SoMa neighborhood guide

Located in SoMa's majestic Pacific Bell building, Trou Normand brings a certain je ne se quoi to the after-work happy-hour scene. With tall windows, an elegant, curved marble bar and handsome leather booths, the place is as beautiful as it is unassuming. A courtyard in back whisks you away from the urban surroundings to a tree-lined patio outfitted with long tables, heat lamps and a glass canopy, so that you can sit outside rain or shine. Modeled on a contemporary French café, the bar and restaurant is known for its cocktails, house-made cordials and bitters. Many of the drinks incorporate cognacs and armagnacs the bar team has selected by the barrel from France. Enjoy these drinks with a simple but thoughtful daily menu comprised of a wide selection of house-cured meats, simply prepared seasonal vegetables and other dishes. Open from 8am to midnight during the week, Trou Normand aspires to be an all-day pit stop for breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, drinks, and snacks in between.

Brothers Jerad and Justin Morrison are perfectionists who oversee every detail that goes into a cup of their single-origin tiny-production coffee. From sourcing green coffee at farms from Rwanda to Ethiopia and Peru, to painstakingly determining the correct roast for each batch of beans and perfecting the process on their 1969 five-kilo Probat roaster, no bean goes unturned. The love of coffee shines all the way through to the warm woody ambience of their two cafés and the foam hearts on the top of your creamy cappuccino.

Since 1993, this Belle Epoque restaurant has been a consistent favorite: From the service to the cooking, there's seldom a misstep. Always busy, it attracts locals and visitors with waterfront views and hearty classics. James Beard Award-winning chef Nancy Oakes specializes in New American dishes such as wood-oven-roasted Berkshire pork chop with sweet potatoes and aprium in wild ginger and brown sugar.

Hiro Sone and Lissa Doumani bring Japonesque sensibilities to this stylish and intimate dining room in the St. Regis Hotel. The Michelin-starred menu emphasizes raw—sashimi, crudo, tartare, carpaccio—and southern France: grilled duck breast with liver crostini, duck confit, and toasted farro. Everything is exquisitely prepared and presented. The bar features limited-edition sakes and small-lot wines, as well as the signature "Hirotini," made with sake and cucumber-infused vodka.

With an artisanal cocktail list that's as extensive as the food menu, you'll be hard-pressed to choose between a Monkey's Gland (gin, citrus, absinthe and grenadine) or another order of the marinated anchovies or pig's head fritters with pickled black radish. Go for it all—and while you're at it, try the grilled quail with peaches and mashed beets and any other of the exquisitely seasonal, impeccably fresh plates, as you sip your slavishly crafted cocktail (even the ice is tailor-made for each drink). Undoubtedly the biggest thing to splash down on the 11th Street club corridor in recent years, Bar Agricole feels at once earthy and ethereal—with walls made from old barrel staves and light fixtures made from hundreds of glass tubes that look like windswept waves. Belly up to the bar, tuck into a booth, or try brunch on the sunny, enclosed front patio.

The first destination restaurant to be built on the Embarcadero waterfront in decades, Epic Roasthouse and its adjoining sister, Waterbar, co-opted a pristine piece of real estate with spectacular views of the Bay Bridge for their haute surf and turf. Out of the wood-fired oven come daily procured selections of dry aged ribeye, côte de boeuf, porterhouse, prime rib and filet mignon, which you can augment with your choice of béarnaise, madeira, chimichurri or horseradish. Accompany your steak with sides such as späetzle gratin, sautéed spinach and fried green tomatoes.

If you haven't tried the brussels sprout chips, burger and poulet vert at Marlowe, you may be the only one in town. The cozy South of Market hotspot has relocated to larger digs at 4th and Brannan Streets, giving fans many more opportunities to experience chef Jennifer Puccio's winning menu of inventive American food. Toasted pistachios with bourbon, maple, and smoked salt, and those crispy, addictive brussels sprout chips (fried with meyer lemon and sea salt) are appetizer highlights. Among the mains, don't miss pork chops with nettle pesto risotto, poulet vert (chicken marinated overnight in a mash of basil, parsley, tarragon, and other herbs), and the near-mythical Marlowe burger—a combo of beef and lamb, with caramelized onions, cheddar, bacon and horseradish aioli.

Offering a little slice of New Orleans, chefs Mitchell and Steven Rosenthal and legendary front-of-house man Doug Washington cultivate a chummy loyal crowd for their Southern-inspired classics. Highlights include cornmeal fried oysters, barbecue shrimp, buttermilk fried chicken with smashed potatoes, and house-smoked St. Louis ribs. The bar is known for its specialty cocktails, including an excellent Sazerac.

Local, national and international DJs and live acts hold court on the main stage of this 900-capacity club, which has two long bars bordering the ample dancefloor and a lofty space upstairs. Though it's become an increasingly hip-hop friendly place over the years, this is still the definition of a multipurpose club and you never know what might be happening on any given night. You could catch a throwback act like Boyz II Men in the same week as the latest electronic sensation from abroad or a Southern rap act. Its size and multilevel layout make it a prime pickup and people-watching spot too. Cash only.

San Francisco's legendary biker bar is best known for its Sunday afternoon beer busts, when leather-clad bears, muscle men in tanks, twinks in tight tees and gal pals in trucker caps pack the huge outdoor patio to get shitfaced before sundown on $12 all-you-can-drink beer. This is the melting pot, the place local gay men and party-hardy lesbians come to connect with their tribe. Friday and Saturday nights bring various monthly events, from cigars and spanking to drag queens and dance parties; live bands play Thursday nights, drawing a mixed straight-gay crowd. Monday to Wednesday it's dead.

When the other SoMa bars are dead, there's always someone at Powerhouse, possibly the most popular gay bar in the city, perhaps because of its notorious back smokers' patio, where poppers provide an acrid counterpoint to cigarette smoke. DJs spin house most nights, and the shirtless crowd occasionally dances, especially on Fridays. Several nights a week, there's some sort of contest, whether a wet-jockstrap or smelly-armpit competition, promising free drinks and a hundred bucks to the winner. Thursday night's underwear party is always a scene. If you're looking to pick up, this is the place. Leave your girlfriends at home.

Going strong for nearly 50 years, the Stud is one of the city's most illustrious bars, referenced in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and the birthplace of legendary drag show Trannyshack. A special late-night license allows it to operate till 4am, and once other bars have closed at 2am, the Stud stays open—at least on weekends. Best events are Friday's "Some-thing" ($7 cover after 10pm), an art and drag party, when the pool table becomes a craft table, queens perform numbers, and the upbeat crowd dances till the wee hours; Tuesday's "Meow Mix," an anything goes cabaret and burlesque show; and the first Saturday of the month's disco party, "Go Bang!"

The 550-capacity Slim’s isn’t one of San Francisco’s most comfortable venues. Most patrons have to stand, sightlines are compromised by the floor-to-ceiling pillars and, on busy nights, it gets pretty steamy. Still, it’s one of the few places in the city for all ages (well, six and up) to enjoy a concert and therefore remains a rite of passage for local music fans. The schedule is mostly made up of rock bands, who play alongside a smattering of hip-hop acts, reggae groups and rootsy singer/songwriters.

Goth kids have flocked to SoMa for all manner of musical fetishes and countercultural indulgences for years. And no night is complete without a stop at longtime fixture DNA Lounge, the home of leading goth/industrial synthpop night Death Guild. But this isn't a place where darkness reigns—it's also home to the playful, long-running mashup Bootie, where the partygoers' outfits are as creative (and incongruous) as the sounds. The wonderful stage set-up, which can be viewed from both the dance floor and the recessed mezzanine, has turned even hip-hop acts on to this gem of a nightspot. And the upstairs lounge has its own dark, sexy and intimate area for dancing. Cash only.

Headquarters of the weekly party Housepitality and a venue of choice for international house and techno DJs, Monarch is a beacon of friendly dance vibes in a still-tense stretch of Sixth Street in SoMa. The club opened in 2011 and has since been reimagined to incorporate a newer upstairs craft cocktail bar area called Emperor's Drawing Room, a hideaway within the larger space that has a sliding wall for privacy and is open to the public and for private events. A custom Void Acoustics sound system is considered one of the best in San Francisco—and it's appropriately plated in gold.

Badge-holding florists arrive at this marketplace well before dawn to scoop up the best botanicals at wholesale prices. The warehouse-like market opens to the public at 10am, when you can ogle (and inhale the scent of) hundreds of blooms from local growers under one roof. The overflowing tubs include roses, orchids, tulips, ranunculus, lilies and dozens of exotic flowers you've never heard of. The stems can be purchased singly or arranged in bouquets, and prices vary from booth to booth. (Some purveyors are amendable to haggling.) Many of the vendors here grow locally, which means the blooms last longer than the grocery store variety, and the prices are typically cheaper as well. Wear a jacket—the building is kept cool to preserve the plants' freshness.

Bright, clean, and inviting are not adjectives typically synonymous with a sex shop. But this may be the least sleazy sex shop you're ever been to. The local chain has four locations in the city, and all are uniformly immaculate. (The Polk Street store, however, is the only one to tout a Vibrator Museum.) While the wood interior is complemented by pops of pink, don't be fooled: The store caters to both men and women, and the offerings range from bachelorette party novelties to the truly hardcore. There's a full wall of strap-ons, rows of vibrators, an array of bondage accessories, floggers, cuffs, plugs, rings, condoms, lube, erotic books, porn movies and more. Most every item for sale has a display model, so you can test the item in your hand before buying. The pleasant staff doesn't hover, but they know their stuff: Tell them what you like and they'll make informed suggestions.

A giant Plinko board rises in the lobby of this art-filled downtowner, whose mezzanine games room befits the overworked Silicon Valley techies who are its target market. Built in 1903 and completely gutted in 2013 by the Viceroy Group, the 116-room hotel is up to date with all the latest gadgets. The design theme plays off salvage and rescue (which is also the name of the lobby bar), and repurposed materials are everywhere, as in the lobby's tiered chandelier of cast-off eye glasses. Rooms are bigger than average, uncluttered and whisper-quiet, with giant butcher-block architect's desks, plush beds with 500-thread-count sheets, and Bluetooth pairing to link your electronics with the 47-inch TV and Jambox speaker. The onsite Cavalier gastropub serves stick-to-your-ribs cooking that will keep you working all night.

This simple hotel plays to an under-30 demographic, with a dorm-room aesthetic and an emphasis on green—salvaged-wood bed frames, fleece bedspreads made from recycled soda bottles, and repurposed-glass chandeliers. The look is playful, fun and decidedly non-generic. Most rooms are in a five-story 1911 building, converted in 2008, with multiple bed configurations, perfect for groups of friends traveling together. An adjoining two-story 1950s-era motel has rooms with air-conditioning; these are best if you have a car and want easy access to onsite parking. The in-between neighborhood can be sketchy, but it's generally safe, close to the Muni metro, and walkable to Union Square.