Arrow Bar

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The last time I didn’t go to arrow bar and my friends did, two of the band members from the killers left me a voicemail thanks to a pal. see… if you didn’t go you missed out.

I met my boyfriend outside the Arrow Bar so I have to give it 3 stars.
Provided me with enough entertainment on nights where there was nothing else/​better to do.
Arrow Bar-you’re better in my memories anyway.

Arrow bar, when you existed, you were a mess.
Kinda glad you’re gone.

I once had an incredible night dancing with Parker Posey to The Smiths in a cavernous dive in the East Village. Her blonde male companion sat staring at us for 30 minutes while I wisped her around the dance floor to the sounds of «This Charming Man,» «Bigmouth Strikes Again,» and more. Alas, she left with him.
The scene at Arrow Bar in San Francisco came really close to what I felt that night in New York, and that’s why I loved it.
Cavernous — check.
Wild dancing to The Smiths — check.
Girls who looked like Parker Posey — check.
This new place is lame compared to the Institution that was Arrow. Bridge and tunnel, cheesy oil paintings and terrible pop music.
You will be missed.

This is a place you would go to cut a line of coke, snort it off the bar, and then pound 6 shots of dirty ass vodka. Only to turn around and slit your wrist with a rusty knife used to cut rotten limes for flat, very cheap, and nasty skunked Mexican beer.

The dance floor is one of the smallest in the city, but one of the most packed (usually). A good way to tell if it’s going to be a rockin night at Arrow: only go in if they are charging a cover, otherwise its sure to be a slow night.
The drinks are cheap and there are often people with their shirts off. If that’s not your scene then I can’t help you. It is the Frisco Disco afterall.
05÷16÷07 UPDATE:
For $ 160,000 it can be yours.
;

Ive never really liked this bar, and yet i somehow always end up there for too long.
The two stars are for the two cute girlie bartenders that work there that are super nice to you no matter what.
The reasons why this place sucks:
1) always a cover… they should be thankful that i even want to go into that hole in the wall… shoot they should pay me
2) always a line on the weekends as if its some great club
3) music selection not so great. they always end up mashing really good songs together in to one big un-​dance-​able mess, and the speakers in there always cut out.
4) and finally one night my friend and i sat there for about 4 hours waiting for the guest dj who we really wanted to see only for her to never show up.
i don’t understand why this bar is so «hip»
oh wait yes i do… have to powder your nose?
gross

Q: What’s the difference between a hooker and a whore?
A: A hooker is the poor gal who works her trade on the mean streets immediately outside the Arrow, taking cash from desperate men in return for desperate sexual acts, whereas a whore is a typically coked-​out middle-​class pig (male or female) who sluts their way around the inside of the Arrow and acts like they’re so effing cool for being so urban and dissolute.
Needless to say, I can do without whores. Even when I have money to spend, they’re not worth a dime. At least hookers are honest about their own existence.
What’s really sad is that I like the bar architecture itself: The front area feels like an Art Deco cocktail lounge that went into a coma around 1937 and woke up again in 1975, only to find someone had added a miniature back dance floor with glittery disco stalactites on the ceiling. And the toilet is almost as gnarly as CBGB’s legendary pissbox. I could imagine spending some serious time here, curling my nose up to a whisky glass and ignoring the sober world.
Alas, I can’t ignore the usual Arrow Bar clientele. They’re worse than slumming hipsters… they’re slumming losers who would give their trust funds to BE hipsters, but instead they’re just pathetic geeks who give their trust funds to their coke dealers and pretend like the DJs are totally skilled and «radd,» even if they’re merely cueing up one predictable K-​Tel Records retro meatball after another.
Three stars for the architecture.
Negative one star for the people.
I hope neighbors from the local SROs decide to camp out here someday and scare the slumming twerps away for good. It’s always a shame when spoiled, self-​congratulatory brats ruin what could otherwise be a fine place to drink.

Sometimes «cokewhore-​infested dive» isn’t an insult. Arrow Bar brings this to a science. Every night here is formulaic lolariousness. If only the bathrooms were better for rails.
As a professional art critic I find the décor of this dive tacky yet acceptable.

The Arrow: Always has interesting bartenders
***Shout Out to Hot Gay Josh and Universe (her name is Universe how could she NOT be interesting?) ***
Great place for a drink between 5:00 and 7:00pm. Any later than that and the Hipsters show up and get territorial (which can be fun to watch) and for some reason, every DJ there turns the music up to intolerable levels. The Cave motif makes me want to paper mache’ my ceiling with stalagmites (or is it –tites?)
Overall, if you’re looking for a nice non-​confrontational drink, check out Arrow before 7:00.

I’ve been to the Arrow a few times now. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it. I usually go there to meet friends who have a fondness for the place. This bar has some good things going for it. The back half of the joint has a modest dance floor, with the surrounding walls fashioned as though you were in a cave. There’s a tiny DJ booth to go along with it.
This particular time we went, the bartender was dressed in a cheap Darth Vader suit sans helmet. He was also particularly friendly and hard working. Bonus.
Lastly, for those who are wondering, this place is not a dive bar. Charging a cover at the door instantly disqualifies you from being a dive. Period. End of discussion. There’s no coming back from that one. Being in a seedy neighborhood doesn’t make up for it. Having nasty bathrooms won’t change the grade. Old signs hanging behind the bar? Nope. Sorry.
Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be back again even if it’s not a dive.

Not sure the usual crowd that goes here but it certainly gave off the Emo/​Goth vibe, strangely the Bar tender had a Darth Vader costume on, minus the helmet (actually added a star for that). Pretty good atmos in a dive bar kind of way, good beer, a DJ in the cave in the back, all in all I spent a not unpleasant hour here.
Also worth mentioning there is an awesome Vietnamese restaurant next door, and a great burrito place 2 doors down (toward market). Anyone know what those are called?

I would totally love this place if:
a) I were 19 and just scored a fake ID.
b) I had a closet full of bad vintage clothing that I wanted desperately to show off.
c) I wanted to hear all the same records I have at home that I’ve heard for the past 10 years.
d) I wasn’t afraid of sticking to the floor permanently.
Cheap drinks are what allow me to give it more than one star.
I’ve been here at least 5 times, and never have I been impressed.
Thank god there’s so rarely to never a DJ I want to hear play records playing here or else I’d have to venture to this cavern of cocaine more often.

This place is just too nostalgic for me these days. I remember the dot-​com boom happened right around the time that I was turning 21 and getting into the bar scene. There was a distinction between being in the mission duking it out with the bar 6 nights a week in hipster heaven around 16^th and Valencia.
God, I was kicked out of the Kilowatt 3 times in one week. This is where I got my wheels. Just around the time that I was growing out of that kind of scene (mission hip heaven) the arrow bar showed up…
At the time I talked a fair amount of shit on the place as it was ‘new’ and trying to be more gritty than all of the places that I came up in… don’t try me dudes… So, I kind of had to hate this place and the drug fueled parties that happened there. for no good reason.
Then I came back to Arrow a few times this year and it reminds me of exactly what it was like to be in the mission 7 years ago, I think it is because the drinks are strong as shit, cheap and it is so dark that you can’t tell if your date is even cute.

Indier than thou, that’s for sure. I used to hate this place. Not only because of the stink, the skanks, or the craptacular layout, but also because I was always treated like I wasn’t cool enough to be there. And if you know me, I’m cool enough to be ANYWHERE.
So I don’t know if it’s undergone a change, or perhaps I’m now more accepted by the hipster set because I have a really shitty haircut — either way, I get treated better in here now, so it’s my defacto stop before a show at the Warfield.
That said, it’s still filthy, nasty, and oh-​too-​hip to be a destination.
And how they have the gall to charge cover sometimes or to book bands is beyond me. My poor friend’s band was shoved into the corner for a gig there, just before playing Fillmore-​sized venues on a UK tour. Mad disrespect.

Perhaps I just went on the wrong night but can sum this place up in one word — yuck!
It seems like a dive, the restrooms are nasty enough to qualify, the bar sticky enough, the draft flat enough, but alas, it isnt a dive so loses all the «dirty nasty dive» points instantly.
I think this bar used to be a dive, and I would have likely enjoyed it as just that, IF the scensters hadn’t come in and changed all of that. No self respecting TL dive would charge $ 5 for a well drink and charge a cover to boot. Just so you can hang out with a bunch of 20 something mods who are stealing that hip look from the 60s because they cant find one of their own.
Shame on Arrow for allowing those kids to drive out the old man sitting on the barstool he has probably populated every day for the past 30 years. Shame, shame, shame.
This place will eventually be a dive once more — its got all of the nasty, sticky elements just waiting in the lurch. Maybe when it reclaims that title I will go back. For now I am done with this place.

First time it was some time in January and I had a blast. It was the Frisco Disco and the beats were making me move my feet. Some cheap choices available for beer and a group of random girls in the bathroom offered me a line of coke.
Second time, meh. Third time, bleh. Fourth time, lame.
Actually I think 2 of the 4 times I’ve been someone inside had the worst B. O I’ve ever smelt in my life. I wanted to vomit. It’s a tight little dance floor so when it’s filled with hipsters it can get pretty ripe in there.
It’s really hit or miss I think and it depends a lot on the DJ playing. I’ve given up on it lately. But I’m sure it can still have it’s good moments.

I can’t believe I just gave the Arrow Bar five stars. Whatever. Frisco Disco is the best place to have a great time with people you hate. Like, if these same people were at the Rickshaw (and they are) I’d be having a horrible time. I don’t know what it is. Magic, perhaps.
3.18.07 Edit: RIP Frisco Disco.

I only stayed here for a few drinks with my date until a private Party at Mr. Smiths finished up. But the drinks were affordable and the bartenders (and the owner behind the bar) were accommodating and quick.
I highly recommend those of you who, like me, enjoy the scene at ANU (cross the street) and MR. SMITH’S (down the long alley or down market at 7^th) should go to Arrow, have a few drinks, and then go to Añu, if they make you wait in line, you’ll enjoy the experience a lot more and when inside, your wallet will thank you.