By Amy Wolf, Sunset travel editor
Especially if you live in the Bay Area, chances are you’re a bit of a snob when it comes to food and drink. Don’t feel bad—it’s not your fault; everything’s so darned expensive these days that it’s hard not to have really high standards.
But once in a blue, blue moon, it’s still possible to stumble upon a restaurant or bar that doesn’t seem hip to the fact that it could charge a fortune if it wanted to. And so it doesn’t.
That’s the case at the Presidio Yacht Club, a cozy old military-era bar in historic Fort Baker, smack on the north side of San Francisco Bay. This is the view from the window. I kid you not.
My husband, an avid fisherman, has been raving about this place for years. I finally let him take me there the other day, since we were staying nearby at the we’re-charging-a-fortune-because-we-can Lodge at Cavallo Point, San Francisco’s first national park lodge. (Which I must admit is so fabulous it is worth every cent of the $250-plus-plus splurge for a room.)
Maybe it was because we were starving, having just hiked the Coast Trail in the Marin Headlands with 30-pound kids on our backs, or maybe it was because we had zero expectations, but somehow this little yacht club joint—which charges $4–$5 for a beer on tap and $5 for a very plain-jane hot dog or grilled cheese or veggie burger—quickly earned a place in our book as the Bay Area’s absolute best and most underappreciated post-hike lunch spot.
We sat there eating our burgers and dogs and drinking our beers while watching an outrigger canoe race framed by that view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The man who served us our beers was nice and explained the history of the place, which was built as a boat house in World War II, servicing submarine nets. Can you imagine? (The above, by the way, is an exterior shot of the place.)
I know what you’re thinking because I had the same thought. No, you can’t buy the joint and turn it into an upscale restaurant or wine bar or whatever else you had in mind, because it’s owned by the military and they like it just the way it is.
And so do I.
