Welcome to Drinking Companion, a new column about our favorite bars in San Francisco. Each month, we’ll be toasting the places that inspire us to get dressed, go out, and get a drink or two. First up: Horsies Market & Saloon.
Horsies Market & Saloon was one of the first bars I went to when I moved to San Francisco. Back then it was called the Royal Cuckoo Market and it checked all of my boxes: a combination of string and candle light, shelves of vinyl sensibly-selected and spun by the bartenders, Belgian beer, intimately-spaced seating, tchotchkes, and the coziness of a perfect winter’s night fossilized into a few square feet.
Horsies also contained an anonymous magnetism, a synecdoche of whatever it was that drew me to San Francisco even as I struggled to catch my footing here. In the few years since, I’ve been able to pinpoint those things that filled me with hope for this place: friendly faces, home -away-from-home comfort, oddities and antiques over sterility and trend-chasing, and an awareness that character isn’t so fleeting after all.
Horsies is located at 3368 19th between Mission and Capp on a quiet block on the periphery of the Mission’s main business corridors. The narrow, horse-themed vermouth bar feels like it could capsize under the strain of a party of six. Outside, one small bistro table, some benches and a parklet offer far more seating than the bar’s interior, and much more secondhand (or firsthand) smoke. In the warmer months, bands play.
Inside, the bar runs along its eastern wall and seats six. Short two-tops draped with patterned tablecloths, candles and dried flowers line the opposite wall. Above them, a gallery of folksy bric-a-brac — mostly horse-themed — stretches ceiling-high. Ten paces in, through the petite saloon doors is a piano and a refrigerator stocked with Berliner Wiesse, Peroni, ciders, ginger beer, sodas and chilled wines. Around the bar, handwritten notes help the customer behave, something many of us have forgotten how to do: “Don’t play the piano. Nobody knows you!”
If you’re a vermouth lover, ask for their signature drinks such as the Horsies Special, or one of their vermouth spritzes. Since their mixed drinks are made with fortified wine, the menu is generally low ABV. Over the holidays, they are offering Danish-style Hvid Glögg, mulled wine made with cinnamon, anise, cardamom, almonds, golden raisins and lemon. (The whole place smells like a Glögg candle right now.) You can also grab a glass of glou-glou or a wheaty beer from the back fridge. Nonalcoholic options include ginger beer, sodas, or hot tea.
Horsies has experienced a spike in popularity over the past several months, a good thing for its bottom line, but a mixed thing for its ambience. I do not recommend this as a spot to drag your motley crew on a weekend night. Instead, I recommend you go on a weeknight and get to know the place. Spend a minute (and don’t touch that piano), and you’ll probably make a new friend behind the bar or, at the very least, discover a new favorite tune in one of the records they play.
Allow yourself to sit comfortably in the pauses between record flips and switches and remember that we’re all capable of brief lapses in stimuli. A novel, a notebook, or a little nosiness are all perfect companions at Horsies. If you want to enjoy a neighborhood bar this good, you gotta be a good neighbor.
Go if you like: Natty anything, Glenn Glenn, Marlboros, junk
Ask for: the Nectarine Dream
Leave: your SWE boyfriend
Avoid if you want: a TikTok backdrop
Horsies is open 4 p.m. til 10 p.m. or so Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, and til 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
