14 ms·

i have an honest question here. i haven't lived in sf -just visited. i have however been to most states and about 40 countries for comparison. food - most of w

i have an honest question here. i haven't lived in sf -just visited. i have however been to most states and about 40 countries for comparison. food - most of what i saw was not good food. hipsterish overpriced food made by chefs trying to show off by putting a twist on dishes -not to be good, just to be different or weird. tiny portions, not tasting above average, on a huge plate. all presentation, not actual taste. culture: there is no culture. culture was when i lived in versailles. sf is all snooty people with no content, trying to show off. culture is down to earth, with class. bars -there are very few attractive girls at bars, or at offices, or even on the street, compared to just about anywhere in the world. and if that's not why you go to bars, i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while. density is poor in sf. in good cities, you can walk where you want in a few minutes. sf is uber heaven. i've lived in cities with amicable density - without a car, and maybe grabbing a cab once a month. sf ain't it. the weather's not bad, a little windy. and the ocean is close by. housing prices are being kept artificially high by sf itself -not letting people build housing. so i can't see anything about sf that'd make people want to live there other than higher salaries. and the first chance they have to earn that salary elsewhere or remote, they jump on it. so i think that's what's happening now. nothing to do with covid directly -just people who would never live there in the 1st place if it wasn't for the job, leaving as soon as the job lets them. i think all this analysis of what people are doing and why weirdly avoids the very simple explanation -everyone's just doing what work lets them do. it's entirely dictated by employers.

deleted 6y ago
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mrgordon 6y ago
If you think San Francisco has poor quality food, you clearly haven’t spent much time there (as you admit) or you don’t have very discerning taste. California grows the majority of the country’s produce and most everyone else is getting the same ingredients a few days later. Farm to table is the standard instead of something that starts at $25/plate like in most US cities The city could be more dense in some areas but it’s far more walkable than almost any US city outside of NY. Maybe go to the Mission next time and show me how LA, Miami, etc. are more walkable after
- austhrow743 6y ago
  I don't know about Miami but LA is known for its sprawl. Imo using possibly the worst possible example of a thing to compare it to only makes the other persons point for them. It's like pointing at little people as an example to show that 5'6" is heaps tall.
  - mrgordon 6y ago
    Most cities are known for sprawl here. It’s not my fault. Sure I could compare to Portland but it’s small and honestly not that different from SF in terms of the kind of farm to table food and wine that’s served What are the numerous cities I am missing that have better food and are more walkable than SF and not counting NY? I honesty haven’t found them
- dongvsascript 6y ago
  i did not say poor quality food. i said very average food, overpresented artistically and overpriced. farm to table isn't good for meat -aged meat is better. aged about a month. sushi -yes. except very little sushi from what i saw in sf. a lot of weird rolls, which is not sushi to me. good sushi was in tokyo, where i have lived for several months. fresh produce is shipped overnight anywhere nowadays. being near a farm no longer gets you fresher produce. and keep in mind, produce is grown in many, many places. heck, in chicago we got farmer's markets every few blocks. miami is one little street that's walkable, and a run down city of trash. i never said it was better. la was the example i gave of a city that is not walkable, like sf is not walkable. so density is not sf's pro, which the comment i replied to claimed. as far as discerning taste, i've lived in moscow, versailles, catalonia, and tokyo. i've had good food. sf wasn't it. it was regular food, presented in weird ways, just to be different. putting avocado on something or drinking sake cold doesn't make it good -it just makes it different.
  - mrgordon 6y ago
    San Francisco has functional public transit which escapes almost every American city and the cool neighborhoods are in fact quite dense, like the Mission. This is why people view it as one of the most walkable cities in America even though it may not be a compact area built around a train station like much of Europe, for example. I would like that, but that’s not how any of America is. You went to a few sushi roll places and now you want to demean the quality compared to Tokyo? Give me a break. I’ve spent months in both and you’re not painting a very fair picture. Tokyo is the sushi capital of the world. No one would dispute that the Japanese have the widest variety of amazing sushi. But San Francisco is way up there and if anything the problem is there are too many unaffordable omakase menus with the best fish from Tsukiji market in Tokyo or from Monterey Bay. There are places that sell California rolls to tourists like everywhere, but San Francisco has so much actual Japanese food and so much omakase that I find it absurd that you characterize it that way. There is no way Chicago can go toe to toe on Japanese restaurants and you know it. As for drinking sake cold, if you spent much time in Japan you’d know they typically serve crappy sake warm to disguise the impurities of not having polished the rice enough before making it. A good Junmai Ginjo will be served cold. You are welcome to have sake however you want, but don’t blame San Francisco for knowing how to drink sake properly. In fact, San Francisco has the only sake store in America (True Sake) because there are so many Japanese people and it’s so popular.
wldlyinaccurate 6y ago
Is this a shitpost? I honestly can't tell. You start off by saying you've only ever visited SF and then go on to make a load of generalisations as if you know SF like the back of your hand. Also this: > there are very few attractive girls at bars, or at offices, or even on the street, compared to just about anywhere in the world. and if that's not why you go to bars, i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while Is so awful that the only explanation is that the whole thing is a shitpost. Boom, mystery solved. Case closed.
- dongvsascript 6y ago
  i said what i noticed from my 3 weeks there over 2 trips, which was contrary to what op claimed. i presented my observations asking if they were not normal for sf. so you consider a sausage festival at every bar you go ok, but not enjoying that sausagefest is awful. i think i just solved a mystery of my own. not that there's anything wrong with that, just not something that appeals to most males.
  - djur 6y ago
    Have you considered that not all of the people you're talking to here are men?
    - dongvsascript 6y ago
      never
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    Okay, I'm gonna let you in on a shocking secret. Ready? Lean in close so this doesn't get out. Some people go to bars... to drink. Crazy, right? I know! But it's true, I swear. And it turns out San Francisco has -- well, at least pre-pandemic -- bars that make really good drinks. Smuggler's Cove is hands down one of the best tiki bars in the world. Rickhouse is a great (if crowded) new-deal whiskey bar, right around the corner from another great (if crowded) new-deal tiki bar, Pagan Idol. Tadich Grill is like stepping back in time. Trick Dog is wildly inventive and kind of nuts. Bourbon & Branch is a dynamite speakeasy. Buena Vista has legendary Irish Coffees. Cliff House is kind of a tourist trap, but their Ramos Gin Fizz is on point and you can sip it while looking out plate glass windows overlooking the Pacific. And speaking of gin, there's Whitechapel, which is like someone opened a goddamn steampunk bar in an abandoned London subway station. Tequila? There's Tommy's, a dive Mexican restaurant whose tiny dingy bar happens to be run by a guy designated as a "tequila ambassador" by the Mexican government. I'm sorry San Francisco bars didn't live up to your standards as pickup joints. But maybe when you come back here sometime you could, you know, get a drink. Cheers.
someuser54541 6y ago
> i have an honest question here I think you may have forgotten the question. I've lived in San Francisco for a couple of years now, and I'll tell you why I have no current plans to leave: the startup ecosystem. When I moved to San Francisco, my goal was (and still is) to move into entrepreneurship. Some people working in tech might move away, but the startup community, venture community, and general notion of SF being a "startup capital" seems like it's going to be more or less unaffected by the pandemic.
- dongvsascript 6y ago
  so, you are agreeing with me that the only reason people are in sf is because of work. the implied question was: he gave a bunch of reasons which from my total of 3 weeks there, were not true. it may have instead been my experience which was not normal though. it was up to op to counter what i said.
toiletfuneral 6y ago
I don’t like sf but you really sound like a giant fucking douchebag
annexrichmond 6y ago
as someone who's lived in SF for years this is all very true. Food is expensive and a lot of it's designed to be instagrammed. There are definitely some great spots but not that many and really not that diverse (lacks middle eastern, greek, british, American bbq, spanish) Nightlife is horrible, bars pretty much close at 1am, hardly any live music, gender imbalance, and not much density so it often just feels "dead" in a lot of places the weather is ok. there's usually a few hours per day where it's pristine but quickly gets too cold/windy. And it's too uncomfortable to eat outside for dinner. Public transit is unpleasant and slow, so most people who can afford it resort to 100% rideshare. And having your own car here is also a pretty bad experience (though some people would say this is a feature not a bug) Petty crime is high. My friends regularly have to deal with car break-ins. (yes the same person would have multiple break ins in a single year, and no they don't keep anything in their car) It's hard for me to speak to the culture, most of my network is in tech, and most people I know intend to leave at some point. Living in a city that people don't plan on living in for very long does not create a very good community or culture. I live here because this is where my job is and where my friends are, but I want to leave pretty badly. I just don't really have anywhere else to go, if not my home country
- wcfields 6y ago
  > Nightlife is horrible, bars pretty much close at 1am, hardly any live music, gender imbalance, and not much density so it often just feels "dead" in a lot of places As a southern Californian, I can attest to this. It's pathetic that our bars have last call at 2am (effectively many close at 1:30a). There's been push after push to get last-call to 4am like it is in NY but they never go anywhere in the state legislature.
  - WWLink 6y ago
    I think it's silly that they even close. What's the point? Can someone enlighten me on why bars and stuff close at 1am? Thanks!
    - asdff 6y ago
zapita 6y ago
> culture was when i lived in versailles As someone who actually lived in Versailles, this made me laugh outloud. It’s a boring upper-class suburb which happens to have a big castle in it. Culturally it’s at the same level as the Hamptons, just with older buildings and more royalists.
- dongvsascript 6y ago
  correct. that is what i think of when i think of culture. overly polite people. when asking if a restaurant is open they first say 'hello sir, i notice you walked out of the house here' and tell you thank you and have a good evening. in sf it's greetings with 'is this still open' and a silent walkoff staring into the phone when you tell them you don't know. in line for bread, you say good day, i'd like a traditional please. in sf you say 'give me the avocado sandwich.' and then yes, you have the old buildings, the chateau, and the perfectry groomed horses at the gardens. it is boring in versailles, there's one shitty club in a basement, and all the gen-pop restaurants at the center turn into shitty bars when food service stops. if that's what you were looking for in versailles, you were disappointed. taking a walk through the gardens is not boring. for clubbing i had my place in moscow where i'd often go for a 3 day weekend. unlike sf, where bars close shortly after midnight, in moscow we'd go to dinner at 10, get to a club at 1, got to the next club at 5am, go to a karaoke at 8am, grab breakfast and get home to sleep at noon. point is, op was saying thise sf bars with no women that close at 1am are a positive about sf. yes, a famous palace and snooty old bluebloods is more cultured. especially when comparing to sf and it's snooty entitled and rude millenials. and if you want more, north station is 20min away on the sncf. i lived at the montreuil stop.
- te_chris 6y ago
  Wondered if someone was going to call this out. Could've namechecked many other places but picked a Paris outer suburb.
danbolt 6y ago
> bars -there are very few attractive girls at bars, or at offices, or even on the street, compared to just about anywhere in the world. and if that's not why you go to bars, i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while. I don't think everyone goes to pubs or bars for the same reasons as you might.
- dongvsascript 6y ago
  the reason they go is to socialize. both men and women prefer to socialize in an environment that's not mostly men. bars were listed as a reason people live in sf. i say it's not, because a sausage fest that closes at 1am is not something people find as a reason to live in a city. the people who do are the people who sit at their weird guy-table in a normal bar full of girls, afraid to walk up and say hello.
  - danbolt 6y ago
    > the people who do are the people who sit at their weird guy-table in a normal bar full of girls, afraid to walk up and say hello If a guy's out having a nice time with his boyfriends, there's no reason to belittle him for that. ;)
opportune 6y ago
I actually agree that SF has essentially no culture and a poor food culture compared to many other major american cities. The only things truly exceptional about the city are the weather, housing prices, and being the most city-like city in greater Silicon Valley. And with that third point being moot, it's no surprise people aren't staying if they don't have to. I'm also leaving in two weeks. The only reason a lot of people live in SF is solely that it's a really good place for a career in the technology industry or to do a startup. That's why I was there.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> food - most of what i saw was not good food. hipsterish overpriced food made by chefs trying to show off by putting a twist on dishes -not to be good, just to be different or weird. tiny portions, not tasting above average, on a huge plate. all presentation, not actual taste. You probably selected places to eat by either marketing presentation or talking to novelty-seeking hipsters, and so found presentation-heavy novelty-focussed hipster food. San Francisco has plenty of good food—and it's usually much cheaper than the food of the type you describe. Of course, if you live in a hipster bubble and don't communicate outside of it, and don't actively explore, you might have trouble finding the real gems. > culture: there is no culture. culture was when i lived in versailles. sf is all snooty people with no content, trying to show off. culture is down to earth, with class. There's plenty of culture in SF, but this also sounds like you spent your time in the same kind of hipster bubble your food impression reflects.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
> i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while. Personally I only go to bars to socialize with people I know. I have never spoken to a stranger at a bar and I used to go once/twice a month.
nostrademons 6y ago
> culture: there is no culture. culture was when i lived in versailles. sf is all snooty people with no content, trying to show off. culture is down to earth, with class. So I'm in the South Bay and only visit SF once in a blue moon now that I've got a family, but when I was younger & single there were quirky events that I've never seen in any other city. Things like Bring Your Own Big Wheel, Bay to Breakers, a random pillow fight with thousands of attendees (I guess San Jose has this as well, but it only drew a few dozen), scavenger hunts that covered multiple city blocks, poetry readings in the unpermitted basement of an antique shop, a game fair where indie game developers tested out their street games on the public, Carnivale, the Folsom Street Fair, etc. Maybe it's gotten too expensive since and this all moved out, but at the time it was worth making the trek up from the South Bay just for the events that you couldn't get anywhere else.
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mountainboot 6y ago
Coming from the east coast US, I didn't find the people snooty. They seemed friendlier than where I am from, I made way more friends here than I did back home. Back home you would get arrested for drinking beer in public, in sf you can have a beer in one hand, a joint in the other while playing kickball in golden gate park. I liked the food a lot. I got giant, tasty, burritos in the mission for like $8. Of course you have to go to a side street, not something right on mission. Didn't really go to bars so not sure about that. To me the city is absolutely beautiful. Seeing the city from twin peaks, walking to the beach through golden gate park, or cycling across the golden gate bridge are all incredible experiences. Tenderloin is trash though.

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mrgordon 6y ago

If you think San Francisco has poor quality food, you clearly haven’t spent much time there (as you admit) or you don’t have very discerning taste. California grows the majority of the country’s produce and most everyone else is getting the same ingredients a few days later. Farm to table is the standard instead of something that starts at $25/plate like in most US cities The city could be more dense in some areas but it’s far more walkable than almost any US city outside of NY. Maybe go to the Mission next time and show me how LA, Miami, etc. are more walkable after

austhrow743 6y ago
I don't know about Miami but LA is known for its sprawl. Imo using possibly the worst possible example of a thing to compare it to only makes the other persons point for them. It's like pointing at little people as an example to show that 5'6" is heaps tall.
- mrgordon 6y ago
  Most cities are known for sprawl here. It’s not my fault. Sure I could compare to Portland but it’s small and honestly not that different from SF in terms of the kind of farm to table food and wine that’s served What are the numerous cities I am missing that have better food and are more walkable than SF and not counting NY? I honesty haven’t found them
dongvsascript 6y ago
i did not say poor quality food. i said very average food, overpresented artistically and overpriced. farm to table isn't good for meat -aged meat is better. aged about a month. sushi -yes. except very little sushi from what i saw in sf. a lot of weird rolls, which is not sushi to me. good sushi was in tokyo, where i have lived for several months. fresh produce is shipped overnight anywhere nowadays. being near a farm no longer gets you fresher produce. and keep in mind, produce is grown in many, many places. heck, in chicago we got farmer's markets every few blocks. miami is one little street that's walkable, and a run down city of trash. i never said it was better. la was the example i gave of a city that is not walkable, like sf is not walkable. so density is not sf's pro, which the comment i replied to claimed. as far as discerning taste, i've lived in moscow, versailles, catalonia, and tokyo. i've had good food. sf wasn't it. it was regular food, presented in weird ways, just to be different. putting avocado on something or drinking sake cold doesn't make it good -it just makes it different.
- mrgordon 6y ago
  San Francisco has functional public transit which escapes almost every American city and the cool neighborhoods are in fact quite dense, like the Mission. This is why people view it as one of the most walkable cities in America even though it may not be a compact area built around a train station like much of Europe, for example. I would like that, but that’s not how any of America is. You went to a few sushi roll places and now you want to demean the quality compared to Tokyo? Give me a break. I’ve spent months in both and you’re not painting a very fair picture. Tokyo is the sushi capital of the world. No one would dispute that the Japanese have the widest variety of amazing sushi. But San Francisco is way up there and if anything the problem is there are too many unaffordable omakase menus with the best fish from Tsukiji market in Tokyo or from Monterey Bay. There are places that sell California rolls to tourists like everywhere, but San Francisco has so much actual Japanese food and so much omakase that I find it absurd that you characterize it that way. There is no way Chicago can go toe to toe on Japanese restaurants and you know it. As for drinking sake cold, if you spent much time in Japan you’d know they typically serve crappy sake warm to disguise the impurities of not having polished the rice enough before making it. A good Junmai Ginjo will be served cold. You are welcome to have sake however you want, but don’t blame San Francisco for knowing how to drink sake properly. In fact, San Francisco has the only sake store in America (True Sake) because there are so many Japanese people and it’s so popular.

wldlyinaccurate 6y ago

Is this a shitpost? I honestly can't tell. You start off by saying you've only ever visited SF and then go on to make a load of generalisations as if you know SF like the back of your hand. Also this: > there are very few attractive girls at bars, or at offices, or even on the street, compared to just about anywhere in the world. and if that's not why you go to bars, i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while Is so awful that the only explanation is that the whole thing is a shitpost. Boom, mystery solved. Case closed.

dongvsascript 6y ago
i said what i noticed from my 3 weeks there over 2 trips, which was contrary to what op claimed. i presented my observations asking if they were not normal for sf. so you consider a sausage festival at every bar you go ok, but not enjoying that sausagefest is awful. i think i just solved a mystery of my own. not that there's anything wrong with that, just not something that appeals to most males.
- djur 6y ago
  Have you considered that not all of the people you're talking to here are men?
  - dongvsascript 6y ago
    never
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  Okay, I'm gonna let you in on a shocking secret. Ready? Lean in close so this doesn't get out. Some people go to bars... to drink. Crazy, right? I know! But it's true, I swear. And it turns out San Francisco has -- well, at least pre-pandemic -- bars that make really good drinks. Smuggler's Cove is hands down one of the best tiki bars in the world. Rickhouse is a great (if crowded) new-deal whiskey bar, right around the corner from another great (if crowded) new-deal tiki bar, Pagan Idol. Tadich Grill is like stepping back in time. Trick Dog is wildly inventive and kind of nuts. Bourbon & Branch is a dynamite speakeasy. Buena Vista has legendary Irish Coffees. Cliff House is kind of a tourist trap, but their Ramos Gin Fizz is on point and you can sip it while looking out plate glass windows overlooking the Pacific. And speaking of gin, there's Whitechapel, which is like someone opened a goddamn steampunk bar in an abandoned London subway station. Tequila? There's Tommy's, a dive Mexican restaurant whose tiny dingy bar happens to be run by a guy designated as a "tequila ambassador" by the Mexican government. I'm sorry San Francisco bars didn't live up to your standards as pickup joints. But maybe when you come back here sometime you could, you know, get a drink. Cheers.

someuser54541 6y ago

> i have an honest question here I think you may have forgotten the question. I've lived in San Francisco for a couple of years now, and I'll tell you why I have no current plans to leave: the startup ecosystem. When I moved to San Francisco, my goal was (and still is) to move into entrepreneurship. Some people working in tech might move away, but the startup community, venture community, and general notion of SF being a "startup capital" seems like it's going to be more or less unaffected by the pandemic.

dongvsascript 6y ago
so, you are agreeing with me that the only reason people are in sf is because of work. the implied question was: he gave a bunch of reasons which from my total of 3 weeks there, were not true. it may have instead been my experience which was not normal though. it was up to op to counter what i said.

toiletfuneral 6y ago

I don’t like sf but you really sound like a giant fucking douchebag

annexrichmond 6y ago

as someone who's lived in SF for years this is all very true. Food is expensive and a lot of it's designed to be instagrammed. There are definitely some great spots but not that many and really not that diverse (lacks middle eastern, greek, british, American bbq, spanish) Nightlife is horrible, bars pretty much close at 1am, hardly any live music, gender imbalance, and not much density so it often just feels "dead" in a lot of places the weather is ok. there's usually a few hours per day where it's pristine but quickly gets too cold/windy. And it's too uncomfortable to eat outside for dinner. Public transit is unpleasant and slow, so most people who can afford it resort to 100% rideshare. And having your own car here is also a pretty bad experience (though some people would say this is a feature not a bug) Petty crime is high. My friends regularly have to deal with car break-ins. (yes the same person would have multiple break ins in a single year, and no they don't keep anything in their car) It's hard for me to speak to the culture, most of my network is in tech, and most people I know intend to leave at some point. Living in a city that people don't plan on living in for very long does not create a very good community or culture. I live here because this is where my job is and where my friends are, but I want to leave pretty badly. I just don't really have anywhere else to go, if not my home country

wcfields 6y ago
> Nightlife is horrible, bars pretty much close at 1am, hardly any live music, gender imbalance, and not much density so it often just feels "dead" in a lot of places As a southern Californian, I can attest to this. It's pathetic that our bars have last call at 2am (effectively many close at 1:30a). There's been push after push to get last-call to 4am like it is in NY but they never go anywhere in the state legislature.
- WWLink 6y ago
  I think it's silly that they even close. What's the point? Can someone enlighten me on why bars and stuff close at 1am? Thanks!
  - asdff 6y ago

zapita 6y ago

> culture was when i lived in versailles As someone who actually lived in Versailles, this made me laugh outloud. It’s a boring upper-class suburb which happens to have a big castle in it. Culturally it’s at the same level as the Hamptons, just with older buildings and more royalists.

dongvsascript 6y ago
correct. that is what i think of when i think of culture. overly polite people. when asking if a restaurant is open they first say 'hello sir, i notice you walked out of the house here' and tell you thank you and have a good evening. in sf it's greetings with 'is this still open' and a silent walkoff staring into the phone when you tell them you don't know. in line for bread, you say good day, i'd like a traditional please. in sf you say 'give me the avocado sandwich.' and then yes, you have the old buildings, the chateau, and the perfectry groomed horses at the gardens. it is boring in versailles, there's one shitty club in a basement, and all the gen-pop restaurants at the center turn into shitty bars when food service stops. if that's what you were looking for in versailles, you were disappointed. taking a walk through the gardens is not boring. for clubbing i had my place in moscow where i'd often go for a 3 day weekend. unlike sf, where bars close shortly after midnight, in moscow we'd go to dinner at 10, get to a club at 1, got to the next club at 5am, go to a karaoke at 8am, grab breakfast and get home to sleep at noon. point is, op was saying thise sf bars with no women that close at 1am are a positive about sf. yes, a famous palace and snooty old bluebloods is more cultured. especially when comparing to sf and it's snooty entitled and rude millenials. and if you want more, north station is 20min away on the sncf. i lived at the montreuil stop.
te_chris 6y ago
Wondered if someone was going to call this out. Could've namechecked many other places but picked a Paris outer suburb.

danbolt 6y ago

> bars -there are very few attractive girls at bars, or at offices, or even on the street, compared to just about anywhere in the world. and if that's not why you go to bars, i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while. I don't think everyone goes to pubs or bars for the same reasons as you might.

dongvsascript 6y ago
the reason they go is to socialize. both men and women prefer to socialize in an environment that's not mostly men. bars were listed as a reason people live in sf. i say it's not, because a sausage fest that closes at 1am is not something people find as a reason to live in a city. the people who do are the people who sit at their weird guy-table in a normal bar full of girls, afraid to walk up and say hello.
- danbolt 6y ago
  > the people who do are the people who sit at their weird guy-table in a normal bar full of girls, afraid to walk up and say hello If a guy's out having a nice time with his boyfriends, there's no reason to belittle him for that. ;)

opportune 6y ago

I actually agree that SF has essentially no culture and a poor food culture compared to many other major american cities. The only things truly exceptional about the city are the weather, housing prices, and being the most city-like city in greater Silicon Valley. And with that third point being moot, it's no surprise people aren't staying if they don't have to. I'm also leaving in two weeks. The only reason a lot of people live in SF is solely that it's a really good place for a career in the technology industry or to do a startup. That's why I was there.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> food - most of what i saw was not good food. hipsterish overpriced food made by chefs trying to show off by putting a twist on dishes -not to be good, just to be different or weird. tiny portions, not tasting above average, on a huge plate. all presentation, not actual taste. You probably selected places to eat by either marketing presentation or talking to novelty-seeking hipsters, and so found presentation-heavy novelty-focussed hipster food. San Francisco has plenty of good food—and it's usually much cheaper than the food of the type you describe. Of course, if you live in a hipster bubble and don't communicate outside of it, and don't actively explore, you might have trouble finding the real gems. > culture: there is no culture. culture was when i lived in versailles. sf is all snooty people with no content, trying to show off. culture is down to earth, with class. There's plenty of culture in SF, but this also sounds like you spent your time in the same kind of hipster bubble your food impression reflects.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

> i have to ask -you'd enjoy going to bars with mostly men? because that's cool too -once in a rare while. Personally I only go to bars to socialize with people I know. I have never spoken to a stranger at a bar and I used to go once/twice a month.

nostrademons 6y ago

> culture: there is no culture. culture was when i lived in versailles. sf is all snooty people with no content, trying to show off. culture is down to earth, with class. So I'm in the South Bay and only visit SF once in a blue moon now that I've got a family, but when I was younger & single there were quirky events that I've never seen in any other city. Things like Bring Your Own Big Wheel, Bay to Breakers, a random pillow fight with thousands of attendees (I guess San Jose has this as well, but it only drew a few dozen), scavenger hunts that covered multiple city blocks, poetry readings in the unpermitted basement of an antique shop, a game fair where indie game developers tested out their street games on the public, Carnivale, the Folsom Street Fair, etc. Maybe it's gotten too expensive since and this all moved out, but at the time it was worth making the trek up from the South Bay just for the events that you couldn't get anywhere else.

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mountainboot 6y ago

Coming from the east coast US, I didn't find the people snooty. They seemed friendlier than where I am from, I made way more friends here than I did back home. Back home you would get arrested for drinking beer in public, in sf you can have a beer in one hand, a joint in the other while playing kickball in golden gate park. I liked the food a lot. I got giant, tasty, burritos in the mission for like $8. Of course you have to go to a side street, not something right on mission. Didn't really go to bars so not sure about that. To me the city is absolutely beautiful. Seeing the city from twin peaks, walking to the beach through golden gate park, or cycling across the golden gate bridge are all incredible experiences. Tenderloin is trash though.