Where to throw a party in San Francisco?

September 14, 2009 2:03 PM

Suggestions for birthday party locations to rent in San Francisco?

I'm thinking about throwing a party for my 40th birthday in October and have been racking my brain for ideas for places to go or to rent. My best guess is about 30 people (could be less or more, probably depending on how cool the event is!), preferably an evening/night event, and those thousand-dollar-and-up uber-swanky places are definitely out. It's quite likely I'd want to have a couple bands I know play, and have some sort of music going (probably from an ipod playlist) the rest of the time. I could set up some sort of bar if the venue doesn't have one--quite a number of my friends are big drinkers, so availibility of booze would help grease the rails!

Every year on my birthday I just have friends show up at a bar (Zeitgeist, Casanova) so I don't have to bother with planning. This year I'm open to trying something a little more special--but ideally I'd like the venue to be cool enough that it will do some of the work of making the party successful. (I don't want a bunch of people standing around just *looking* at each other. Horror!)

Any suggestions would be gratefully welcomed. From looking at past Metafilter postings, it looks like art galleries are a possibility--does anyone know one or two in particular that might do the trick? I'm also open to suggestions for places or party ideas that are very cool but that are outside of what it seems I'm looking for.

posted by roxie110 to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (2 answers total)

This might not be at all what you're looking for, as it wouldn't allow the band part of plan, but some friends and I rented a private trolley/cable car for New Year's last year, and it was fabulous (we're doing it again this year). The company we went through was Events West and they provided a bartender and full bar for the evening. It certainly wasn't cheap, I think $100 a person, but it might be less for a non-new year's event, and that included the all you can drink bar for the evening. It would definitely be special, and the trolley is bus-like in that it can go anywhere, so you can specify locations and routes. I have great memories of dancing the night away with my friends with SF's great views and city sights zooming by around us.
posted by wuzandfuzz at 4:10 PM on September 14, 2009

Slovenian Hall.
posted by pianomover at 9:15 PM on September 14, 2009