Outer Richmond

Outer Richmond is known largely for being foggy and cold 11 months out of the year. It is the first place to get fog and the last place that clears up and a lot of people who live there and don’t leave the area to go to work can literally go weeks without seeing the sun. If you’re prone to depression due to weather conditions, this is probably not the place for you.
The location is actually pretty wonderful here. To the north you have Lincoln Park, home to the Veteran’s Hospital, the Cliff House along the beach and the Legion of Honor. The Cliff House is a must destination if you want to have dinner along the cliffs of SF. The Giant Camera is also there—another great SF destination. For art lovers, the Legion of Honor is just as impressive a destination. Definitely worth it just for the beautiful grounds but also for the exhibits inside. Right now they are having an exhibition of Dutch watercolors that is really pretty amazing if you are into portraits like those from the film Girl with the Pearl Earring (a Vermeer in that case) or still-lives of fruit that you feel you could almost reach out and take a bite out of.
To the west is the northern stretch of Ocean Beach, which is perfect for morning jogs.
To the south is the westerly most end of Golden Gate Park near the lakes, the equestrian center and the golf course (you actually have golf course on the north and the south of the neighborhood, so if you are training to be the next Tiger Woods, you definitely don’t lack options).
Given that Sea Cliff is just to the northeast and that you have pretty good views from the hills, you might expect that this is a similarly astronomically expensive area, but Outer Richmond is actually only slightly more expensive than average for SF. The average rent in this neighborhood is about $1450 and the median household income $80K. This still makes it a pretty expensive area, but nowhere near as expensive as some its neighbors.
The houses here are fairly mixed as well—lot’s of bungalows, some Victorians, even some Spanish styles and a Craftsman here or there too. I like that they are mostly cozy little things, and that only the rare building is taller than three stories. And I even like that the weather is cool and foggy. I’ve always kind of dug that.
I wouldn’t mind living here at all. I will definitely have to keep this place on my radar to see if I can find any deals.

Far from the busy hustle and tussle of downtown San Francisco, Outer Richmond is located in the north western corner of the city. It offers its residents a beautiful beach front view of the Pacific Ocean spanning four miles long. The area also boasts a clean and quiet neighborhood with a diverse stock of ethnic families (typically of Russian and Chinese descent).

The weather can be somewhat erratic with sunny and warm mornings turning into cold and foggy afternoons. At some points along the beach, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge with boats parked along the western seaboard.

Shopping and nightlife are rather sparse in this district. However, there are plenty of fine dining restaurants and ethnic eateries for visitors to enjoy. The Cliff House Bistro seems to be a major attraction for locals. The restaurant offers a casual but upscale atmosphere with a terrific seafood menu. On warm sunny days, the ocean is crowded with wet suited surfers and wake boarders. But for the rest of the days, only inspired beach combers and exercise enthusiasts take advantage of the beach.

The neighborhood also offers plenty of hilly bike trails and magnificent parks. Outer Richmond is a relatively safe community with plenty of empty roads for street parking.

Most San Francisco dwellers know the Outer Richmond only as “that place with the awful weather that you have to go through to get to Sutro Heights and Ocean Beach. But drill deeper: This place has so much more to offer!

First of all, the views from the tops of the hills in this area (and there are tons of hills over here) are incredible. You can see the ocean from almost everywhere, and the sight of Golden Gate Park below you is to die for.

Need something else to thrill you? Head on down the hill to Balboa Street for some of the finer things in life. Al-Masri Egyptian is 100% worth a stop. Shanghai King dumpling always offers a solid meal. The Balboa Theater is one of my favorites in the city. And Americana Vietnamese & Italian Cuisine, as strange as it sounds, is a dear personal favorite of mine.

Got kids? The Cabrillo playground is a great place to spend your afternoons. Or if you want to switch it up, just head right down to Golden Gate Park (or up to the cliffs near Lincoln Park – see how great this neighborhood is) and explore the surrounding awesome-ness. No matter where you head in the Outer Richmond, you’re sure to find something that’ll thrill you – or at least a hell of a view.

My dog Gershwin’s first love was a similarly neutered and bred Labrador pound puppy: Jack. They were tempestuous in the early stages of their relationship. My dear friends T and D adopted Jack after previous pet Boo (as in Boo Radley) died and Jem and Scout (as in Finch), joined their family. Yes, T is an English teaching colleague of mine. Every year, we get together for twice annual parties at their house. With kids, we now try to make it a day trip. T and I have a former student whose grandfather won an Oscar and brings it to their own red carpet when they have their Oscar party in March. The second of three times T and D got married, I carted up a three tiered wedding cake decorated with dark red Ecuadorian roses. The smooth rolling hills through golden gate park didn’t disrupt the cake. On our way home, we take Clement out to Point Lobos and the shore and it’s something of a roller coaster experience, when you crest a hill and see nothing but space, sky, and then blue water ahead of you. It’s a cold and narrow beach you’ll turn left onto if you are headed back to the south bay. I can’t plug a lot of restaurants or clubs in this area, though we did have a good time at the small and unassuming Gaslight and Shadows Antiques on Clement. Mostly residential, lovely parks and dog parks. Friends, beach, sunset. Oops. This is starting to sound like a haiku.

There’s a spot on most maps of San Francisco showing Land’s End, the point at which there’s no more city and just ocean until China. It’s an illusion, of course, but a poetic one. So much of the California coast at this point appears to drop off into the sea, it’s hard not to abandon the notion of something mysterious and magical out there in all that mist-shrouded water. It’s also not hard to turn back, toward the city, and feel that this outcropping of land has also received gifts from the East: so much of San Francisco owes its character to the Orient, businesses and restaurants and places with Asian names and fragrances and allure. In a sense, the Outer Richmond is a starting point to this influence, if not historically, then at least geographically.

Situated on a rise of land that ultimately ends in the cliffs skirting the bay around the Golden Gate, the Outer Richmond appears similar to the other neighborhoods adjoining Golden Gate Park on its northern and southern flanks. There’s that rectangular grid, marked here and there by a small park or landmark edifice, the whole of it rather unassuming, especially when viewed from above or afar. Historically, the neighborhood owes much of its early growth to the Barnum-and-Bailey circus appeal of Seal Rock (where crowds flocked to see seals haul out of the surf and sun themselves) and its hyped cousin, Cliff House (the original Victorian pile that burned to the ground after a short and colorful history). Then, a long period of slow-but-sure development, followed by the World War II housing boom that made the neighborhood what it is today. Gone are the Sutro Baths (the late 19th-century folly of seawater pools) and Playland-at-the-Beach (the huge amusement park that took up acres of oceanfront from the 1920s to the 1950s). Yet, even though each era offers landmarks and way-we-were nostalgia, there’s something new and vital as well. Get close to the Outer Richmond today, and the neighborhood offers a certain youthful, multi-ethnic appeal, from compact shopping districts to unique restaurants to interesting relics from a time gone by.

First of all, the Outer Richmond is appealing simply because of what it is essentially: a neighborhood of tightly packed homes of varying architectural and temporal pedigree (ranging from turn-of-the-century craftsman to late-sixties modern). The fog doesn’t tiptoe here; it blasts into the short-profiled streets with gale force, permanently bending branches on evergreen shrubs and trees in an eastern angle and leaving property owners with little choice but junipers and hardy camellias as landscaping options. Choose life here and you’ve pretty much decided that you’re going to take a lot of fog and wind along with your easy access to spectacular ocean views.

But that proximity to spectacular parks and trails has its advantages. The Lands End Trail is a not-so-well-kept secret that wows countless visitors with its drop-dead views of the turbulent seas entering and exiting San Francisco Bay as well as old shipwrecks on the treacherous shoals, the Sutro Bath ruins, and access to the old but quite vital Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum, with its fine collection of sculpture and porcelain from antiquity through the modern ages and 19th-century European painting as well as decorative art. Because the odd dune or hill protects pockets here and there from the corrosive effects of the sea, you can even spot the occasional redwood or rare oak; elsewehere in the Outer Richmond, there are even examples of imported date palms making a stand on windswept corners.

Because Geary Boulevard is less commercial than residential here (the 38 bus makes it all the way to the end), other streets parallel to it have had an opportunity to nurture their longtime businesses. One such street is Balboa (served by the only other bus line that runs downtown, the 31), where the Balboa Theater, a charming 1920s-era moviehouse, still shows first- and second-run films, quirky singular films and the occasional series, much to the neighborhood’s delight. It’s not the Castro, but it doesn’t need to be. With a panoply of surrounding restaurants and cafes, it forms the vortex of a lively little neighborhood on its own.

That stretch of Balboa neighborhood includes Simple Pleasures Café, a busy coffeehouse that also has its own associated coffee roasting company, and a succession of ethnic restaurants and various oddities, including El Masri (Egyptian restaurant); the San Francisco Fencers Club; Full Life Christian Center; Americana Grill (Italian and Vietnamese food); Balboa Teriyaki; Pappaloni’s sandwiches; the Sweet House (Asian pastries); then further east on Balboa: Jook Time, known for its cheap dim sum; Shanghai Dumpling King, next to a Chinese Herb shop; and one of the neighborhood’s iconic tackle shops (Gus’s Discount Fishing Tackle; the other, Hi’s on Clement, covers whatever needs you might have before taking off on an afternoon fishing excursion on the ocean or bay.)

Clement Street parallels Balboa on the northern side of Geary and offers a similar array of varied restaurants and shops: El Mansour (Moroccan cuisine) next to Oyaji (Japanese), next to Tee Off Bar and Grill (all-American club), which is not far from Pagan (Burmese). The Seal Rock Inn and Restaurant (60s modern, like similar places in and around Monterey) and the Cliff House, the rebuilt 1950s incarnation of the old inn, are what cling to the hairpin turn of Los Lobos Drive as it swings down from Lands End to Ocean Beach. Locals say the food and ambiance at Louis’ Diner are better than at the Cliff House, though you’ll have to wait in line to see for yourself.

This small, compact neighborhood houses one notable elementary school, the public Lafayette School on Anza Street; it garnered an 8 out of 10 rating from GreatSchools.

The architecture of the area appears older than most homes in the Sunset on the opposite side of Golden Gate Park (check out the cottage on 35th and Clement for an example--it appears to be one of those earthquake homes built after the 1906 disaster) and the houses that face Lincoln Park on Clement Street. They are clearly a step above the “up and overs” elsewhere; obviously, some people had some bucks before they moved here in the middle of last century. The tidy Veterans Administration Hospital, with its older main buildings tinged with art deco, is just off Clement at 42nd Avenue; it caters to the considerable retired military population in the Bay Area and beyond.

A big draw to the Outer Richmond is the Safeway on Fulton and La Playa. It wouldn’t be a cliché to say acres of parking, because it’s true: this store literally has a couple of blocks of tarmac. Plus, inside the doors, the wide aisles are well-stocked, including the deli and pharmacy. And people are passionate about this store, really. One online site shows 89 reviews. (OK, folks, let’s get a grip!) Maybe it's because it’s the only grocery that has a big-box feel in this otherwise little-shop neighborhood.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the neighborhood contains roughly 20,000 people, with the not uncommon breakdown in the so-called avenues of about half non-Latino white, half Asian, with small percentages of African Americans and those of mixed race. The mature population (median age of 40) rents (60 percent) rather than owns (40 percent). Crime is relatively low here, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Vandalism (mostly graffiti), car break-ins and a few vehicle thefts are what neighbors worry about mostly. Burglary, robbery, and assaults are rare though not unheard of, and the neighborhood hasn’t had a homicide in two years.

In spite of the unassuming aspect for such a dramatically situated place, the end of land in San Francisco turns out to have the kind of amenities that prove civilization does not end here in the Outer Richmond.

Outer Richmond weather is unpredictable, and if you don't mind layering up and down you will enjoy a fun-filled time in this unique neighborhood.

Here you can find Mexican, French, Italian, and Russian restaurants with ease, and an Asian eatery on every corner. Louis' Diner is a family run business serving very traditional diner goods. Here you will enjoy the same views as Cliff House with half the hit on your pocketbook. But, take your place in line with the rest of the locals - this place is popular.

There is not a lot of shopping in the Outer Richmond area, as it remains a largely residential neighborhood. Shops that are available tend to cater to the locals, where you will find more needed things than wants. This is a no-nonsense and no frills destination.

Bars are equally difficult to find, but the neighborhood does boast two favorites: The Blarney Stone and Trad'r Sam (scruffy furniture and angry tropical drinks).