Bar#8 Rockit Room

Li suggested we try out this place called the Rockit Room in the Richmond. despite it’s lame name, we decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. I guess the place is a concert venue so the bands there “rock it” or something. from the outside, this place looked all sleek like it was going to be all fancy inside, but once you get through the door, the inside just looks like a lodge or something with everything made of wood. service was slow and not particularly friendly either. there were a bunch of flat screen TVs all over the place. now, my opinion has always been that if you want to watch TV, just stay home. TVs don’t really belong in bars. bars are places where you are meant to be social. you should be drinking, talking to your friends, and possibly playing pool… not zoning out and staring at a screen. to make things worse, TVs have a way of grabbing your attention, so even if you don’t want to watch, you end up getting sucked in.

I’ve been trying to try drink specials as much as I can at the bars I’ve been going to, so caryn and I each chose a drink (she had some key lime thingy and I picked a chocolate raspberry concoction) and I went to go order them. the bartender warns me that the specialty drinks are 14$. fourteen dollars?!?!?! for *one* drink?? that’s way too much. he goes on to say that the drinks are really really big though, and taste great. I end up agreeing, and when he makes the drinks, they come in just regular martini glasses. huh? how are these “really big”?? that’s how big *all* drinks are. at this point, I started thinking that maybe I misheard and it was actually 14$ for two.. but no. when I got my bill, it cost me $28 for two drinks. yeah, sure they ended up tasting pretty damn good, but this was the biggest rip-off of all time. even the nice drinks at Voda , which is way more fancy of a place, cost much less than that. no wonder they don’t list the prices of their drinks on their menu… it’s because no one would want to get ripped off by paying their ridiculous prices.

one of the main reasons why Li wanted to come to this place was that it had a foosball table. he is pretty damn good, and really awed the people at the bar with his skills. one guy at the table could not stop yelling about how impressed he was. well, li, caryn, and josh went on to keep massacring people at foosball for a while, but then they finally met their match and got beaten.

so, overall, I wasn’t really impressed by this place. kind of a rip off. plus, it seemed like it really wished it could be pretentious, but couldn’t really pull it off.

Rockit Room is at 406 Clement Street in San Francisco

Bar#7 International Sports Club

I don’t really have too much to say about the International Sports Club. we had decided to check it out since it was next door to Kennedy’s. well, they didn’t serve curry like Kennedy’s did, so that was a strike against them already. They also didn’t have a foosball table or air hockey. Basically, I really couldn’t see any reason to go to this place if you have Kennedy’s right next door. What they did have was a drunken frat guy who decided, instead of waiting in line for the bathroom, to piss on the kegs that were sitting in the hallway. Classy! Also, their bartenders lied to us and said that the place had run out of beer and only had liquor left. Minutes later, we saw them serve beer to someone else. Why would you lie like that to your customers?

So basically, I cant say I got a good impression of this place. Oh wait, now I remember what this place had that Kennedy’s didn’t… at Kennedy’s they served only beer/wine, but here you could get the hard stuff. In fact, we had come here specifically to get some Irish carbombs, but as I mentioned, we were told that there was no more beer. Lame! So, I guess if you’re desperate to drink hard alcohol, you could check this place out, but otherwise, definitely stick with Kennedy’s.


Tom earlier in the night

By the time we left the place, tom was pretty smashed, so I’m not sure what he remembers about this place (if anything), heh. When we dropped him off at his house, he ended up sleeping the night away on the floor in between the couch and the coffee table. The next morning, his roommates woke up to find: an umbrella in the microwave, a shoe in the fridge, a flip-flop in the freezer, condiments in the bathroom, bath products in the kitchen, a kitchen chair and George foreman grill in tom’s bed, and tom with no pants on. Now, I wont comment here on who did what, but I will say that none of us did anything to tom’s pants. We’re good friends with him, but not *that* good friends.


Tom later in the night

International Sports Club is on 1000 Columbus Ave in San Francisco

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Bar#6 Kennedy’s Irish Pub and Curry House

St. Patrick’s day gets really crazy in north beach. People will take pretty much any excuse they have to drink copious amounts of liquor, so tons of people come out to celebrate their non-Irish roots. It’s kind of comical and bizarre how popular holidays like st. Patrick’s day and cinco de mayo are in the US. Half the people celebrating them don’t even know what they mean, but hey, I guess the more holidays the better, yeah? Anyways, driving up through north beach, there were throngs of people milling about in the streets and stumbling from bar to bar. Everyone was wearing green. Green shirts, green crazy hats, and shamrocks everywhere. I’ve never seen this area get so crazy.

We decided to try out this place called Kennedy’s. this place is a very bizarre combination of an Irish bar and an Indian restaurant. I really have no clue who could have come up with that idea. I know curry is crazy popular in the UK (apparently curry beat out fish and chips as the most popular food last year), but I don’t think the Irish have ever been associated with it. Really though, if you think about it, it’s a great combo. Beer goes great with Indian food and there’s nothing like having a restaurant right there inside the bar in case you get hungry after a bunch of drinks.

If we thought that north beach was crazy outside, it was even more nuts inside the bar. The place was completely packed and there was practically no space to walk through. Li and I waited for what seemed to be ages at the bar to order our drinks. The place had run out of pitchers, and the bar tenders seemed to be getting pissed at the constant barrage of drink orders, but luckily eventually fresh pitchers were brought out and li and I got served. I stumbled and almost dropped a whole pitcher when my foot got caught in someone’s sweater on the way to my table, but luckily I kept my balance.

The staff forgot to bring our food out to us and so our food was pretty cold by the time we went back to the counter to see why our food wasn’t brought to us. Oh well, what can you expect on such a hectic night? The food was pretty good though… at least the chicken tikka masala was.

Overall, I think this place was a good place to start the night if you’re hungry. Or maybe if just some people you’re with are hungry… that way whoever wants to eat can eat, while others can start drinking. Plus, the place is right across the street from Bimbo’s so it would make a great place to have a pre-concert drink/snack. The place is also really big so (other than st Patrick’s day) there’s plenty of space for tons of people to hang out. They have a pool table, air hockey table, and a foosball table plus an outdoor smoking area too, so basically you can eat, drink, smoke, and play games all in one place. Not bad!

Kennedy’s is at 1040 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco

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viva las vegas

the last weekend of february, i went to Vegas. man, i’ve been to Vegas a ton of times now, yet somehow it never gets old. actually, if anything, i’d say that this last trip was even more fun than usual. there was a large group of us who went, 12 people, and that made it hella fun. w e had three rooms and all of us kept switching off hanging out in each other’s various rooms, drinking day and night, going to clubs, and gambling. every single night there we stayed up till at least 5am and it was constantly party time.

chris taught me how to play craps and it was way fun. the cool thing about the game is that the fate of everyone around the table is in the hands of the guy rolling the dice. if he gets a good roll, instantly everyone makes a ton of money, so there is always all sorts of excitement and yelling around the craps table. there are sooo many rules to this damn game though. i still only understand the very basics, but it’s still fun to play. the rest of my gambling was done on roulette. this has always been my game of choice. ridiculously easy to understand, and the odds of winning (if you bet on red/black) are way good. it’s all too easy to see your 10$ bet bump up to 20, then 40, then 80 and next thing you know you have 160$ sitting in front of you. unfortunately, it’s always impossible to say “stop”, so soon enough (possibly after just one bet), you’re back to 0. lately i’ve also started betting the numbers as well at the roulette table, which is riskier, but the payback is great.

the thing with gambling is that if you dont set yourself a limit, you will never stop. luckily, i set myself a 200$ limit, and when it was all gone, i didnt gamble any more. not bad for three days in Vegas. the one thing that totally shocked me was that in some casinos, coins no longer fall out of the slot machines. instead, they print out a stupid little receipt. that is so weak. part of the fun in slots (what little fun there is) is seeing all the coins rain down when you win. i want 40 quarters to come tumbling out of the machine… not a printed coupon for 10$. it’s actually almost eerie how quiet it is in the casinos because of this. you walk though and no longer hear the constant “ching ching ching” sound of falling coins. it totally takes away from the atmosphere.

one thing that i find really interesting is how Vegas is a fun place to go for practically everyone out there. you’ll see people who look like they’re filthy rich and then see others who just look filthy. you’ll see men in tuxedos next to guys wearing baggy hip-hop clothing next to frat boys next to punk rock guys with Mohawks next to families walking arm in arm. there’s everyone ranging from 21 year olds celebrating their right to drink to aging senior citizens playing the penny slots. people of all different ethnicities and from all different countries. some come here for the food, others for the gambling, others for the partying, and still others for none of the above. it’s a city built on gambling, and yet even people who dont gamble whatsoever still enjoy it. it really is an amazing town.

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Kitty Psychics

A few years back, my friend told me about one of her coworkers who took their cat to a kitty psychic. this was a while back, so I can’t really remember the details all that great, but I remember the story being pretty impressive. I can’t recall what it was, but the cat would do some bad thing every single day. they took the cat to this kitty psychic who “talked” with the cat, and the cat told the psychic several things that the psychic couldn’t have known otherwise. then, the psychic told the cat not to do the bad thing that it was doing any more. the very following day, the cat didn’t do the bad thing… and never did it again.

now, this totally sounds like some crap urban legend or some other nonsense that happened to some random unidentifiable person that can never be verified etc. but the thing is, it was my friend’s co-worker that it happened to, and she swears that it is totally the truth. of course, usually when I hear about these kinds of things I’m extremely skeptical though.

on one hand, there is a part of me that really believes that there must be something else to this world, something beyond the traditional physical laws that we all study in school. I think that it would be very presumptuous for humans to think that science pretty much has it all figured out right now and that any references to souls/paranormal activity/etc is fake. centuries ago, if someone said that it would be possible to talk into a magical box and have someone on the other side of the Earth hear you, that would have sounded crazy… yet today, cell phones exist and no one has trouble believing in them. who is really to say that there can’t possibly be other yet undiscovered forms of communicating, possibly via telepathy? on the flip side, I do usually think that a lot of people who claim to have “powers” or whatever are completely full of crap and are either weirdo hippy types who believe all sorts of nonsense, or are purposefully trying to make money by fooling people. the thing is, in my mind, I need proof. despite wanting to believe in this kind of stuff, I just can’t unless I witness something first hand. and up to this point, I never have.

hopefully though, on Tuesday night, all of this might change. my friend Dan has two cats. one of these cats has a really big problem… it likes to crap on the floor. it craps on the floor all the time and will often totally refuse to use the litter box. sometimes, it will even get in the letterbox to pee, then crawls out and takes a dump on the floor. Dan has tried *everything* to fix this problem from changing the type of food it eats, to changing the type of litter, to moving the letterbox around, etc etc. nothing helps. after picking up many many poos, Dan is a desperate man.

so, I referred him to the kitty psychic that I mentioned in the beginning of this post. she is a last resort, and hopefully she can “talk” some sense into the pooping cat. Dan called the psychic, who lives in Oakland to set up an appointment. it costs 90$ an hour. if this keeps Dan from having to pick up poop for the rest of his life, it will definitely be 90$ well spent. so here’s the crazy part: she does it over the phone. yup, that’s right, she will psychically talk to Dan’s kitty over the phone. as if this wasn’t weird enough to begin with, it’s now like a psychic hotline for kitties. what’s next, talking to the kitty on instant messenger?

anyways, the phone call is scheduled for tomorrow night. can this woman really telepathically talk to kitties over the phone? or is she just some old crazy cat lady who’s lost her mind? we’ll know tomorrow…

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Shouldn’t restaurants cook their food?

a few weeks ago, sage was visiting here from the east coast and invited a bunch of us to have dinner. the place she wanted to go was called Cafe Gratitude. i knew nothing about the restaurant, but am always down to try a new place. when i arrived, during the million hour wait for a table, i scanned the menu and noticed that there wasn’t any meat being served. oh, one of those vegetarian places. the thing is, i actually have nothing against vegetarian restaurants. some of them are incredibly good, and also i totally respect what they are trying to do. i’m not a vegetarian myself, but i totally think that vegetaraians are doing the right thing.

after reading the menu some more, we noticed that the place wasn’t only a vegetarian restaurant, but it was vegan. all the cheese was made out of nuts, the milkshakes were made out of “nut milk”, and there weren’t any eggs on the menu. doh! but, despite all of this, unlike some people, i still had hopes that the food would end up being pretty good. do you really *need* meat and dairy for food to be good? after we were finally seated, and the waitress told us that almost half of the items on the menu were unavailable, we scanned through the meager choices left over, and picked some food.

it was only at this point that i realized the worst part about the food here: it was all uncooked. yes… RAW. for some bizarre reason, there are people out there who have the impression that cooking food is a bad thing and that all food should be served room temperature. ok, maybe there might actually be some scientific evidence to back this up… i dont know… and i really dont care, cause raw uncooked room temperature vegan food tastes like crap. how appealing does tepid soup sound? how about uncooked pizza? well, let me tell ya, it tastes even worse than it sounds.

pretty much everything that i ate tasted horrible. everything was gritty, tasteless, and bland as hell. i think due to the lack of flavor, they tried to make up for it by adding as much texture as they could… everything was crunchy and crumbly, so you felt like you were chewing a rock slowly till it disintegrated into sand. basically, i felt like i was a little kid again, and for some bizarre reason had decided to eat everything i could find on the playground: there was gravel, there was tanbark, and there was grass. there were a couple good things (guacamole and an olive spread), but for the most part, the food was pretty lacking in… well, just about everything. on top of everything, they served us a bottle of wine that had gone sour, and then got all angry when we sent it back.

the funny thing is that they told us that it takes an insane amount of work to make their food. apparently, the kitchen is open 24 hours a day so they can prepare the food. there are constantly people in the back milking nuts and making falafel balls out of sawdust and kitty litter. maybe if they bought an oven, they wouldnt have to spend so long getting the food ready and perhaps it might even end up tasting decent!

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Bar#5 Rogue Brewery

for most of my life, i’ve never really been a huge fan of beer. i’ve always been way more into hard alcohol, especially vodka. Beer was just something to drink as a last resort if there was nothing better available. Strangely enough though, over the last year i’ve really started liking it. I’m really not sure how it happened, but often now i find myself craving the taste of beer instead of just enduring it. Maybe it happened from being stuck in so many small villages around the world where beer was pretty much the only alcohol to be had… and in the sweltering heat, it was super refreshing.

The other day, Tom got a huge promotion at work, so we went to Rogue Brewery to celebrate. i’ve heard that the beer there is super good, and was excited to try a few of their different kinds. They had a ton of varieties to choose from, and i started with the Saint Rogue Red which was recommended to drink with their Kobe Beef Burger. the burger was awesome… there’s nothing quite like a huge burger with blue cheese all over it! the beer on the other hand… was just ok.

Next i decided to try something a little more out of the ordinary: Chipotle Ale. i *love* the flavor of Chipotle… such a good combination of sweet and spicy, but the Chipotle ale didn’t taste very good. it just tasted kinda funky. and i dont mean funky in a good way. We ended the night by having a chocolate stout float. my friends liked it, but i wasn’t a huge fan. i think the beer would have been good by itself, and the ice-cream good by itself, but together the beer just made the ice cream taste bitter and have a gnarly aftertaste.

So, in the end i have mixed feelings about the place. i really dig their designs/logos, the food was pretty damn good, and i thought it was funny that they had frozen tv dinners on the menu along with the rest of the food. but the beer itself wasn’t all that great. maybe it was just the ones i tried? i might possibly go there again one day and try a beer sampler to see what other stuff they have available. we’ll see…

Rogue Brewery is at 673 Union St in San Francisco

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Bar#4 Chaise Lounge

It was wednesday and i had a busy weekend aheda of me, so for our new bar this week we decided to just stop in quickly to a place near Natasha’s house called Chaise Lounge. We’re trying to diversify the bars that we check out and see as many different neighborhoods as we can as well as seeing as many different types of bars as we can. This was our first bar in Bernal Heights and also our first lesbian bar. after standing next to the door apprehensively for a second, we walked inside into the sea of women.

the place was packed. i quickly scanned the room to see if Tom and i were the only guys there. there were two other guys in the rom besides us, bot other than that it was all women. Tom and Natasha wanted to bolt immediately, but i said we had to stay for at least 2 drinks. i figure we should give every place a chance right? we got our drinks and went to go huddle by the wall trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

i gotta admit, all of us felt pretty awkward… and honestly, i’m not really sure why. ok, so everyone there was a lesbian except for us, but that shouldn’t matter right? before you get any weird ideas, none of us are homophobic (lesbophobic?), but still for some reason we all just felt on the spot. were we unwelcome here? did people think it was weird that we came? the thing is… as far as i could tell, no one did anythig or said anything to make us think that this might be the case, and yet we still felt like maybe we should leave. maybe all of it was in our heads?

part of the problem was that usually when we go to bars, we like to people watch. here, people watching just somehow felt wrong. we didnt want people to think that we were there to “gawk at the lesbians”… like we somehow planned this whole thing out just so we could come here and stare. maybe it’s cause of the image of the typical douchebag guy who thinks that lesbians exist solely so they can make out in front of him and entertain him.

so there we were, standing as close to the wall as we could, staring down in to our drinks and trying to not make eye contact. so odd that even though we dont have any weird stereotypical views of lesbians, we were afraid of them thinking that we did, and so felt like we were on the spot. although, is thinking that lesbians would assume that all guys who go into a lesbian bar are there to gawk at them, a stereotype in itself? probably. so, the whole night ended up becoming more of some kind of weird social experiment than a fun night out drinking. as soon as we gupled down our second drinks, we took off.

the funny thing is that some of my closest friends have been lesbians and i’ve hung out with tons of lesbians in my life… and it’s never been a problem. i guess things would have been different if we knew someone there at the bar. then we would have been part of the group and not just spectators? i dunno. weird.

Chaise Lounge is at 309 Cortland Ave, San Francisco.

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it’s so *NEW*

there are some places in the world where you dont really need a car to get around. Sunnyvale is not one of them. being careless here in this large sprawling suburbia isn’t easy, especially when you’re girlfriend lives in a city that is an hour away by bus and when all of your friends live in San Francisco which is at least 1.5 hours away by a combo of bus/train. for the last few months i’ve been trying to get by bumming rides off of people, begging my parents to use the car, and by attempting public transport. if i was living in SF now, i dont think i would need a car as urgently, but living down here, my situation was grim.

during my trip, i had made up my mind that i would buy the cheapest car possible when i got back here. i hoped to buy a beater for under a thousand bucks and to run it into the ground until i desperately needed to buy something else. but, as time went on, i worried that buying an old piece of shite might be more trouble than it was worth if it ended up breaking down in 5 seconds flat. i decided that i’d put in the extra money and get something decent. not something new by any means… my plan was still to buy something super cheap, but something that was from 2002/2003.

trying to buy a used car was an insanely agonizing process for me. i’m one of the most indecisive people on the planet, and even tiny decisions like choosing what to eat at a restaurant are agonizingly difficult for me… i never seem to be able to settle on anything. so, trying to narrow down what brand i wanted, what year, what exact price, etc etc was utter torture. night and day i read about cars, looked at car ads, checked out car ratings, and stopped by dealerships. in the end, i decided that i would get a ford focus. everything i had read online had said that these cars were hella good despite being made by ford. of course, i still had some doubts, especially since pretty much every friend i had told me i was *nuts* to buy a ford.

after going on a few test-drives, i started realizing just why everyone hates car dealers. sure, some of them were actually allright, but a lot of them were the slimiest bastards you could ever imagine. every word that spills out of their mouth was either flat out bullshit or something used to kiss your ass. dealing with these people was exhausting and ridiculously frustrating. luckily, it wasn’t too long till i finally found the car i was going to buy. a 2003 light green ford focus. it only had 25k miles on it, excellent condition, and was still under warranty. quite a bargain for only nine grand. after driving all the way down to halfmoon bay a few times and investing a ton of time into this, i had my dad put money into my account to buy the car.

but at the last second, the deal fell through. it turned out, that the salesman had lied to me and told me the wrong price. we had a long argument over the phone where he told me everything he could to drag me into the dealership nonetheless, but i wouldn’t budge. i couldn’t believe it. i was literally *minutes* from buying this car, and now i wouldn’t get it. i was insanely pissed. after hanging up, i called back to talk to the manager. and the manager, no wait, the *owner* of the dealership, flat out lied to me on the phone. he told me that he had heard my conversation with the salesman when i was there and said that the salesman never made the offer that i *heard* him make. unfuckingbelievable. ok, i’m not surprised to have a salesman lie to me, but i couldn’t believe that the owner of “James Ford”, who supposedly values the reputation of their dealership so much, could lie to me. dont ever buy a car from James Ford.

after all of this, i was back to square one. crap. unfortunately, now there was a new factor to consider. i had made the irreversible mistake of test-driving a couple new cars. oh man. slowly, all my resolve to buy a crazy cheap car was starting to crumble. i had been saying for ages how people in the states are way too materialistic, too obsessed with flashy cars etc, and waste too much money on them instead of using money for what’s really important… but all of a sudden my morals were disintegrating before my eyes. i mean… i could buy a new car if i didnt buy an *expensive* new car right? it’s not like i was dropping $40k on a bmw or something. i could spend $15k on a new compact car and not sacrifice all my values, right??! hrm.

in the end, my choice fell to two cars. the Ford Focus ST, which is the super fast version of the focus or the Mazda3. it was a really tough call… they’re both really nice cars. i liked the focus a lot… but as soon as i actually sat down and test-drove the Mazda, i was totally blown away by it. i felt like i was driving a little race car. this car looked ridiculously beautiful both inside and out. but… it was $2k more than the ford. i agonized for a few more days. i went to look at the focus, then the Mazda, then the focus, then the Mazda, and then the focus again.

finally, i made the choice. i picked the Mazda3. i just couldn’t resist that car. even after deciding, i still had a few doubts, but that’s just the way i am.. and i had to push them aside. i called my parents, who had graciously agreed to loan me money for the car so i wouldn’t have to pay financing charges. they drove down, and within an hour, i was the proud owner of my new car. unbelievable. to say that i was ecstatic would be an understatement.

i’m way psyched on this car. first off, it just looks so dope. i love the color and i love the styling. inside, i love the sporty way that the dash is laid out and the stereo looks cool too. also, i ended up getting the 2.3L version which has way more power. the first time i drove that car, i was practically flying. i hit 60 mph before i even got a chance to change out of second gear. the car is so damn fun to drive.

so that’s it. after 3 months of being back, i finally have a car of my own. i’ll be honest, there’s a tiny part of me that still wonders if i should have bought a beater car… but whatever, i love my new car. every time i walk out my door and look at it, it puts a smile on my face… and that counts for something.

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Bar#3 Bender’s

after being disappointed that Elixir was not a new bar, we headed out to place called Bender’s. walking inside, we were relieved that we didn’t recognize anything inside… surely a good sign that we had never been there before. From the first second, we liked this place more than the last bar. i dont know what it is about dive bars but there’s just something about them that is damn appealing. is it the seriously unpretentious atmosphere? is it that you feel like you can do whatever the hell you want and it’s ok? is it that the more low-key a place is, the more it is conducive to drinking? who knows and who really cares… all i know is that it works.

Bender’s had a similar atmosphere to Zeitgeist or Kilowatt. there were 2 pool tables, a pinball machine, and a jukebox filled with 99% heavy metal stuff. i tried to find something to play and could barely find anything i even recognized. i dunno if that’s a good thing, but it definitely matched the place’s atmosphere. they had Hoegaarden on tap, which as i’ve mentioned before, is definitely bonus points in my book. tom and i played pool and despite all of his bragging i almost beat him. man, if you’re not much better than me, than you must suck at pool!

the rest of the night was consumed by Natasha’s game. you know, that game where they show two half-naked people on either side of the screen and you are supposed to find what’s different about them. sheez… that game is so damn addictive. it’s so damn basic, it never really changes, and yet for some reason it’s practically impossible to drag yourself away. it just sucks the quarters right out of your pocket somehow.

eventually, we were able to drag ourselves out of the bar. we’ll definitely be coming back. cool bar, cheap drinks, and it’s a bit off to the side of the main Mission area which keeps it close to the action but a little secluded. plus, i totally love the name. really, what can be a more perfect name for a bar than Bender’s?

Bender’s is at 806 S Van Ness Ave in San Francisco