The 25 Douchiest Bars in San Francisco

San Francisco was the second city of the beatniks, breeding den of the hippies, and haven for the gays before it was OK. These days The City by the Bay is bursting with douchebags. This is, after all, the birthplace of Burning Man, the largest yearly gathering of counterculture-posturing douches on Earth, popularized by the same brogrammers who are pushing all the interesting people out of this town. Techie douches are only the newcomers, though. For years 'Frisco (don't call it that) has been fostering entitled frat boys, pervy old men, and self-important hipsters. Who better to judge these jackasses than that douche who sits in the corner of the bar by himself, taking strangers' inventories and writing it all down? Come take a tour of The 25 Douchiest Bars in San Francisco.

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Address: 2700 16th St.
Website: dearmomsf.com

I came to this place chasing a story that some guys were playing with an Oculus Rift right in the bar. Despite its nerds-gone-wild reputation and horrible name, Dear Mom is not a terrible place to hang out. It is mostly douchey because it contains "Big Buck World," an arcade game that allows you to hunt endangered species. It's the number one douche game right now. Also, this place is cash only. That always deserves a swift "fuck you."

Address: 500 Divisidero St.
Website: madroneartbar.com

Madrone is a pretty ordinary dive bar with fancy drinks and beers. It calls itself an “art bar,” complete with a manifesto claiming some rubbish about the integral role of the audience and the space being an "assemblage." They must have got a grant for this shit. In truth, Madrone is a grubby little smudge on Divisadero that shows the same art as your neighborhood cafe. That crowded wall of little paintings doesn't qualify as transforming the space. Their window displays are decent enough, so you might as well stay outside.

Address: 2241 Chestnut St.
Website: campussf.com

In case you didn't know, The Marina is the capital of douche in San Francisco. Campus is one of the area's prime spots for weak, douchey bros. Perhaps you know this scene: $5 Fireball shots, electro-country on the sound system. Sound familiar? I want to emphasize that this place is actually called Campus, more or less admitting that the patrons never wanted to leave college in the first place. Animal House plays on the TV, further driving the point home. At Campus you will find fat, balding tools who dress and act like college kids. They are no better than the actual college kids who drink at this pathetic bar.

Address: 399 9th St.
Website: studsf.com

This is one of San Francisco's oldest gay bars. The Stud does not publish their address on their website because they are that old school. This place is cramped and oddly laid out. The sofa is parked against the pool table, which is blocking the path to the photobooth. Good thing all the studs have crammed onto the dance floor, and no one is dancing. Instead everyone is transfixed by a drag queen lip-syncing to The Knife. It's hard for me to determine if a gay guy is being douchey, so it's a good thing I met Zach. He introduced himself by saying, “You can Google me,” followed by admitting, “that was really douchey.” Zach assures me that, "Gay guys are plenty douchey: alcoholism, petty bullshit—everything here is shallow.” He turns to look at his friend and turns back to me, "We're being shallow,” he says with a shrug.

Address: 1190 Folsom
Website: sfcatclub.com

Here is an example of a bar that would be the secret hideout of a darker element of SoMa if it wasn't invaded by dorky, plaid-shirted, newly-moneyed nerds-cum-hipsters. Cat Club is where the players of acoustic guitar and World of Warcraft go to try and get a taste of that cool, white gothic flesh that they felt some kinship with before the geeks started pricing the goth-punks out of The City. I enjoy watching the collegiate types congregate around the bar, nervously clutching their beers as the pot-bellied old guy in a diaper makes a b-line for the back room dance floor. The back room is where the action is really at.

Address: 1568 Haight St.
Website: martinmackssf.com

This place creeps me out. Martin Macks is a Zagat-rated, adult-friendly pub safely sealed off from the burnout hippie street kids wailing and gnashing their teeth outside. The walls are adorned with pastel caricatures of hippie icons probably by some famous Fog City cartoonist I've never heard of. I get the sense that the middle-aged Gen X clientele are trying to pretend they share the nostalgia for this neighborhood with the boomers, who remember what it was really like (and will never come back).

Address: 133 2nd St.
Website: eddierickssf.com

This is that frat-bro sports pub that drags down every neighborhood. In this particular neighborhood the riffraff are the round, pink-faced masters of your retirement, your credit cards, and basically your existence. At Eddie Rick's the one percent are not opposed to chanting and wooing after taking Jameson shots. And they've hired a blond '80s teen movie stud as a bartender. He calls me “Chief.” Apparently this place was founded by some legendary San Franciscan who may have been the inventor of the “vintage motorcycle bar.” That's a thing? Fuck.

Address: 1569 Haight St.
Website: facebook.com

This is the diviest dive bar in Upper Haight. I have no bones with dive bars. People got to drink their cheap beer somewhere, right? Gold Cane is a pretentious shit hole, though. It's pretentious in the sense that the trucker-hat guys and punkabilly girls seem to be pretending this is a chill spot to tie one on. In fact it smells like cigarette smoke, there are dogs, and the furniture looks like no one ever cared to arrange it. The aged fine art prints look like no one's cared since 1960. I suppose my problem with this place is that I remember spending my dissipated twenties in dumps like this, but the patrons here are firmly in their thirties and refuse to admit it. See that delirious old hippie dancing around with the American flag headband on? That's gonna be you before you know it if you don't get out of the Gold Cane.

Address: 488A Hayes St.
Website: brasstackssf.com

This smooth and sexy lounge in Hayes Valley is just what you didn't need. These nice, educated, middle-class kids could use a little urban soul. Brass Tacks is all drab grey and black, catering to those for whom the colorful decorations of Sugar, a lounge around the corner, are too agitating. Brass Tacks is where cheesy guys go to pick up on bohemian women that are out of their league. It's pretty embarrassing to watch, so just do yourself a favor and don't.

Address: 527 Valencia St.
Website: casanovasf.com

This is your classic pseudo dive bar, complete with black velvet paintings of Johnny Cash, a gaucho, and naked women. Drinks are dive bar prices, but the décor is too meticulously constructed to offer the comfort of a dive. The hipsters mostly keep to themselves, although I appreciate the moments when they reveal their inner broness, raising shots to chant something unintelligible until they catch themselves and quickly resume their cool smirks.

Address: 8 Mission St.
Website: americanorestaurant.com

It feels low singling out a hotel bar—it's like picking on an airport bar—but the dickhead bartenders and overpriced drinks here earned it. This is the kind of place that treats you like they're doing you a favor by letting you buy a drink. Plus they automatically add gratuity to your bill. I guess the horrible business tourists at this place are too cheap to tip bartenders voluntarily. I wonder why.

Address: 441 Clement St.
Website: menupages.com

Clement is a quieter, more bookish big brother to the excitable Mission or SoMa. It still has its share of douches, and they're all secreted away at a little sports pub called Bitter End. Bitter End has a tiny upstairs, so small that each game area (they have pool and darts) can only fit two bros at a time. Any more than that and the dicks will start wagging right into each other. Keep your eye out for bros doing fake kung fu to warm up for their pool shots. Also watch out for the bartenders, who may be drunk, or maybe just too old. Probably both.

Address: 199 Valencia St.
Website: zeitgeistsf.com

When I first heard about this place it was described to me as “an old-school metal bar.” These days, however, Zeitgeist is dominated by fresh-faced University of California graduates out to get a taste of the grime and the edge that drew them to San Francisco in the first place. Meanwhile, the tattooed, OG Metallica fans can be found sulking in the corner. They would be an invisible minority except for the fact that they're also your bartenders.

Address: 2299 Mission St.
Website: thebeautybar.com

Beauty Bar is the home of weak drinks, weak music, and getting a manicure in the dark while drunk. It's actually a chain with locations in a few decent American cities, plus Dallas. This location was in the Mission long before the brogrammers moved in, but it's still just as obnoxious and douchey as the other bars on this list. Don't go to this rat hole unless you want to overexpose yourself to mani-pedi fumes and terrible martinis.

Address: 1015 Folsom St.
Website: 1015.com

1015 attempts to transplant all the features of underground warehouse dance parties to a sophisticated, glossy commercial bar venue. The resulting hodgepodge is exactly what you would imagine if you were horny adolescent. The front room looks like a lived-in imitation of a bar James Bond might visit in a castle made of ice. Here is where you can find those tall, gaunt white girls sporting white fishnets and blank stares, and their male counterparts, wearing goggles on top of their heads. The main room is a dark, slimy dungeon with really big speakers, and, if it's a good night, all the psychedelic rave art you never wanted to see. There is also an upstairs, modeled on your parents' worst disco flashbacks, and a downstairs chill room where the music is way too loud for anyone to relax. For all this you will have to wait in a line that may stretch around the corner. That's an hour of your life you'll never get back. Live with that.

Address: 2231 Chestnut St.
Website: thetipsypigsf.com

Look out for real, live tipsy pigs leaving this place on weekend nights. Before I'd ever experienced the shame of the human race known as The Marina, a friend described it to me as, “A thousand little American Psychos wandering around drunk.” The Tipsy Pig is where the young faces of the next generation of white male privilege gather. A slightly more mature scene than the rest of The Marina means these are the ones that did not disappear into alcoholism and faded dreams. These are the ones that continue to upwardly aspire, and they strike postures of comfortable entitlement. Posture along with them at your own peril.

Address: 1145 Folsom St.
Website: bloodhoundsf.com

The decor is straight out of Brooklyn, or it could be Portland. You know the look: reclaimed wood, old farm tools. This ain't Williamsburg, though. Here in Nor Cal we have a special brand of douche: the eco-bro. Perhaps he surfs or rides single track, he definitely cycles, and he is (or has recently been) paleo. He may don the trappings of hippies, such as dreads or tribal t-shirts. Eventually he will wind up at Bloodhound. Good for him, too, because Bloodhound has "Big Buck World," the perfect arcade game for bros who want to chill in nature but who also yearn to kill helpless animals.

Address: 657 Harrison St.
Website: supperclub.com

Supperclub blends unbridled pretension with booty club sleazy to make the dumbest cocktail you ever suspected was roofied. Supperclub is a space-age bar where you sit in beds. That way you can pretend to be a decadent Victorian while still acknowledging that you ascribe to modern sexual mores. Be sure not to miss the semi-regular traffic light party, where the women are ordered to dress in green if they're available, red if they're committed, and yellow if they're teases. The bouncer tells me men have no suggested color code because the predator need not stoop to the level of the prey.

Address: 3231 Fillmore St.
Website: facebook.com

KT's is an overflow bar, which explains the astounding number of sweaty douches in here eager to drop their asses to the “Harlem Shake.” No one is even doing the dance. On a weekend night you can expect to hear all the same music your out-of-touch personal trainer plays to get you pumped. It's also clear that the regulars at KT's have beef with out-of-town douches. I don't know what they're fighting for. This is the last ditch in a neighborhood where repressed regret is a way of life.

Address: 2369 Market St.
Website: cafesf.com

From its name, you might expect this to be a cute little French bistro-influenced gastropub, but nay. The only cream you'll be sipping here will be served body temperature, probably in the bathroom. The Café is a cut above for its raw sexual aggressiveness. The ripped go-gos help whip themselves into a frenzy, swinging their hard-ons to no particular tempo. The main bar is located at the front of the dance floor, so you'll have to squeeze through a mass of sweaty, grinding bodies to get there. I hope you're down with a little goosing, 'cause these boys don't necessarily ask before touching. This fertile scene is hemmed by old librarian-looking dudes who stand stock-still at the edge of the dance floor, talking to no one and feasting their pervy eyes. If you crave easy, casual sex with strangers, by all means, please have fun.

Address: 2389 Mission St.
Website: brunossf.com

Bruno's, a believable imitation of a '70s porn star hangout, looks like it should be the set of the music video for Daft Punk's “Get Lucky,” but I'm afraid these people take themselves too seriously for that. These saggy office workers, all gussied up, struggle against the decline of their twenties by dancing in that painfully timid, understated way that middle school kids dance. This is the perfect dance for Bruno's, which is entirely carpeted (in tiger pattern, no less), precluding all those sweet slides and pirouettes you were planning to bust out. They have a fireplace here, which is supposed to lend an air of the upper crust to a bar which is otherwise merely crusty.

Address: 3138 Fillmore St.
Website: matrixfillmore.com

First of all, why leave out the space? What value or meaning is that supposed to lend to the name? Matrix is a filthy establishment playing only the most muddled dubstep remixes you had hoped to forget. This is a place where old men stand in the corner and stare hungrily at twenty-somethings mashing into each other like they're hoping their fluids will soak right through and make a little douche baby right there on the dance floor. I guess this is to be expected in The Marina—San Francisco's own little Jersey Shore.

Address: 1131 Polk St.
Website: hemlocktavern.com

Polk Street has all the bootyclub sleaze and then some of The Marina without the arrogance of white-bro privilege. Hemlock Tavern is the oddly out-of-place getaway for south of Market artsy types. It looks like a dive bar (because what else?) except that it's huge and the establishment has gone to great lengths to swank out the smoking patio, which is as indoor as can be in The City That Hates Tobacco. Here you can watch a pink-haired goth girl fondle the abs of the guy that wore his breathable cycling jersey to the bar while he asks, “How old do I look?” This bar is also cash only, giving you one more reason not to patronize this unnatural disaster.

Address: 3920 Geary Blvd.
Website: facebook.com

I don't mean to sound like a race traitor, but what is wrong with Irish pubs? This one even has an awkward name. Pub-club night is always ugly, but Ireland's 32 introduced me to new depths of dumb. Choice moments include hearing one douche hiss, “Do it,” as I round the corner just in time to see douche number two smash a beer bottle in the bathroom corner. Also, Macklemore rules here. I never thought I'd miss Everlast.

Address: 2036 Lombard St.
Website: stockintradesf.com

Stock in Trade is newish and was hot shit when it first opened. The floor in here is all Spanish tile, so beware hazardous mystery puddles that the staff doesn't bother to clean. Stock in Trade is The Marina's true overflow bar. It's massive, so every square, college-educated drunken idiot can squeeze in at the end of the night for one last misguided attempt at finding love. It's impressive how these losers maintain their snooty front when they are so damn sloppy. I guess it's easy to fit in when everyone looks exactly the same.