SFIST Reprint, Now Under New Management!

Local Gadfly and generous fool who let me poison his website with my inhebriated ramblings Jackson West has stepped down as editor of SFist. So bow down before our new overlord Eve Batey and her assistant, the ridiculously capable Rita Hao.

But enough of that shit. Here's this week's review;

In the ongoing fight between sobriety and drunken mayhem, Barrespondent Drew whispers to sobriety that it really never had a chance and should probably give up.

Oh Inner Mission, we can never stay mad at you. Every time we get fed up waiting for a drink and vow never to frequent your bars ever again, we do so knowing full well that we’ll be back at the trough soon enough. After all, where else are you gonna go when you don’t want to drown in uber-rich pretense or risk getting beat up because you’re not from within a two block radius? (It also doesn’t help that all our friends live there.)

And besides, if you grow tired of one bar in the Inner Mission, it’s not like you don’t have 30 more to choose from whichever direction you head.

Casanova on 16th and Valencia is rapidly becoming (or perhaps has already become) the ‘it’ bar of the Mission. Of course, being the crusty old fogies we are (we can remember all the way back to the mid 90s!!), we remember a time when the Casanova was that little empty pseudo-lesbian bar that you went to when The Albion and 500 Club were totally crammed.

Well, things have certainly changed and it’s now the Casanova that provides the biggest challenge to get a drink at on a Friday or Saturday night. Luckily, the layout of the Casanova has always been able to support this kind of crowd. The half-circle bar located near the entrance accommodates many, many customers, and as long as there’s enough bartenders on duty, wait time for a drink is usually pretty short.

The one thing that Casanova’s not made for is the amount of noise this place generates. Trying to carry on a conversation anywhere but 4 blocks away from this place is an act of pure futility and anything but an incredible knack for reading lips means you’ll probably miss at least half of any conversation you’re currently engaged in.

So if you want to get up close and deafeningly personal with what’s hip and happening in your fair city, hurry on down to the Casanova before it joins the ever growing list of places in the Inner Mission that ‘used to be cool’.

Liver …Out!!