Many Questions from prospective resident (San Jose, San Francisco: real estate, neighborhoods, buy)

[bosemani]

I currently live in DC, but I am very interested in San Francisco. I haven't visited in many years, but I will be taking a trip in March.

I posted a thread on the city vs city thread with these questions, but perhaps this is a better place to get substantive answers. Could you give me your general thoughts on these categories in SF and/or some of your favorite things in each (e.g. some favorite restaurants, grocery store, parks, etc)?

-Restaurants
-Grocery stores
-Farmers Markets
-Coffee shops
-Nightlife
-Museums
-Performing Arts
-Real Estate
-Rental Housing
-Public Transit
-Biking Infrastructure (bike lanes, trails, general bike friendliness)
-Parks within city limits
-Nearby destinations less than an hour's drive away
-Nearby destinations over an hour away


Looking forward to reading what you all have to say. I hope to check out some of your favorite places during my trip in March.

[Isebiel]

Originally Posted by bosemani

I currently live in DC, but I am very interested in San Francisco. I haven't visited in many years, but I will be taking a trip in March.

I posted a thread on the city vs city thread with these questions, but perhaps this is a better place to get substantive answers. Could you give me your general thoughts on these categories in SF and/or some of your favorite things in each (e.g. some favorite restaurants, grocery store, parks, etc)?

Looking forward to reading what you all have to say. I hope to check out some of your favorite places during my trip in March.

Just commenting on things where I have an opinion.

-Restaurants Most big cities have good restaurants. SF seems pretty similar to others to me. Better burrito places, maybe.

-Grocery stores The usual grocery stores tend to feel small and very crowded. Workers seem universally nice. Prices are a little high but not outrageous. There are some awesome ethnic grocery stores too, and those are often much cheaper.

-Farmers Markets Ummm. Actually haven't been to any. The one at the Ferry Building looks nice. I passed another while on the bus last weekend. You know, we never had Farmers Markets in February in Chicago!

-Coffee shops I was always of the opinion that coffee shops were pretty much the same anywhere. I was wrong. SF really is fantastic in that category. I don't even care that my local Blue Bottle has the only unfriendly service I've encountered here. Just give me the dang coffee!

-Nightlife Not my thing but I guess there's some. I'm in Lower Pac Heights where everything starts closing at 7 and is totally done by 10:30. I occasionally pass by places where I hear Karaoke.

-Museums I love the Exploratorium. Haven't visited any of the others.

-Rental Housing

-Public Transit I don't have a car, and I'm happy with it. I don't commute to work, though. BART is fast, comfy, and reliable if kind of expensive and gross. (Really looking forward to those new seats.) Muni works fine, just learn to be a little flexible because the arrival times are meaningless. It's a decent price, always an adventure, and you get there eventually.

-Biking Infrastructure (bike lanes, trails, general bike friendliness) Lots of bikers. Lots of activities for bikers. Some bike lanes (more, eventually -- there was a weird regulatory hold up). Lots of bike theft. I think it's too dangerous currently, but once the dedicated lanes get put in, it'll be fantastic.

-Parks within city limits They seem nice. My favorites are the Presido, Lafayette Park, and Ocean Beach. Haven't done that much exploring yet.

-Nearby destinations less than an hour's drive away Depending on time of day and where you start you may not make it out of the city in an hour. Um, maybe head north for Muir Woods, and wine country. I think every other direction is going to be suburbs. But of course there's a lot of cool stuff in the city itself.

-Nearby destinations over an hour away I guess Tahoe and similar mountain resorts are nice. Haven't visited yet.

[mayorhaggar]

It really depends on your budget. Rents are going up a lot especially in SF. If you can't afford SF, good luck asking your boss for a raise, unless you work in tech...and even then he'll probably laugh at you and tell you to quit and find a better job.

SF is the 2nd densest city in the US after NYC, and it's also a very small city in area. In most of SF you can live without a car and walk to shops and restaurants, but there are parts like the Outer Sunset and up on top of some of the hills that aren't as walkable.

If you can't afford SF, Oakland is really similar, warmer in summer and slightly cooler in winter. It's more spread out but there's also a ton of walkable neighborhoods where you can walk out the door and be at shops and grocery stores in 5 minutes. Berkeley is also cheaper than SF but more expensive than Oakland. It's easy to get by without a car if you live near a major shopping area, but AC Transit runs much less frequently than Muni does in SF. If you want a car it's way easier to park in Oakland than SF or Berkeley.

[jade408]

Chiming in on the restaurants. The Bay Area excels at mid-range restaurants. The food at the places with entres around $12-25 is generally high quality and creative. You can get organic, local, seasonal food from ex-chefs of Michelin starred places at the price point. No need to go to high end places here, the mid-range places are great.

This week I went to a high end taco place. They use local meat, organic corn for homemade tortillas and literally had the best pomegranate seeds I have ever had in my life. The tacos: $3-3.50 and toppings include pork belly.

[bosemani]

Thanks for the comments everyone. And I appreciate the mid-range distinction with restaurants. DC has some places that look amazing, but I can't afford to spend $100 on a meal (maybe someday haha). So it doesn't really matter that they are there to me.

[mdwstrnkid]

Since I am a foodie, I'll comment on your food-related categories:

Farmers' Markets: The two most well-known markets are the Ferry Building Farmers' Markets (main one on Saturdays, smaller ones on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and the Alemany Market at the intersection of US-101 and I-280 on Saturdays. I love the Saturday morning market at the Ferry Building. There you will find amazing produce and meats, including items that you would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere but it is not cheap. You'll probably pay as much there as you would at a high-end grocery store, like Whole Foods. I don't always buy much there, but I really enjoy walking around seeing what's in season while enjoying a morning cup of coffee. If you are looking for good deals, the Alemany Farmers' Market is a great place to go. It tends to get quite crowded (it's largest in the Bay Area I believe), but the prices are very reasonable and you have a good selection of your usual fruits and vegetables. In addition to these two markets, you can find many neighborhood markets as well. I've been to ones on Divisadero in NOPA, Fort Mason, the Fillmore, and Civic Center. Some of these markets are seasonal, unlike the two big ones, which run year-round, rain or shine.

Restaurants: My wife and I have had the good fortune to dine at hundreds of restaurants in San Francisco, running the gamut from high-end dining to taquerias in sketchy areas of the Mission. There is a lot of amazing food to be had in the city, and not all of it is very expensive. Some observations are:

• While there is a wide variety of restaurants, San Francisco trails other cities like New York and LA in the breadth of cuisines. Some notable gaps in the dining scene are Greek restaurants (other than Kokkari, I only know of a few small neighborhood places), Jewish delis (Miller's is the only one that I know that approximates one), and good BBQ joints. The pizza scene has gotten much better over the past few years with places like Little Star, Zero Zero, and Tony's Pizza Napoletana, but there is still room for improvement.
• There are very few late night options. Most kitchens close down by 11pm on weekends, earlier during the week.
• It's easy to go a sit-down restaurant, even a mid-end place, and spend $100 or more for a full meal for two. For example, if you split an appetizer (say like $8), each have an entree ($20 at a mid-end place), split dessert (say another $6), and each have a glass of wine ($7 each), you are already looking at $68, or around $90 after tax (just under 10%) and tip (say with an average of 18%). Of course, you can go much cheaper than this, but I'm just saying that it's not at all difficult to break the $100 barrier for two people.
• Many (but not all) of the restaurants in touristy parts of town like Fisherman's Wharf and North Beach served mediocre food at high prices.

[jade408]

Year-round farmers markets are available in most every city or bigger town in the Bay Area, they are easy to find. Even in the "suburbs." They have different demographic targets as well. Some are more organic, some have more asian produce, some have more prepared foods, some have more non-food vendors. You'll find a scene you like and frequent that one.

Urban parts of the Bay Area tend to have lots of coffee shops from chain to mediocre to artisan. Non-cities tend to have chain mostly with a handful of local ones. Super high quality coffee is pretty difficult to find outside of SF, Oakland and Berkeley.

There are probably 2 good "artisan" places in San Jose, 2-3 in Palo Alto, 2ish in Mountain View, one in Walnut Creek, 1-2 in Richmond and that probably it.