Friday, September 25 · San Francisco
Things to Do in San Francisco, Checked.
What's on this weekend, where to eat, drink coffee and see art, and which places have actually closed. Every date, price and address is checked against the source.
This weekend
What's on, Sep 25–27
Friday, September 25
Dolly Day in Union Square
Fri · 12 pm · Union Square
Financial DistrictFree
Sunset Night Market: Autumn Moon Festival
Fri · 5 pm · Irving Street, Sunset District
Sunset DistrictFree
Sundown Cinema: School of Rock at the Ferry Building
Fri · 7 pm · Ferry Building
Financial DistrictFree
Saturday, September 26
4th Annual Circus on the Square with Circus Bella
Sat · 11 am · St. Mark's Square
Western Addition & FillmoreFree admission
Bay Area Chuseok Festival
Sat · 11 am · Presidio Main Parade Lawn
PresidioFree
¡VIVA! Kickoff Party at the Main Library
Sat · 12 pm · San Francisco Public Library, Main Library (Koret Lobby and Latino/Hispanic Community Room)
Civic Center & TenderloinFree
Portola Music Festival
Sep 26–27 · Pier 80
Bayview-Hunters PointFrom $269.95 (21+)
Giants vs. Dodgers: Fan Appreciation Weekend
Sat · 1:05 pm · Oracle Park
South BeachVaries
Fort Mason Historic District Walking Tour
Sat · 2 pm · The Gatehouse (Equator Coffees Café), Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
MarinaFree (donations welcome)
Cinema on the Square: The Conversation
Sat · 5 pm · Union Square
Financial DistrictFree
Sunday, September 27
Portola Music Festival
Sep 26–27 · Pier 80
Bayview-Hunters PointFrom $269.95 (21+)
SFMOMA Family Studio: Crochet Jam with Ramekon O’Arwisters
Sun · 10 am · SFMOMA, Floor 2, Koret Education Center
SoMaFree
Golden Gate Park Nature Festival
Sun · 10 am · Academy Concourse, Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate ParkFree
Chuseok Celebration at the Asian Art Museum
Sun · 10 am · Asian Art Museum
Hayes ValleyMuseum admission (kids 12 & under free)
Presidio Guided Walk: 250 Years on the Presidio
Sun · 11 am · Presidio Visitor Center
PresidioFree
German Day in Golden Gate Park
Sun · 11 am · Golden Gate Park Bandshell
Golden Gate ParkFree
Giants Final Home Game & Mike Krukow Celebration
Sun · 12:05 pm · Oracle Park
South BeachVaries
Randall Museum 75th Anniversary Celebration
Sun · 1 pm · Randall Museum
CastroFree
On All Weekend
Treasures of the Pharaohs
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park$40 adults (kids discounted)
Sunset Fridays at the SF Zoo
San Francisco Zoo & Gardens
Sunset District$14 (kids 11 & under free)
Ferry Plaza Farmers Market
Ferry Building Plaza
Financial DistrictFree
Heart of the City Farmers Market
Fulton Plaza, Civic Center
Hayes ValleyFree
Free Shakespeare in the Park: Antony and Cleopatra
Sue Bierman Park
Financial DistrictFree
SF State Observatory Public Nights (Wed–Fri, Through Dec 4)
SF State Observatory, Thornton Hall
San FranciscoOpen to the public; no admission price listed
Find your thing
San Francisco, by What You Love
Plan my day
A Day Out, Built in One Tap
Pick a neighborhood and a mood. We put together a day from the places in our directory and the events on our calendar: coffee, something to see, lunch, a walk and something for the evening.
Your day will appear here. Every stop links to a page we have checked. Opening hours change, so tap through before you go.
- Coffee in 6 shops
- Museums and galleries in the directory
- Events from our calendar
Neighborhoods
Explore the City, Block by Block
Boundaries: DataSF Analysis Neighborhoods. Pins mark the neighborhoods we cover.
Tap a neighborhood
26 Neighborhoods, One City
Hover or tap a pin to see what's on and what's worth it there.
Neighborhood
SoMa
SoMa, short for South of Market, is downtown's engine room: the convention center, the ballpark, the big museums, and the headquarters of several companies you have heard of, all on wide blocks that were industrial a century ago and are half construction site now.
Neighborhood
Financial District
The Financial District is the city's office core, a canyon of towers between Market Street and the waterfront, built on Gold Rush landfill over what used to be Yerba Buena Cove.
Neighborhood
Hayes Valley
Hayes Valley is what happens when you take down a freeway.
Neighborhood
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is 1,017 acres of what used to be sand dunes, laid out from 1871 and planted into existence by hand.
Neighborhood
Marina
The Marina is flat, which in San Francisco is close to a miracle.
Neighborhood
Mission District
The Mission is the warmest, sunniest neighborhood in San Francisco, and that is not a marketing line: Twin Peaks and Bernal Hill physically block the fog, so this side of town can run ten to twenty degrees warmer than the Sunset on the same afternoon. It grew up around Mission San Francisco de Asís, founded in 1776 and still standing on 16th Street, and it has been the heart of the city's Latino community for generations.
Neighborhood
Sunset District
The Sunset is the city's biggest residential district: mile after mile of pastel rowhouses laid over sand dunes between the park and Lake Merced, built mostly between the 1920s and 1950s, and now one of the most diverse and family-heavy parts of San Francisco.
Neighborhood
Potrero Hill
Potrero Hill is a sunny hilltop of small houses and big views, a neighborhood that grew up around shipyards and light industry and was settled by Russian and Slovenian families after 1906, when the hill's bedrock spared it from the worst of the quake.
Neighborhood
Chinatown
San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest in North America, established in the 1840s and rebuilt after 1906 in a deliberately ornamental style that was partly a survival strategy: make it a destination and the city cannot push the community out.
Neighborhood
Fisherman's Wharf
Fisherman's Wharf is the most visited and least beloved part of San Francisco, and both facts are fair.
Neighborhood
Richmond District
The Richmond runs from the Presidio to Ocean Beach in a flat grid of Edwardians and stucco houses, built after 1906 on what maps used to call the Outside Lands.
Neighborhood
North Beach
North Beach is the old Italian quarter and the city's literary neighborhood, the place where the Beats read poetry upstairs at City Lights and where you can still buy a salami from a counter that has been selling them since 1896.
Neighborhood
Presidio
The Presidio is not really a neighborhood, it is a 1,500-acre national park inside the city that happens to have houses, restaurants and a bowling alley in it.
Neighborhood
South Beach
South Beach is the newest neighborhood on this list: a stretch of the waterfront south of the Bay Bridge that was rail yards and piers until the 1990s, and is now mid-rise apartments, a ballpark and a promenade.
Neighborhood
Nob Hill
Nob Hill is the summit the railroad barons built on, and then lost: the 1906 fire took every mansion but one, and the grand hotels and Grace Cathedral went up in their place.
Neighborhood
Castro
The Castro centers on Castro Street between Market and 19th streets, with Harvey Milk Plaza at the Castro and Market corner.
Neighborhood
Noe Valley
Noe Valley sits in a bowl behind Twin Peaks, which is why it gets sun when half the city does not, and why it filled up with families.
Neighborhood
Pacific Heights
Pacific Heights is the grand one: mansions on a ridge between Union and California Streets, built from the 1870s by people who wanted to be above the city and stayed there.
Neighborhood
Russian Hill
Russian Hill is steep, quiet and residential, a hill of Edwardian apartment buildings and hidden garden lanes with some of the best free views in the city.
Neighborhood
Civic Center & Tenderloin
The Main Library and the Asian Art Museum face Civic Center Plaza, across from City Hall, and host some of the city's best free events for families.
Neighborhood
Bayview-Hunters Point
Bayview-Hunters Point is the city's southeastern corner, along the bay south of Islais Creek.
Neighborhood
Mission Bay
Mission Bay is San Francisco's newest neighborhood, built on former rail yards south of Mission Creek.
Neighborhood
Western Addition & Fillmore
The Western Addition lies west of Van Ness Avenue and takes in the Fillmore, once called the Harlem of the West for its jazz clubs, and Cathedral Hill.
Neighborhood
Excelsior
The Excelsior sits in the southern part of the city, with Mission Street as its commercial main street.
Neighborhood
Glen Park
Glen Park is a small, village-like neighborhood around Diamond and Chenery streets, with Glen Park BART station at its edge.
Neighborhood
Haight-Ashbury
Haight-Ashbury centers on Haight Street, known around the world for the 1967 Summer of Love, and sits beside the eastern end of Golden Gate Park and the Panhandle.
- SoMa18 events · 8 places
- Financial District14 events · 7 places
- Hayes Valley13 events · 4 places
- Golden Gate Park12 events · 4 places
- Marina10 events · 5 places
- Mission District2 events · 9 places
- Sunset District7 events · 4 places
- Potrero Hill4 events · 6 places
- Chinatown4 events · 5 places
- Fisherman's Wharf4 events · 4 places
- Richmond District4 events · 4 places
- North Beach3 events · 4 places
- Presidio3 events · 4 places
- South Beach3 events · 4 places
- Nob Hill0 events · 5 places
- Castro4 events · 0 places
- Noe Valley0 events · 4 places
- Pacific Heights0 events · 4 places
- Russian Hill0 events · 4 places
- Civic Center & Tenderloin3 events · 0 places
- Bayview-Hunters Point2 events · 0 places
- Mission Bay2 events · 0 places
- Western Addition & Fillmore2 events · 0 places
- Excelsior1 events · 0 places
- Glen Park1 events · 0 places
- Haight-Ashbury1 events · 0 places
Guides
Local Know-How, Freshly Checked
Fisherman’s Wharf with Kids, Minus the Tourist Traps
What is genuinely worth doing at Fisherman’s Wharf with kids, what to skip, where locals eat, and why the F-line beats the parking garage.
Updated Sep 24
Best Ice Cream in San Francisco: Institutions and Newcomers
Updated Sep 24
The Best Playgrounds in San Francisco
Updated Sep 23
Rainy-Day Things to Do in San Francisco with Kids
Updated Sep 23
Free (and Almost Free) Museum Days in San Francisco
Updated Sep 23
Kid-Friendly Brunch in San Francisco, by Neighborhood
Updated Sep 23
The Ultimate San Francisco Date Night Guide
Updated Sep 23
New to San Francisco? The Complete Guide to Settling In
Updated Sep 23
Fleet Week 2026 with the Family: Blue Angels, Ships & Where to Watch
Updated Sep 23Original data
San Francisco, by the Numbers
Our own datasets, built from city open data and venues' own pages. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Original research
1.42
Openings & Closings Index
businesses opened in SF for every one that closed in 2025, up from 1.30. By neighborhood, from the city register.
Tracker
39
Closed & Moved
places are not where the guides say. Every closure checked by address against the city register, dated and sourced.
Original research
52%
Museum & Attraction Transparency Index
of 40 SF museums and attractions publish all five basics a family needs: price, hours, access, directions and child prices.
Calendar
10
Free Museum Days
SF museums and attractions with a regular free day for everyone, plus 8 that are always free. Checked on each venue's own site.
Tool
6
Day-Out Cost Calculator
SF attractions don't publish a price you can see without booking. Build a day out and see what it costs, and what nobody tells you.
Dataset
93%
Every SF Park, Compared
median city maintenance score. From 71% to 100%: every park's score, play areas and dog areas in one table.
Calendar
35
Street Fair Calendar
street fairs, festivals and night markets with a city street-closure permit through December. Confirmed, not rumored.
Tracker
5
SF Gallery Index
galleries closed their spaces in the past year, 4 at Minnesota Street Project. 71 still open, with what is on now.
Closed & moved
39 Places Are Not Where the Guides Say They Are.
We check closures against the city business register, by address, and record what is at the address now.
- MovedHaines GalleryUnion Square
- MovedScott Nichols GalleryUnion Square
- ClosedCartoon Art MuseumFisherman's Wharf
- ClosedDel PopoloNob Hill
- DemolishedVaillancourt FountainFinancial District
- ClosedJack Fischer GalleryDogpatch
- MovedInstitute of Contemporary Art San FranciscoFinancial District
Latest
New on Project SF
- New guideSan Francisco Local Legends: Ghost Stories, Myths and What’s Actually True
- New guideSan Francisco Art Galleries in 2026: First Thursday, Where to Go, and What Has Closed
- New guideSan Francisco Pride 2027: Dates, Parade Route and the Civic Center Celebration
- EventSep 25 - Dolly Day in Union Square
- EventSep 25 - Sunset Night Market: Autumn Moon Festival
- EventSep 26 - 4th Annual Circus on the Square with Circus Bella
Around town
- Mission LocalPhysicality forms backbone of exhibit on one of Korea’s most acclaimed artists
- 48 HillsDrama Masks: There’s a flesh-eating alien plant inside the queer theater!
- SF StandardShe coined the term ‘third-wave coffee.’ Now she’s poised for a big comeback
- Eater SF13 Thrilling Thai Restaurants in San Francisco
- SFistSF Giants Fan Gets Roasted For Sitting In Stands While Partner Carries Baby, Plates of Food
How we work
Checked, Dated, Independent.
From the Source
Dates, prices and addresses come from the organizer's, venue's or agency's own page. If it isn't published, we say so.
Dated, and Re-Checked
Guides show when they were last checked, and our calendar is reviewed twice a week.
Nobody Pays to Be Here
No paid listings, no rankings for sale. When we get something wrong, we correct it in public.
Running Something in San Francisco?
Send us your event. It's free, and we list what's open to the public.