Spare yourself the side-eye. Whether you’re a recent transplant or a lifer, a little San Francisco city etiquette goes a long way. Follow these suggestions to avoid the resentment of your fellow Muni riders, bar-mates, neighbors and dinner party companions.
1. Put down your phone. There’s no more pervasive dinner party irritant than the guy who feels compelled to spend 20 seconds twitchily hunched over his iPhone to fact-check a point. (Even worse: he who relies on a voice-enabled personal assistant. Leave Siri out of this.) Don’t turn a casual discussion into a mobile-race to Wikipedia.
2. Edit. Not every #sunset calls for a hashtag. Not every breakfast requires Walden-filtered photographic evidence. Not every dog is destined for @DogsofInstagram. (Pet him, don’t pose him.) Sometimes, a mirror is a better option than a selfie.
3. Respect San Francisco’s past. The city may be filled with transplants, but it was built by generations of locals, many of whom still live here. (No, we’re not just talking about the stragglers on Haight Street.) Contribute to your community rather than griping about what’s wrong with it over brunch. Meet your neighbors.
4. Accept San Francisco’s future. Those building cranes, Google buses and $15 cocktails aren’t going anywhere, and railing against every oblivious young thing in a start-up T-shirt isn’t a solution. Meet your neighbors.
5. Don’t be a slave to your neighborhood. Never leaving the Mission (or the Marina) is an embarrassment. Venture 20 minutes in any direction. For starters, you’ll find authentic dumplings, dog-friendly beaches, the final frontier of affordable apartments, hidden-gem salvage yards, warehouse wineries and the kind of scenery that will make your New York, Chicago and Los Angeles-dwelling friends question their life choices. While you’re at it, get the hell over the bridge.
6. Put disruption to bed. Things that have been “disrupted” of late: food delivery, taxis, interior design, reservations, eyewear, ride-sharing, doctor’s appointments, agriculture, the housing market, laundry, grocery stores, the school system, philanthropy, radio, retail and manicures. We’ve disrupted everything left to disrupt. Find a new word: This one has been beaten into the ground by start-ups, SXSW and click-bait bloggers.
7. Be decisive. Don’t test San Franciscans’ default good humor. If you’ve been waiting in line for longer than five minutes—whether it’s for a coffee, an ice cream, a cocktail or a burrito—don’t wait until you reach the register to take a gander at the menu, chat up the cashier and mull over your options. If you’re over the age of 10 and you’re requesting your fourth ice cream sample, you’re being a dick.
8. Don’t abuse our casual dress code. Hoodies are delightful: They’re comfortable, warm and wrinkle free. The same goes for yoga pants. But let’s acknowledge the difference between a loungewear occasion and one that merits clothes requiring a hanger. If it’s after 5pm, kindly wriggle out of your neon cycling spandex and into something less crotch-forward.
9. Be able to endorse the following: a solid Napa or Sonoma winery; a local brewery; a scenic, low-intensity hike; and a no-frills, late-night Mexican joint. Don’t let your visitors languish in Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf. Do the right thing.
10. Don’t mistreat your ride-share driver. Oh no, you’re late for work? You’ve had a few too many drinks? You’re frustrated by downtown traffic? Suppress your ego trip/sexual impulses/unwelcome rant/urge to vomit and exchange basic pleasantries. Would you rather return to those dark, not-so-distant pre-Uber days? As you’ll recall, we spent our nights unsuccessfully attempting to hail cabs, being stood up by dispatched cabs and bitching about the dearth of cabs.
11. Rather than funding “the arts,” support the artists. There’s more to San Francisco’s art scene than the big four—opera, symphony, ballet and A.C.T. Every start-up with seed funding is reaching for ways to appropriate the local art community’s cool; meanwhile, many of the artists themselves are struggling to stay here. Tip the band, buy a print or seek out an independent show.
12. Observe Muni etiquette. Let passengers off before climbing on. Know where you’re going. (Unless you want to provoke everyone on-board into a silent rage, do not hold up the bus to quiz your driver about her route.) If it’s crowded, take off your backpack. This isn’t a listening party, it’s a cranky, captive audience—wear headphones. Don’t treat the bus or train like your own personal breakfast nook. Back door? Step down. STEP DOWN. Thank your driver.
13. Shut up about your FitBit. Everyone you know may be training for the next 5K/marathon/triathlon/Iron Man/century ride, but that’s no excuse to launch into a pissing contest about how fast you ran, how far you hiked or how steep the grade was. Save it for Strava.
14. Don’t foist your gluten-free-meat-free-carb-free-dairy-free-sugar-free dietary restrictions on everyone else. If you’re eating out, call ahead. If you’re going to a dinner party, BYO side dish (along with the requisite booze, of course). We respect your self-restricted lifestyle. We admire it, even. We just don’t want to have yet another conversation about your plummeting body fat percentage, the inhumane treatment of chickens or how bread makes you lethargic.
15. Keep Dolores Park clean. Like kids with “cool” parents who look the other way, we live in a city that lets us drink, smoke and otherwise weird-out on in a glorious park in the middle of the city. The least you can do is pick up your trash. If you’re new to town, take 10 seconds and suss out the three-bin system. Welcome to San Francisco! We compost.