Bands who sell out shows from Ireland to Appalachia and headline SF's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival jam here on weeknights, taking breaks to clink pint glasses of Guinness at long union-hall tables. Mondays compensate for no live music with an all-day happy hour, plus free pool and blarney from regulars; expect modest cover charges ($6 to $10) for barnstorming weekend shows.
Plough & Stars
San Francisco
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
1.49 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
1.15 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
3.02 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
3.1 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
3.26 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
3.27 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
2.2 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
2.44 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby San Francisco attractions
0.26 MILES
Art nouveau stained-glass windows and a dome skylight illuminate more than 8000 niches honoring dearly departed San Franciscans and their beloved pets…
0.63 MILES
Follow trails of deleted White House tweets, lost Grateful Dead tapes and defunct Nintendo gamer magazines to this 1923 Greek Revival landmark. In a…
0.77 MILES
Flower power is alive and well at San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers. This gloriously restored 1878 Victorian greenhouse is home to freaky outer…
0.77 MILES
Leave it to San Francisco to plant a dell that's totally punk rock, featuring spiky, in-your-face neon blooms cultivated by the city's many hardcore…
0.92 MILES
Radical ideals in the form of distinctive buildings make beloved SF landmarks; this standout 1894 example is the collaborative effort of 19th-century Bay…
6. National AIDS Memorial Grove
0.92 MILES
This peaceful, 10-acre living memorial ringed by redwoods and graced with poetic paving-stone tributes was founded in 1991 to commemorate millions of…
0.95 MILES
Follow sculptor Andy Goldsworthy's artificial fault line in the sidewalk into Herzog & de Meuron's sleek, copper-clad building that's slowly oxidizing…
0.98 MILES
When the bass thumbs out the opening notes to 'A Love Supreme,' you'll know the Sunday liturgy has begun at San Francisco's legendary Church of St John…