First time in San Francisco. Please Help? (Berkeley: hotel, home)

[eutraveller]

I'm coming to SF in couple of weeks from now.
I will stay in SF for about 1 month, and work for onsite for one IT company there.

So I have few questions for all of you dear HNers.

My company is based near "Beale St".

I have found large number of restoraunts, and fast-food places to eat. Do you have some recommendations for places to eat on lunch break? (It would be ideal if there is park where one can eat lunch in nature). Also it seems to me that food is bit pricey in SF.

Do you have recommendations for some normal bar, where I can go out to relax for one or two beers?

Is there any monthly subscribtion to public transporation, buses cable cars?

Also I need unlimited 3G data plan for smartphone. Should I go with Boingo | The Worldwide Leader in Wi-Fi Software and Services or just buy some of prepaid plans offered by ATT / T-Mobile.

Is there Lanundry cleaning and ironing service that is reliable and not to expensive (on weekly basis)?

Cheers

[rkwalton]

Honestly? Some folks will be able to give you tips on bars and restaurants, but if you're working at a company probably the best thing to do re that is ask your co-workers. They're going to be ideally suited to suggest stuff that's both good and close enough for you to get or order a good lunch. The same with bars.

Yes, there is a monthly Muni pass that you can buy. You can go to this website for the details. I use a Clipper Card (and I would recommend ordering it in advance just so you have it vs. getting here and trying to find a place that sells it; they're sold in many spots but if you're brand new it's just easier to have it sent to you.) Prepaid with AT&T sucks and it's pretty expensive. I had Boingo for the first year I lived in NYC and it was great, but I'd prefer a mobile hotspot. Otherwise you've got to find their hotspots (unless they've changed their service and I've not used them since 2009-2010). I'm really not sure what your other options are but I'm pretty sure you've got more than that.

It's a major city. Yes, there are many places that will do your laundry. There is even one where you drop it off in a locker and come back to retrieve it from a locker.

[gone down south]

T-Mobile has the cheapeast monthly sim card plans. Their service in the city is pretty good, although there are some weird dead spots. AT+T is more expensive, offers fewer minutes/data, is a slower network since you can't use their LTE, but has better coverage outside the city proper.

For the rest, yeah, it's a big city. There's are bars and restaurants and laundry services everywhere. Ask at your hotel or speak to you colleagues, they'll set you in the right direction.

[eutraveller]

@rkwalton, @gone down south

Guys thank you for your answers. I am from Europe and this is my first time in USA.

Thanks for information about Clipper Card. I have found that bart and Muni has monthly bus pass for $74usd for Adult "A" Fast Pass®. Is Clipper card and bar and muni monthly pass the same?

It seem's that food is pretty expensive in SF. In Europe you can have nice meal: grilled salmon + grilled vegetables for 6-7usd.

"Curry up now" fast food looks promising for now.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by eutraveller

@rkwalton, @gone down south

Guys thank you for your answers. I am from Europe and this is my first time in USA..

Somehow this came through in your OP when you asked about a park so you could eat your lunch "in nature". San Francisco has a lot of small parks around the downtown area (I'm not sure where Beale St. is) where this might be possible. It may require a brisk walk to get to the park and back to work in the time allotted, but in some cases this is definitely do-able. In such a case, though, it's more efficient to bring your lunch from home than to buy it. I don't know what the common practice is in the IT field in the US, but in general, it's not unusual for workers to bring a home-made lunch (sandwich, fruit or small salad) to work.

I hope you enjoy your stay. Please let us know after you've arrived and settled in.

[peninsular]

I'll cover the food/drink questions as others already commented on transportation and phone. Yes, asking your co-workers is a great idea.

I work a block away from Beale St. There is no shortage of lunch places. The prices are not quite as low as you indicated, but there are a few spots where you can get lunch for 8-10 dollars, sometimes cheaper.
1. There is a food truck stop across Mission St from Transbay dig with usually 3 food trucks daily. "Curry Up Now" is sometimes one of them.
2. There are more trucks you will encounter as you walk around Market street. When you find your favorite, you can follow it on twitter and figure out where it is.
3. Ferry Building is just a couple of blocks away with many good and not very expensive lunch options, including Farmers Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
4. There are many different restaurants with a lot of lunch specials in the same price range all over Financial District and SoMa.
5. There are other food courts within walking distance - Rincon Center for example. It has decent food with reasonable prices.

And finally, there is no shortage of bars on either side of Market St within a few blocks of Beale.

Good luck!

[Ruth4Truth]

I don't know of any parks in that specific area, but there's a big fountain at the Embarcadero that would be a nice place to have lunch in the summer.

[mayorhaggar]

I used to work downtown, there's a ton of lunch places, but they come and go. Kinda hard for me to give any recs since some places might be closed now. I liked Hi-Tea (n of Market) and Red's (S of Market on the Embarcadero) for goofy french bread burgers and beer.

South Park is a pretty good place to eat lunch outdoors.

[rkwalton]

A regular Muni pass is $64 and Muni pass plus the option to ride BART within the San Francisco city limits is $74. Basically, you only need that if you're going to be going to the Mission, Bernal Heights or other southern parts of the city where BART runs. I had that option for a month, but I really only get on BART to head to Berkeley and rarely to the Mission (I get there by bus usually.)

[eutraveller]

Thanks guys for your answers. I'll get back on this topic when I arrive in SF. Maybe with diary of how I survived one month in SF