Blondie's Bar

Blondie's Bar has been holding it down on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District since April 1991, long before the neighborhood became the hottest destination in the city, and it has never lost the unpretentious, welcoming, genuinely diverse energy that made it special in the first place. The bar is narrow and long with a dark interior, booths along the wall, a pool table, outdoor window seating for people-watching, and a second bar called Blondie's Wetspot in the back that opens on Friday and Saturday nights and is available for private rentals for up to 20 people. The cocktail program is the stuff of legend: XXL 16-ounce martinis in dozens of variations, celebrated by the Bay Guardian in the 1990s as the best place in the Bay to get your date drunk off of one drink, and still living up to that reputation more than three decades later. The entertainment calendar is one of the most varied of any bar its size in the city, rotating live music into the mix on Sundays through Wednesdays and keeping the energy going all week. Sunday features national touring acts, Mondays run DJ nights with 70s and 80s classics, Tuesdays alternate between Jump Jazz, Honky Tonk, Blues, Swing, and Lindy Hop nights, Wednesdays bring live salsa with Calito Franco and the Tumbao Anejo All Stars, and Thursdays deliver Global Beats with rotating international DJs. Friday and Saturday nights go full dance party with DJs spinning pop, hip-hop, and dance hits. Almost all of it is free. Blondie's is cash only, diverse, loud enough to feel alive, and quiet enough on the right night to actually have a conversation.