From the Barbary Coast era to the present day, San Francisco has been both a hard-drinking town and a vanguard of the latest trends.
Several trends stood out this year. North Beach is bursting with cool bars, while on the east side, Mission Bay has never been a more exciting neighborhood to explore while under the influence. Classic cocktails keep on diversifying, led by the ever-popular martini.
Perhaps the most refreshing development was the reversal of fortune for craft beer. For every loss like Dogpatch’s Olfactory Brewing, San Francisco gained an East Brother and a Humble Sea; for every shuttered 21st Amendment, we got a Standard Deviant and newly independent Magnolia Brewing.
As with our list of best new restaurants, we restricted ourselves to taprooms, cocktail spots, and wine bars that opened before Halloween. Further, we acknowledge that categories can be blurry, and it’s debatable where an eatery ends and a drinking den begins. Big Finish, for instance, calls itself a “wine tavern,” while Jilli is not a restaurant but a “sool jib,” a Korean-style third place.
Undoubtedly, a list of the year’s best bars will leave off someone’s favorite. But if you want to start — or finish — a big night out in San Francisco, these seven are hard to beat.
Valley Club
There are few names more generic than Valley Club. But that’s the only unimaginative thing about this spot, which is far and away the sexiest bar to open in San Francisco this year. Tucked on the second floor of Hotel G, Valley Club is a beautifully lit hidey-hole where furtive making out is tacitly encouraged. (As for the name, owner Mitchell Lagneaux wanted to acknowledge another bar with the same moniker — a long-vanished predecessor to Hayes Valley’s Brass Tacks — where he tested many of his drink recipes back when he was a bartender.) Though it is an excellent choice for an illicit rendezvous, you’re not (necessarily) there to slip someone the tongue. Lagneaux’s cocktails, all $18, are nothing short of extraordinary. A distant cousin to the Negroni, the Lovemaker takes the standard trio of gin, Campari, and vermouth, then adds raspberry and — wait for it — cocoa butter, yielding a beautifully silky texture. The Midas Touch marries the vanilla liqueur Galliano with bourbon to create a fragrant orange creamsicle. Throw in the louche, neo-soul-filled soundtrack, and this place is First Date Central. As it stands, a night at the theater — or any evening that involves Union Square, really — should involve a stop at Valley Club.
Bar Shoji
By day, office workers spill out of Shoji’s front door as they wait to place orders for caffeinated drinks like a matcha einspanner or yuzucello, a citrusy, single-origin espresso mocktail. Come nightfall, the velvet drapes that separate the daytime cafe from its boozy companion are pulled aside, allowing lanyard-toting colleagues and smartly dressed couples to slide in for Japanese-inspired cocktails or carafes of sake. Owner Ingi “Shota” Son, who’s also behind the temporarily closed sushi destination The Shota, put together an elegant menu that spotlights Japanese spirits. The Noguchi is a riff on an old-fashioned made with wagyu-fat-washed Japanese whisky, Okinawan black sugar, and shiitake mushrooms. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Miyabi plays off a French 75, blending gin with lychee, rose, and bubbles. What puts the experience over the top is the food, which comes courtesy of Thai American chef Intu-on Kornnawong. Showstoppers include the fondue burger, served with a bubbling platter of melted cheese, and the uni amaebi donburi, a luxurious bowl of Santa Barbara sea urchin, soy-marinated sweet shrimp, and ikura. The daytime side of Shoji is worth visiting, but nighttime is when this downtown jewel truly shines.
Jilli
Makgeolli, a milky, lightly effervescent fermented rice wine, is a staple of Korean drinking culture, and the June arrival of Jilli gave San Francisco a hangout for both longtime fans and first-timers. Owner Hwanghah Jeong insists that Jilli is neither an ordinary bar nor a mere restaurant. Rather, it’s a sool jib, a traditional third place dedicated to gathering over communal drinks and Korean-style tapas. Along with fellow 2025 notable newcomer Bar Brucato, Jilli breathed new life into a corner of the Mission that needed a jolt. Makgeolli costs $18 to $72 per bottle, with some varieties available as individual servings presented the traditional way: poured out of teapots into handled metal bowls. The kitchen whips up hearty after-work bites like popcorn fried chicken, shrimp toast, and spicy tteokbokki that has a thick layer of melted mozzarella atop the rice cakes. By far the most popular item is the rigatoni alla kimchi vodka, with fermented cabbage folded into the tomato-based sauce. However you choose to partake — drinks first, or food — Jilli is plenty of fun, a unique addition to the city’s dining-scape that has felt fully formed from the start.
Rikki’s
Not so long ago, San Francisco’s lesbian bars were spiraling into terminal decline. But then women’s sports — led by the WNBA, with the National Women’s Soccer League not far behind — exploded in popularity in the Bay Area. For a community still mourning the loss of the Lexington Club, there’s no better indication of a turnaround than Rikki’s, the first bar geared toward women-loving women to open in the Castro in years, if not decades. Its June debut, three weeks after the Golden State Valkyries’ inaugural game and two weeks before Pride, was fortuitously timed; within days, it became almost impossible to get in. Over the course of the season, Rikki’s, named for pioneering San Francisco bar owner Rikki Streicher, became the place to watch the Valks while noshing on beer-battered wings and sipping a Queen Is King, a lavender-colored cocktail made with white peach, lime leaf, blue spirulina, lemon, and soda, plus your choice of vodka or gin. Hi Tops, San Francisco’s other gay sports bar, is just a few doors down. But Rikki’s owners Sara Yergovich and Danielle Thoe seem to have broken the curse at an address that has cycled through concepts for more than a decade. This is the fresh blood the Castro needed.
Big Finish Wine Tavern
In a city where a glass of wine regularly pushes $25, stepping into Big Finish Wine Tavern feels like washing up on an island oasis. Owner Adam Manson decided to float against the tide of exorbitant wine sellers, opening this casual tavern in the former Monk’s Kettle space this spring. There are an impressive 48 pours on tap, the majority of which come in at less than $14 a glass. And with categories like “crisp finish,” “big finish,” and “juicy finish,” the menu is easy to navigate even if you’re not familiar with a Croatian plavac mali or Italian aglianico. Solid plates, like cacio e pepe, mixed chicories, and Buffalo wings, are available if you need something to pair with your drink. But hands down, the best way to experience Big Finish is by working your way down the wonderfully approachable list.
Standard Deviant Brewing Pier 70
As the craft beer industry struggles through a period of consolidation, 2025 saw an impressive resurgence in the San Francisco scene, with brewpubs and taprooms springing up from Pier 39 to the Sunset. The most impressive is Standard Deviant Brewing’s second outpost at Pier 70, a follow-up to the 9-year-old mothership on 14th Street in the Mission. Many breweries feel cavernous, and this is no exception — but the space, with its old-timey train-station signboard, felt lived-in from the get-go. Led by Chase Center’s Thrive City, the revitalization of the city’s Central Waterfront has brought food and beverage destinations like Breadbelly Bakery, Via Aurelia, and Quik Dog. But only Standard Deviant is cranking out cool hybrids like barrel-aged rosé-saison, a “wine-beer” made from zinfandel juice and aged for five months in oak. Above all else, no other brewery wears its hometown pride with greater devotion: Standard Deviant teams up with Muni on a pub crawl every year for Beer Week.
Moe’z Tavern
Themed pop-up bars are here to stay, but beyond Halloween ghoul-fests and the occasional “Twin Peaks” takeover, one stands above the rest: Union Square’s seriously silly and impressively long-lasting “Simpsons” bar, Moe’z Tavern. Brett Frost of Lower Nob Hill dive The Summer Place opened the bar in February with a menu of cocktails that are both drinkable and full of winking references to TV’s longest-running animated show. Options include the Simpson & Son Revitalizing Tonic, consisting of elderflower, ginger shrub, lemon, agave, and tonic. Don’t sleep on the Flaming Moe, which may not include children’s cough syrup but does involve setting alight a sugar cube soaked in overproof rum. Want to keep things simple? Go the Barney Gumble route with a pint of “Duff” beer, which rotates among local craft breweries’ Pilsners. Over 10 months, Moe’z has filled up with fan art and tchotchkes and hosts trivia nights that attract “Simpsons” superfans who’ve stayed with the show for 37 seasons. Yet it also feels like a genuine neighborhood bar. Does Moe’z have staying power into 2026 and beyond? If you’re a true “Simpsons” fan and you miss it — whoa, you better believe that’s a paddling.