Your Bay Area Outdoor Drinking Bucket List for 2019

Chances are you have your outdoor drinks go-to.

Maybe it’s El Techo, or El Rio, or one of those outdoor hotel bars — here’s looking at you, Charmaine’s.

But this summer you should consider mixing it up a little, either with somewhere new, somewhere outside of the usual neighborhoods or a place we hope will be a bastion of cheap wings in the Mission until the next tech invasion.

The Brixton on 2nd
The Cow Hollow spot sets up a new edition right next to the ballpark, serving the same pan … world cuisine as the original on Union Street (East Side chili con queso, steak frites, “gulf shrimp ala plancha,” etc.). The interior is great-looking, but the patio is the place to be.

Everdene
If you’ve done Charmaine’s to death, it’s time to try out the new rooftop hotel bar in town: Everdene at the Virgin Hotel. Early reviews have squawked about service, but six weeks post-opening, here’s hoping things have fallen into place. Grab a table on the north side if one’s free for the best views (no reservations, so cross your fingers).

Cento Osteria
If you’re headed toward the Embarcadero and want a change from Waterbar, Centro Osteria celebrates its second summer season basically today, with wood-fired pizzas and your choice of, among others, a couple bottles of rosé that are indisputably perfect for late May. (Even if it’s still in the mid-60s.)

Parigo
It’s a menu made for wine pairing — pair the food to the wine, rather than the other way ’round. It might be the closest you can get to dining on a European piazzale without jetlag.

The Ramp
If you were lucky, you were in the room for the massive send-off for The Ramp’s founder, Mike Denham, after his death in December. (Historical fact: Denham was a descendant of James Van Ness, of the Van Ness Avenue Van Nesses.) If you weren’t, pour out a drink in his honor at this one-time bait shop reimagined as the Platonic ideal of the laidback waterfront spot.

Teeth
Hold onto this place — with dollar tacos and 25-cent wings — with both hands. Can something so gold (and cheap) stay (in the post-IPO-apocalypse-version-of-SF)? We can pray — ideally with a taco in one hand and two-for-one margaritas (Tuesdays only) in the other, at a table on the lovely patio.

Meet your guide

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel has written for The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Travel + Leisure, Wallpaper and Afar, as well as The Cut, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and McSweeney’s. She once drove from London to Mongolia, via Siberia.