On a Mission with Jed

In addition to great coffee, Ritual offers a long table for working in the back, and a little parklet outside.

One of my wife and my favorite things to do is go to this place in the Inner Richmond called Green Apple Books. We're both bibliophiles, so we'll go there and spend a lot of time.

There's a great dim sum place nearby called Good Luck Dim Sum. Good Luck is the kind of place where two people can spend $15, and you're incredibly full, and then you still have a thing of leftovers. You can pick it up and take it to the park and eat it there. If you're not into dim sum, there's a place called Bunn Mi that I think is the best banh mi in the city.

Cozy, not creepy, Paxton Gate feels like the museum gift shop you'd find if you turned your eccentric explorer grandfather's attic into a museum.

One of our other favorite places is a place in the Mission called Wise Sons Deli. You can't go wrong with the Reuben there. They make their own pastrami, and it's the best I've ever had.

If we're in the Mission, we'd walk up and down Mission and Valencia, and just window shop. On Valencia, you can't go wrong with Ritual. That's quality coffee. Borderlands Books is an amazing place for sci-fi, fantasy type books. Paxton Gate has great quirky nature stuff and jewelry. It's really interesting and a fun place to browse. They have some weird taxidermy.

Right next to Paxton Gate, there's a pirate store. I think the deal is they wanted to open a tutoring center and couldn't get it zoned, so they opened up a pirate store. There's tutoring in the back.

Speakeasy Inception with Leo

Dandelion Chocolates is a Willy Wonka Factory-like space that hosts factory tours and classes, as well as educational "chocolate trips" to cacao destinations including Belize and Ecuador.

Start at noon. Get the California Gold sandwich at Mission Cheese. You will die. Did you get that? You'll die.

Next door, you've got two options. Number one. Dandelion Chocolates. I recommend the frozen hot chocolate--it's bomb. Next door to that is Craftsman and Wolves, where they have some pretty good fancy desserts. So that's lunch and a snack.

If you have a car, drive to Bernal Heights, which is...sleepy. Very sleepy. There's a park there, with a hill and a tree. I guess it's called Bernal Heights Park. Almost no one goes there, but it probably has the best view of San Francisco looking northward. Although...if you want to take that picture with the swing that people keep Instagramming, that's Billy Goat Hill.

In the evening, get dinner at Chutney, an Indian restaurant in the Tenderloin. It's my favorite restaurant. Right next to it is a speakeasy, called Bourbon and Branch. Behind a coat rack in Bourbon and Branch is another speakeasy, called Wilson and Wilson Private Detective Agency. When you knock on the door for Bourbon and Branch, it's one password. When you call to reserve, they'll give you a password. But there'd be a different password for Wilson, and you'd also get it when you reserve. Or, you can go to the library. You have to pull a book at Bourbon and Branch for the library. The password is "Books." I don't know. It's always "Books."

Tradition is one block away. It's in the same family of bars, but completely different. I recommend making a reservation. If you reserve, you can go to the back, and you get a book of cocktails with drinks separated by type--tiki bar, dive bar, etc. If you don't have a reservation, you only get a subset of that menu.

Expect incredible city views and very happy off-leash dogs at Bernal Heights Park.

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For Fisherman's Wharf, for Lombard Street.

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To eat and drink delicious things, and to wear a light jacket everwhere.

The gentrified and non-gentrified parts of the Mission, Chinese food in the Richmond, clubbing in the Castro and in SoMa, Billy Goat Hill, and that gimlet at the Interval at Fort Mason.

Day trip to Mt. Tam with Yu-Sung

According to Yu-Sung, the best place to end your day in San Francisco is the Sutro Baths, for an impressive sunset over the ocean. (Photo from YS)

Eat your toast underneath a giant rope chandelier at The Mill.

Wake up and go to The Mill. Get Four Barrel coffee and a toast. Or two toasts. They have sweet and savory, but I think sweet is better. But really, why not get both? I’d recommend their housemade Nutella.

The toast is so good! It’s not like a cake, but it has that texture between a tea cake and a toast. So dense and chewy…and almost crumbly in some sense? So good. So good! You can do this all before 9. And then I would walk to Alamo Square Park.

If you have a car, drive up to Mt. Tam. You don’t have to hike it, but the view from there is utterly gorgeous. You can see Oakland, Sausalito, SF, and all the bridges that connect the Bay Area. Just drive up to the viewpoint.

You’re probably hungry for lunch at this point. On your way down, I’d go to Sausalito. There’s apparently a really good cash-only place called Fish. Period. Just “Fish.” It’s kind of expensive, actually. Then there’s people who live in floating houses. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can rent a kayak and take pictures of the houses. There’s this one really cool geometric one, and apparently it’s on Airbnb. It’s super modern—really, really neat.

Then come back to SF. Maybe you could go to Tartine. The best time to visit Tartine is after 4:30 pm, because then you can get freshly made bread. Just beware that the lines are long on weekends. Bring a friend and share some Bi-Rite ice cream sandwiches for the line.

Definitely go to the Sutro Baths in the afternoon. Watch the sunset there. And if you have a little more time you can even walk the Land’s End trail. You can walk from the Legion of Honor to the Sutro Baths. There’s also a cool little tunnel next to it that you can duck into, and you can hear the waves crashing in a super cool way.

Once the world's largest indoor swimming pool complex, complete with multiple pools, water slides, and a high dive, the Sutro Baths shuttered and then burned down in the '60s.