. Slacker! We're especially frustrated since it's titled "Sex and the Kitchen," and......

The seaward stretch of Balboa between 37th and 38th Avenues conjures a variety of images, from some of the thickest summer fog around to the Balboa Theater’s weathered sign. The block’s numerous Asian restaurants also merit consideration. Add hockey to the list, sort of. More on that in a bit. Unless you’re an Outer Richmond local and buy your nuts and washers at Crown Hardware on Balboa’s south side, odds are strong that you know this block best for the Balboa Theater, where the scent of butter-slathered popcorn wafts outside day and night. The circa-1926, moving picture house endures as the only one of its kind remaining in this part of town, and it seems to do well showing new releases. One reason for its success may be the fact that, as its sidewalk sandwich board announces, No private picnics (are) allowed in the auditorium. Ask anyone on this side of town what killed the Alexandria or the Coronet in recent years, and they’ll surely tell you: private picnics in the auditorium....

We were on the 7 a few days ago and four gutterpunk types were complaining about how the city had taken their stuff from camps in Golden Gate Park. One of them, a long-haired fellow with a small backpack and very large pants, went on and on about how he was going to get a grant to put GPS chips in all of his things so he could get them back. Who, exactly, would pay......

Andrew Frame was recently named by BusinessWeek as a "top entrepreneur under the age of 30". He's aiming to fulfill that promise with ooma, a company he founded in 2005 that has a whole new take on telephony. It enables unlimited U.S. domestic calls to any wireless or landline phone number . ooma's gotten media play for a couple reasons -- for one thing, much has been made in the press and on the podwaves about the involvement of Ashton Kutcher in the company. ...