15 Best Nightlife in San Francisco, California

The Palace Hotel's clubby, wood-paneled watering hole takes its name from the 1909 Maxfield Parrish mural The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which covers most of the wall behind the bar. The Pied Piper lures an upscale clientele for two-olive martinis, Manhattans, and other trad libations.

Saucy, sexy, and fun, this is one of the best places in town for dinner with a show. The entertainment, as well as the gracious food service, is provided by some of the city's most gorgeous transgender women, who strut in impossibly high heels on top of the catwalk bar, vamping to tunes like "Cabaret" and "Big Spender." The creative Asian-influenced cuisine is surprisingly good. Make reservations, and go on a weekday to avoid the bachelorette parties.

The city's best brewery within actual walking distance of downtown resides on a warehouse stretch of SoMa that is better known for Bay Bridge on-ramp traffic than food and drink. The cozy, colorful tasting room is always friendly and full of great fresh beers on tap. It's hard to pick from the extensive list of brews, but there's a wide variety of styles and usually a few funky choices and gluten-removed options included.

The music changes nightly at the venerable DNA Lounge, with Monday Night burlesque and comedy shows, themed weekend dance parties, and a wide range of music styles each evening. Multiple dance floors and bars across two levels mean that the festivities are rarely uncomfortably crowded and always huge amounts of fun.

Slowly but surely San Francisco is developing a reputation for great rooftop restaurant-bars high above the city. Among the best is on the 12th floor of the Hyatt Place near Oracle Park, where the setting looks like a tropical rain forest in the middle of urban sprawl, and the food and drink focuses on Nikkei cuisine (Japanese-Peruvian) like at its sibling in Cow Hollow. Reservations are recommended, and make sure to bundle up.

The sibling to Union Square bar stalwart P.C.H. is just as compelling for locals and travelers alike looking for some of the city's greatest cocktails. With colorful lighting and wall decor made of comic book and karate film prints, the space is a feast for the eyes. But it's really all about the outstanding cocktails inspired by street markets on different continents.

This watering hole is popular with bikers, bears, and the men who love them. The inside bar has an old tavern feel, with a pool table and a long wooden bar you half expect the bartender to sling a beer down. Weekend "Beer Busts" unfold on the great outdoor patio bar. The action can get steamy during events like Gay Pride or the Folsom Street Fair.

If you like megaclubs, then you'll dig this industrial-chic two-story club, which doubles as a gallery and performance venue. Live acts have included Mos Def, the Dandy Warhols, and Def Jux artists. The crowd is generally mixed, straight and gay. If the jam-packed dance floor (which can accommodate nearly 1,000 people) overwhelms you, head upstairs to the quietish mezzanine lounges to converse or to ogle the sexy crowd.

This stylish restaurant and trendy bar has an outdoor patio perfect for sunny days with pizzas, burgers, and beers. But, this fan favorite is really all about its proximity to Oracle Park—it's the ballpark area's unofficial gathering place before and after games.

This spacious indoor-outdoor leather bar is a holdover from the days before SoMa's gentrification. The Sunday afternoon "Beer Busts" remain a high point of the leather set's week, Mondays are for karaoke, and there are DJs and live music generally Thursday and Friday. This remains a welcoming place for people from all walks of life.

National touring acts—mostly along the pop-punk and hard- and alt-rock lines but including metal and bluegrass—are the main draws at this venue, one of SoMa's most popular nightclubs. Co-owner Boz Scaggs helps bring in the crowds and famous headliners like Dressy Bessy and Dead Meadow.

With an all-night (and most of the morning) dance party starting at 10 pm on Saturday, the EndUp is SF's most popular after-hours place, with possibly the best sound system in the city. Weekends often see day parties that make it so 3 am and 3 pm seem to blur together. It can be a bit of a meat market, but this San Francisco institution doesn't adhere to any particular scene, with DJs playing a variety of music styles. Said sound system is cranked. Even the cool kids wear earplugs.

History and great cocktails collide at one of the city's most legendary bars. There are rumors that President Warren G. Harding met his final fate here, but other accounts say that happened across the street at the Palace Hotel. Today, it's a favorite watering hole for the Financial District happy hour set, then a quieter, casual date spot later on. The cocktails are prepared with the same care and quality as at its flashier, newer peers.

Glam trans women, gay bears, tight-teed pretty boys, ladies and their ladies, and a handful of straight onlookers congregate here to dance to live DJ sounds and watch world-class drag performers on the small stage. The entertainment is often campy, pee-your-pants funny, and downright fantastic. Each night's music is different—from funk, soul, and hip-hop to '80s tunes and disco favorites. At Frolic, the Stud's most outrageous party (second Saturday of the month), club goers dance the night away dressed as bunnies, kittens, and even stranger creatures.

Art-deco-influenced floor-to-ceiling windows frame superb views on the 39th floor of the San Francisco Marriott Marquis. You won't feel out of place here just getting a drink or two rather than dinner, but the small bites are usually delicious. It can get crowded at happy hour on weekdays and all night on weekends.