Staggering Through Fog

Clutching his photo of his one and only true hero, Henry Chinaski, Barrespondent Drew makes it through another week of imbibing to let you know which booze-holes are worth a Muni ride.

The Irish/English bars of San Francisco are just great in our opinion. Sure, other cities may have a lot more 'across the pond' immigrants (N.Y., Boston), but just having more doesn’t equate directly to a better bar scene. We’ve been to a lot of the Irish bars in Boston, Manhattan and The Bronx, and truth be told, a lot of them are depressing. And we like despressing dives.

The trouble with a lot of these places is that once you start into the third or fourth generation coming to a place, a lot of the ‘Irish-ness’ has been sucked out of the joint and it’s just like any other neighborhood bar.

A lot of San Francisco’s English/Irish pubs benefit from, a) being fairly new, and b) being in one of the most transitive cities in the world. Stagnation is something you really have to work at in this city. So the charm of a place being all ‘shamrock-ey’ doesn’t wear off as fast because you’ve got a new batch of people moving into the city that it’ll impress every second.

The Pig N’ Whistle on Geary really embodies the word “pleasant”. It’s well lit, but not bright, it’s dark without being scary, and usually has a friendly crowd in it happily munching on fish and chips and throwing back a pint of Guiness.

The Pig doesn’t try too hard because it doesn’t really have to. It’s got a little bit of Irish, a little bit of English and a whole lot of comfortable charm. The food here is quite good for pub fare and the staff always seems to have a smile for anyone who shows up.

We’ve never seen it overly crowded here, but it can get a little socked in on Friday and Saturdays (true of just about everywhere). So check out the Pig N’ Whistle for a little bit of the stout before you head down Geary to the beach or whatever.

Liver… Out!!