Castro District Bar and Clubs

The mixed gay/straight/San Franciscan crowd at this Duboce Triangle oasis excels in subtle flirtation and hard liquor. And, really, who can tell the difference in light this dim? Owner-operated, Amber is also one the few places in San Francisco where smoking is technically allowed indoors.

This Castro standard recently underwent a face lift, tummy tuck and several injections of Botox in order to transform into a video-screen dance club with a line around the block. Not bad for a place locals used to call "Sad-lands."

For a booming San Francisco dance club located on prime Castro Street real estate, there isn't much room for dancing. There is however, plenty of pectoral beefcake gulping down Red Bulls and vodka.

No cover. Strong drinks. Super-gay top 40 dance mixes that bring scraggly-haired lesbians and boys who buy their youth at the tanning salon. It doesn't get much more Castro than this.

Once a speakeasy, and more recently than that, a swing dancing hot spot, the multi-historied Café du Nord now features an eclectic number of goth-influenced singer/songwriters and earnest young men with guitars. And just when you don't expect it, du Nord totally rocks your world.

Bare incandescent bulbs drop from above next to stainless steel ceiling fans while up tempo dance music comes through the airwaves. This "Wine Bar & Kitchen" has substance too; as the name suggests, the menu features all things French from small production appellations to exquisite charcuterie. To top it all off, an eager and attentive staff will keep you in the lap of luxury guaranteeing a return trip to this trendy San Francisco wine bar.

Yes, that leather-clad San Francisco silver fox with an obscenely prominent package is, as you might have suspected, tugging at his chaps for you.

Don't let this San Francisco gay bar's funereal front, with its large and lilied flower arrangement, get you down. Have a double martini (that's the only size they come in here) and settle into the back room where a piano man and his singing muse will gather the crowd for a bittersweet rendition of "The Man Who Got Away." Ain't it the truth, ain't it the truth.

Mecca does serve food, but its best known for its bevy of D&G clad young men, swirling around the high-design, high-alcohol lounge. Air-kisses and backstabs abound. Welcome to gay Society.

Line at the Cafe too long? Join a more relaxed crowd at this San Francisco bar with bitchy queens and bored butches lounging on the wrap around balcony, critiquing and cat calling passers by from their lofty perch.

Don't mess with the Mint. While Friday nights are generally packed with post-work parties and birthdays, most nights the performances can bring down the house. Think American Idol, but sponsored by the vodka industry.

This San Francisco gay bar is the default starting and ending point of any good tour of the Castro. Ring-necked collars belly (or perhaps, ab up), to this no nonsense bar with a cruisey back patio.

Older men, younger men. Guess who's buying? A Moroccan-pillowed triangular space with plate glass windows and a bar stocked with casual elegance and casual encounters. Located conveniently on Market and Castro, at the foot of the San Francisco gay bar scene.

On a Sunday afternoon, there is no mellower place to be in San Francisco than the courtyard at Zeitgeist. Hidden behind a somehow foreboding purple exterior on a block not quite in the Mission or the Castro, an eclectic mix of hipsters, bikers, and weekend warriors mingles among rows of picnic tables, passing around pitchers of beer, joints, and, occasionally, a damn good string-bean-garnished Bloody Mary. One of the city's best jukeboxes blasts a selection of tunes that's as mixed as the crowd (metal for the bikers, literary altcountry for the hipsters) as a bullhorn-wielding grill master bellows the names of customers who need to pick up their burgers. When the weather cooperates, it's tough to beat.