Are there any German or Scandinavian neighborhoods in the bay area? (San Francisco: house, construction)

[letseffingo]

Hi. I'm looking for a German or Scandinavian neighborhood in the bay area. Just someplace with a strong influence from either of those communities, including but not limited to markets, delis, shops, etc. You know... like China town, Japan town, Polish town, German town, little Italy, etc. It can be anywhere within the reaches of BART. If not, that's OK too, to a certain extent.

[humboldtrat]

There's no big German neighborhoods around. Noe Valley in SF had a big German population with churches that had German language services and stores that sold German food and stuff such as Hans Speckmann's The Noe Valley Voice: March 2001 - but that was a long time ago. The area now is a mix of Hispanic and others. My grandfather lived in Noe Valley and I remember all the German establishments there when I was a kid.

Try United German-American Societies of San Francisco for organizations. Viel Glueck!

[fsufezzik]

There's a shop in Noe Valley in San Francisco that's apparently a vestige of this era - Lehr's German Specialties on Church at 28th Street. It's a cute little German store.

There's also a cool Scandanavian store in Oakland on Telegraph at 34th called Nordic House.

Now, I don't think there are neighborhoods of residents of these descents around those stores, but the stores themselves are pretty nifty.

[letseffingo]

I went to Nordic House yesterday for the first time. The place is great, I love it. Then there's the Danish coffee/bakery place next door. They were just closing, so I missed out on that. But I'm sure I'll be making plenty of visits in the future.

I guess I was hoping to find a community like in Minnesota, I mean California is such a big state... I thought they'd be somewhere

[uptown_urbanist]

I'm pretty sure Sons of Norway has a branch somewhere around the Bay Area.

If you speak Norwegian, or just want to surround yourself in Norwegian-ness, there's a Seaman's church in SF:
Forside - Sjømannskirken - Ditt hjem i utlandet

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by letseffingo

I went to Nordic House yesterday for the first time. The place is great, I love it. Then there's the Danish coffee/bakery place next door. They were just closing, so I missed out on that. But I'm sure I'll be making plenty of visits in the future.

I guess I was hoping to find a community like in Minnesota, I mean California is such a big state... I thought they'd be somewhere

Down south -- there's Solvang....

Solvang, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[humboldtrat]

If you get down to Redwood City, check out Gourmet Haus Staudt - I've in the place a couple of times and it's nice.

[rah]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Down south -- there's Solvang....

Solvang, California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh man, that place...I was stuck between being intrigued, annoyed and slightly creeped out for much of the time I was there. It was like someone decided to contract construction work out to Disney, and said: "build me a Danish village!"

They do have some good meatballs though.

[BayAreaHillbilly]

RWC, San Carlos and Belmont used to have many Germans and Danes. There was a joke that the Belmont Hills used to have more drunken Danes than Denmark itself. But most of them got old and moved out, and most of the kids could not afford to stay, since they did not anticipate what the Bay Area would turn into and either did not get into or could not afford going to the Ivies for "the pedigree."

[Frank99]

Yeah, check out Ikea in Emeryville...Really, San Francisco is exclusively Asian and gay at this point. It's a complete mess. Stay away as it's like going to a 3rd World Country.