Bay Area - Late Night
 

In finalizing the plans for my wife's Christmas present trip to Hawaii I'm looking at an overnight layover at OAK. We arrive at 11:40p and leave a 6:20a. After a week on Hawaiian time I don't see us being able to go right to bed upon landing and having to get up that early for a flight the next morning with the same body clock is causing me to seriously consider skipping the hotel and going for a rental car.

What would be a good itinerary in the Bay Area at that time of the night. It's a Friday night in March and neither of us have ever been to SF. I'm thinking a late night dinner, a cruise over the Golden Gate Bridge, and something to occupy a couple more hours before we have to check in.

Suggestions?

I'm going to move this to the San Francisco forum, where it should get more suggestions.

l'etoile
sr. moderator

Thanks

It would be ~12:30am by the time you get the car....

Bars in California close about 1:45am. Finding anything other than a Denny's for dinner would be challenging that time of night. It's a 45 minute drive into SF. Driving over the bridges is usually a nice view, but you could hit fog as well.

If it were me, I'd get a hotel room to get some rest. Try the La Quinta Inn.

A $47 room near the Oakland airport? Hope you're a CCW permit holder.

AR CHCL not honored by CA or HI, so that's out.

That is not an area I would let my family stay.

So we're back to grabbing a car (for less $ than a hotel) and cruising around for a few hours.

I'm not worried about bar hours, drinking and driving around an unfamiliar city all night seems like a bad idea. Surely there's a few late night eats that locals know about.

San Francisco is not a late night town. The "late night" places around here close at 1 or 2. I'm a big fan of late night dining, and I'd love to be proved wrong about this, but I'm afraid the only thing open will likely be Denny's and similar places.

Nearly everything will be closed at night and whether you will be able to see anything from your car will depend on the weather. If it's cloudy or foggy, you may be in for a bunch of empty freeways and city streets. If the moon is out, however, I'd probably hop in the car, drive through the city of SF via the Bay Bridge and head over to Marin Headlands via the Golden Gate Bridge. There will be nobody on the road, and you should be sure to watch out for wildlife up in the headlands.

Edited to add: there are actually two 24 hour places I can think of now, neither of which is very good. The first is "Grubsteak," which is a diner like place on the edge of the Tenderloin - probably not the best option. The other is Orphan Andy's, which is in the Castro. Andy's is also not good, but since it's in the Castro, there may be some entertaining people there after the neighborhood bars close.

I am not sure how current this list is, but it shows 21 San Francisco restaurants open 24 hours a day.

Thanks for the great info. Sounds like if the weather cooperates we'll be in for an adventure. If it comes down to choosing between fog or a few hours on a pillow we'll barricade the door and hunker down in OAK.

Don't know how accurate that list is - w/Bix on it. I nominate Yuet Lee on Broadway & Stockton. it's a Chinese mafia joint w/great seafood and serves 'till 4. Talk about an eclectic customer mix (even fills up w/strippers after 2) ! Grubstake as well. I like the Portuguese stuff there. wj

Sounds interesting. I'm committed to having an adventure rather than 3 hours of sleep. I have flights all day to sleep on.

on this list
 

Only Cafe Mason and Pinecrest are actually 24 hr - the rest close anywhere between 1 AM and 4 AM. And if you do go to either, it's a pain to park as they are both in Union Square.

Ryoko's for sushi near Union Square is open until 2 am every day of the week. Last call for food is 1:30 a.m.

http://www.ryokos.com/


Haven't been, but I saw it in an article a couple years ago, there's Toyose (Korean) out in the Outer SUNSET which is also open until 2:00 a.m.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/toyose-san-francisco

Someone mentioned Yuet Lee, which is also a pretty good choice. There are a couple Vietnamese places down the street from Yuet Lee (on Broadway, closer to Columbus) that I've also been meaning to check out. But not sure how "clean" you like your restaurants to look :-)