Germans in San Francisco (Berkeley, El Cerrito: neighborhoods, living in, restaurants)

[NYC809]

Other than the German tourists you can spot a mile away, are there many German-Americans living in San Francisco/Bay Area?

[BRinSM]

i know a few but they are no different than any of the other hundreds of thousands of 20 somethings in the city.

[mdwstrnkid]

Yes, I work with many Germans in my office - not a surprise, given that I work for a German software company...

[jeffredo]

Being its the largest ethnicity in the United States and the second largest (next to Mexican) ethnicity in California I''d imagine there are.

[bmw335xi]

Yes there are.

[mayorhaggar]

In terms of people coming here from Germany to live, they're spread all over the place just like with people from a lot of countries. In terms of Germans living here for several generations and creating marketable little enclaves like you see in Texas or Wisconsin, I don't think there are any places like that, I think they're spread too thin here.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by mayorhaggar

In terms of people coming here from Germany to live, they're spread all over the place just like with people from a lot of countries. In terms of Germans living here for several generations and creating marketable little enclaves like you see in Texas or Wisconsin, I don't think there are any places like that, I think they're spread too thin here.

I'm descended from Germans who came to San Francisco in the very early 20th century from Minnesota and Wisconsin. My great grandmother spoke only German and sold flowers on a street corner there. One thing I can think of that may explain the current lack of a German cultural community there was the 1906 quake. Following that, a lot of folks including my German family, moved over to the East Bay (El Cerrito and Berkeley) and got kind of spread out around the area. Some stayed in The City but got diluted by all the other ethnicities. They also quickly married non-Germans like my English/Irish grandmother.

I'm probably one of the few people who thinks the 1906 quake was a great thing, considering I owe my life to it.

[jade408]

I've met a few Germans out and about. But generally, in the Bay Area, I don't find large congregations or neighborhoods of Europeans (Besides Ukrainians) who live and socialize together on a regular basis.

[mayorhaggar]

The Russians living near the beach in western SF is an enclave area with a cluster of recent immigrants from Europe, I can't really think of any other similar places in the Bay Area. You see stores with Cyrillic writing in the window and Russian restaurants here and there. Sometimes you see people there from places like Khazakstan too, they'll be Asian-looking people reading Russian newspapers. I expect there's Ukrainians around there too.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

In tech there is a small group of expats. Especially ones that came over with SAP and are either still there or ended up at start ups. My impression is that the French expat group outnumbers the German one, and both are solidly outnumbered by UK and IRL expats.