The Bold Italic
@thebolditalic.bsky.social
A publication celebrating the spirit of the Bay Area. Our newsletter: https://tbi.fyi/newsletter
Ride a cable car exactly once, with someone you love or are trying to impress, then never again. The line is full of people who flew here to stand in it. The locals' move is the F-line. Why:
How to Do San Francisco Without a Car
San Francisco is seven miles by seven miles, which sounds adorable until you remember that many miles go straight up. You need shoes that won't betray you and the willingness to get gently lost.
thebolditalic.com
San Francisco had amusement parks for roughly 80 years straight, from Woodward's Gardens in the 1890s to Playland-at-the-Beach closing in 1972. Since then, nothing. We have gone nearly half a century without a single coaster on the skyline, and somehow we act like this is normal.
Whatever Happened to San Francisco’s Amusement Parks?
This ‘millennial playground’ seems to be missing quite a few attractions
thebolditalic.com
Peak San Francisco is bragging that your rent-controlled studio is a steal while you sleep four feet from your own stove.
The oldest public Japanese garden in the entire U.S. is sitting in Golden Gate Park, and most of us have walked past it chasing a parking spot. It's been here since the 1894 Midwinter Fair. Older than your apartment, older than your problems.
San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden is the oldest public one in the U.S.
Once a fairground attraction, the Japanese Tea Garden has become a symbol of cultural persistence in San Francisco.
thebolditalic.com
Before it was the Roxie, it was The Poppy, the New 16th Street, the Rex, the Gem, and the Gaiety. This theater has had more aliases than a guy avoiding his creditors. Which, fittingly, is exactly how its founder left town.
San Francisco’s oldest movie theater: The Roxie
The art house cinema screens a diverse range of independent, foreign, and cult films, operating since 1909.
thebolditalic.com
In San Francisco, a normal Tuesday includes a perfectly good couch on the sidewalk with a handwritten sign reading 'FREE, only slightly haunted.'
I have been eating sushi for years and only recently learned how many quiet, humiliating little mistakes I have been making the entire time. Turns out sushi is an art with actual rules, and I have been fully winging it.
The Do’s, the Don’ts, and the Oh God, Please Don’ts of Eating Sushi
If you’re new to sushi, you probably have a lot of questions, like:
thebolditalic.com
You've photographed the Painted Ladies from Alamo Square a hundred times. Turns out you can go inside one of them for a suggested $35, and a 68-year-old named George will walk you through three floors of his family's actual life.
Inside a Painted Lady
The blue Victorian on 712 Steiner is steeped in history, not just ‘Full House’ fame.
thebolditalic.com
Corner your neighbor by the mailboxes, frowny face on, and ask if everything was okay because it 'sounded like someone was being choked from 1 to 2am.'
Eight Ways to Deal with Your Neighbors’ Loud Sex
Is your apartment “historically charming” — as in it’s too old to have proper soundproofing? Is your residential building incredibly close to the ones next to it? The answer to both questions is yes because you live in San Francisco.
thebolditalic.com
A single hit at Lands End hits different with the Golden Gate on one side and the Sutro Baths ruins on the other. Just mind your footing, because gravity does not care how good your playlist is. More spots inside:
Where to Get Stoned in San Francisco
We asked San Francisco where it likes to get stoned. The city refused to pick just one, so we mapped all of them.
thebolditalic.com
Somebody saved a box of 1951 photos of the Mission from being thrown out in the early 80s, and now we get to see 24th Street back when Spanish Show Tonight was on the marquee and Red Beans and Tortillas hung in a shop window.
Vintage ’50s Photographs of the Mission
These 1951 images of the Mission from the San Francisco Assessor’s Office came to the Western Neighborhoods Project from a local historian who saved them from being discarded in the early 1980s.
thebolditalic.com
You don't need the Painted Ladies or a Ferry Building $18 sandwich. The realest corner of this city is two blocks from the bison paddock in the Outer Richmond.
My Favorite Corner of San Francisco Sits in Balboa Village
Where residents uplift the neighborhood to keep it thriving
thebolditalic.com
Found buried in the SF internet: an anonymous breakup letter to the city, posted to Craigslist in 2002. Pre-Twitter, pre-tech boom, pre-everything. The complaints have not aged a day.
SF I love you. Unrequitedly.
Your subterranean nightlife is beautiful, as any road to ruin can be. Still I love you. You’re an affliction.
thebolditalic.com
As a teenager I dismissed West Portal as a place that was only good for families and old people, and I barely hung out in my own neighborhood. Now I am an adult who moved back to San Francisco, and I would give a lot for one more ordinary afternoon on the red brick steps of the West Portal Library.
My Favorite Corner of SF: Lenox Way and Ulloa Street in West Portal
Home to a library that has witnessed a lifetime
thebolditalic.com
San Francisco will humble you the second you leave the house in one layer, because the fog already has a full itinerary for your afternoon.
Thrive City is what happens when a sports arena develops a whole personality, and that personality is "have you considered prioritizing wellness?" Public yoga, juice that costs more than a burrito, and enough Warriors merch to fake a lifelong fandom that started in 2015.
Why I love Mission Bay
A place where a Michelin-star chef works next to a hot dog stand, and where you drop $20 on juice before heading to a free circus show.
thebolditalic.com
Would you keep a single batch of dough alive for almost two centuries through earthquakes, ownership changes, and a Midwestern buyout? Boudin did. The story of how is genuinely unhinged in the best way.
How Boudin Bakery baked its way through history
Even as San Francisco evolves, the scent of Boudin’s signature loaves fills the air.
thebolditalic.com
Overheard in San Francisco: 'It is rent controlled, so I literally cannot leave, I will die in this apartment and honestly that is the plan.'
Why is it San Franciscans describe every neighborhood as 'up and coming' when it's clearly been coming for forty years and arrived sometime around the dot-com bust?
$50 gets you into the most chill dress-up party on my SF bucket list. Prom vibes, sequins, dancing, and yes it's for a good cause. Met Gala energy, Mission Burrito budget.
How to party like it’s the Met Gala in San Francisco
People tell me all the time how drab San Francisco is, as they might put it: no one dresses up, and where are the good parties? Glamour does exist in ye olde city of denim, hoodies, and Crocs — you just have to look a little harder.
thebolditalic.com
Here is what they do not tell you on the Alcatraz audio tour, from someone who worked there a year: A Texas oil millionaire once wanted to turn it into a casino, Native American activists occupied the island in 1969 to demand the land back, and after they left in 1971 the Nixon administration bulldo
What It’s like Working on Alcatraz
A reflection of my year on the Rock
thebolditalic.com
How much would you pay for an oyster in San Francisco before it stops being a deal? We found the spots still charging a dollar, the ones that crept up to two, and the catch behind every one.
Every Oyster Happy Hour and Deal I Could Find in San Francisco
Your complete guide to cheap bivalves across the city, from $1 holdouts to splurge-worthy shucks.
thebolditalic.com
Inner Sunset, ranked by how badly I want it right now: legendary Arizmendi scones, Marnee Thai pad see ew, Crepevine when I'm genuinely feral.
My favorite Inner Sunset eats
On rainy days like today, warm up with hot pots from Nabe or iPot. Or play a boardgame with a waffle sandwich in hand at Game Parlour. There's so much to love about Inner Sunset.
thebolditalic.com
In 1972 someone trucked redwoods from the Santa Cruz Mountains and planted them in the FiDi. Now there's a half-acre grove in the Pyramid's shadow where finance bros eat lunch without checking their phones.
San Francisco's Favorite Quiet Spots, According to the People Who Live Here
Hunter Pence asked SF locals for their favorite quiet spots. The answers were a love letter to the city.
thebolditalic.com
The Boba Guys started because Andrew Chau and Bin Chen, two friends from their Timbuk2 days, were gutted when their favorite local boba shop closed. So they taught themselves to make it off YouTube, nailed a recipe in 2011, and launched a pop-up at Ken Ken Ramen in white lab coats, part homage to ch
The Boba Guys Just Want You to Love Their Balls
How two scrappy ball lovers turned a boba hobby into a boba job
thebolditalic.com
You're wheezing halfway up a Castro hill and the meeting can wait. Neighbor's Corner has the big windows and Japanese treats to justify canceling your afternoon.
My favorite coffee shops in San Francisco
We drank our way through San Francisco so you'd know exactly where to get your fix.
thebolditalic.com
Sorted by neighborhood so you can stop pretending you'll trek across town. Wherever the fog has you stranded, there's dinner under $50 nearby in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Dinner Map for Under $50 Meals
From Mission taquerias to Richmond dim sum, a citywide map of where to eat well without blowing past $50.
thebolditalic.com
Nobody warns you that in San Francisco you will overhear a $40 million valuation and a plan to disrupt sandwiches in the very same coffee line.
Things the Brides of March had: all genders, all ages, every manner of thrift store gown. Some pristine, some held together by optimism. Things it did not have: anyone fighting a parking meter on Polk.
Brides of March Is the SantaCon You Actually Wanted
The Brides of March is what happens when you take the same anarchic DNA of SantaCon, but you let joy be the point.
thebolditalic.com
Free AC, culture, and a clean bathroom all in one building? The de Young is free with a library card on certain Saturdays. SFMOMA stays frigid and, per our writer, is also a fantastic place to take a crap. Multitasking.
San Francisco Doesn't Have Air Conditioning. Here's How We Survive.
Half of SF metro area homes still don't have AC. The rest of us have developed coping mechanisms.
thebolditalic.com