Lucky 13 – beer bar / dive bar
2140 Market @ Church (Google Map)
Official Site | BeerAdvocate | Yelp
Local microbrew: $4.00 (Happy Hour: $1 off all beer until 8pm)
Open Mon-Wed 4pm-2am, Thu-Sun 11am-2am
MUNI: F, K, L, M, J, N, 22, and 37. 6, 7, 24, 33, and 71 will get you in the neighborhood, too.
Part of the Haight Beer Crawl
(Note- This entry is for the San Francisco location.)
If the man above scares you, perhaps Lucky 13 is not for you.
Lucky 13 is what San Franciscans think of as a dive bar. Granted the term is used for many different types of places, depending where you are, but the San Francisco dive is generally in or around the Mission District, is loud, slightly funny-smelling, employed with well-tattooed friendly people serving unfriendly tattooed people. The San Francisco dive is not a place in which you will get stabbed or hit with a pool cue, and there will be no drug deals going on in the parking lot (unless you mean weed, but that like, totally doesn’t count).
Thankfully, the clientele of the especially large-for-San-Francisco Lucky 13 is a bit friendlier than many of its close relatives in the Mission District. Upon entry, there is a long bar along the right, behind which you will find, at the time of this writing, 26 taps, 26 bottles, and a full bar (though they’re planning to bring the beer total up to a nice round 60, with the addition of a new bank of refrigerators behind the bar). There’s free popcorn at the far end of the bar, as well as Goldfish and Milk-Bones behind the bar. There’s no kitchen, but there’s tons of portable food available in the neighborhood, which you’re welcome to bring in (they do a mean barbecue on Saturdays, though). There’s also a pool table at the back, which will set you back a buck a game (free on Sundays, but Tuesday is league night). Opposite the bar, there are a line of tables, interrupted by what is considered one of the best punk jukeboxes in San Francisco.
There are two upstairs areas. One stairway, in the back, leads up to the ATM and a handful of pinball and other arcade games, and allows a good bird’s-eye view of the bar (below), for those who enjoy people-watching. The other stairway is closer to the front, on the left, and will bring you up to more seating (and a Ms. Pacman, if you’re so inclined). The restrooms are at the front of the bar, on either side of the photobooth.
At the far back right corner, there’s a door out to the patio. It’s not huge, and it’s in the middle of a residential block, so there’s no confusing it for a proper German biergarten, but you can smoke and get a breath of fresh air at one of the four tables, or the semi-hidden corner spot behind a couple of small trees. Out here, as well as inside, keep an eye out for dogs, as there are often a handful (if not a dozen) on the premises at any given time.
Lucky 13, being such a big and centrally-located bar, can be quite crowded Fridays and Saturdays, though if you’re paying attention you can usually find a seat or two within a few minutes. Service is generally quick, and there’s usually enough people working to handle any crowd that fits in the building. During the week, it tends to collect a lively variety of folks from the surrounding Mission, Haight, and Castro neighborhoods, and is considerably calmer than the weekends, though it’s rarely what you would call “dead” after about 4pm. (Yes, it is in that Castro, but it is not a gay bar. Though I would suggest that if such a thing would be a problem, you’re visiting the wrong town.)
It offers a much better beer variety than you’d expect from a slummy dive bar. They concentrate on west coast microbrews, with a handful of Belgians. In fact, if you look above the beer list (in the middle of the bar, by the taps) you’ll see a few signs that say “Bud” and “Coors” (despite that, local hipsters can still find PBR and Corona here). It’s happy hour every day from opening to 8pm, when you can find most of the microbrews for a paltry three bucks, but even at full price, nothing is what you’d call expensive.
And finally, if you see me, which you probably will if you’re at Lucky 13, for god’s sake come say hi, I’ll buy ya a beer.
While you’re in the neighborhood…
Toronado, 547 Haight @ Fillmore
Healthy Spirits (beer store), 2299 15th St @ Castro
There’s another Lucky 13? I mean, are they owned by the same people or just other places named Lucky 13?
Yeah, there’s one in Alameda. They are somewhat related, as they use the same logo and sell the same shirts (with the city changed). It’s a fine bar, but it’s no SF Lucky 13. but we can check it out if we ever go wine/liquor tasting in Alameda.
Perhaps a topic of debate, but I’d say Lucky 13 customers are a bit friendlier than you describe. I rarely see douchebags, vapid Marina girls or mean, bitchy queens there, and those are pretty much all the groups that make bars less fun.
And yes, I love the $3 happy hour beer. I wish they’d serve more IPA’s though.
This is a good point. I think I made a mental note to mention that the L13 crowd is much less dickish that a typical hipster dive can be.
They’ve recently gotten in the Green Flash West Coast IPA and RRBC’s Pliny the Elder, for what those’re worth.
OOOOOOOOOHhhh… I do like Pliny the Elder. It’s a potent little fucker though. I used to only be able to find it at Toronado. I’m concerned for my liver knowing that sweet nectar is only a block away from home now.
Are they going to have Elder as a regular beer? It seems like most places only have it occassionally. Then again, RRBC is really trying to get their beer out there nowadays. From the look of their website, they can’t produce enough of the stuff to keep everyone fully stocked.
Yeah, even the RRBC taproom runs out sometimes. Man, is that a pity when they do. Then again, I can last more than four beers when they do…
Mike – I dunno if they keep a spare keg in the back, but they’ve consistently had it on tap for a few months now. They’re also building (if not have already built) a new brewing location in Santa Rosa, so production should be ramping up quite a bit in the near future.
Yeah the new brewery is built and it’s been running for a while. It’s maybe a block from our house. I keep dreaming that they’ll do a Speakeasy style night but my dreams have not come true yet.