Welcome to Drinking Companion, a 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. Next up: Fool's Errand.
It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. You’re about to link with a friend for a glass of wine (read: split a bottle) and you need a chill, centrally located gem with an extensive wine list and outdoor seating to soak up every molecule of vitamin D that has elbowed its way through the marine layer.
Don’t worry, I’ve got just the place!
Fool’s Errand, a cellar-like bar at 639A Divisadero St. between Hayes and Grove streets, fits all of the above criteria and more. Its brown-gray facade offers virtually zero indication of there being a business inside, but the open accordion-style window seat and bistro tables filled with chatty drinkers will clue you in on its existence.
Neighborly but not locals-only, hip but certainly not hipster, Fool’s Errand strikes the perfect balance between nonchalant atmosphere and sophisticated wine selection.
The bartenders typically offer around 15 different wines by the glass, all in the $12 to $15 range, as well as a dozen beers on tap or in cans or bottled. You won’t find a hard seltzer.
Fool’s Errand wine selection is notably not natty-dominant, which we forget is an option in present-day California. Riesling is the favorite child (communicated on the menu and chalkboard sign), but they offer a vast range of eclectic European and Californian wines.
If you’ve never let people forget about that one summer you worked in a tasting room (ahem), tuck your hair behind your ears and slink to the back room, where you can easily kill 30 minutes weighing your selection of a bottle. It’s a quiet alcove away from the bar, so you’re left to your own devices (literally, the phone in your pocket) to inform your decision. (I’m sure the bartender would help if you ask, or you can opt for reckless abandon.)
The bartenders here are steady-handed, so a bottle might be more economical than going by the glass. Prices run anywhere from $35 to $160-plus for the cuttier selects. With a huge array of reds, whites, chilled, and sparkling on offer, you’re bound to find something you enjoy.
While they make a nice charcuterie, skip the food: You’ll leave as hungry as you came and no less buzzed. A better option is the free popcorn, the perfect sodium-laced lip-smacking confetti that you can mainline without skipping a beat in conversation.
Owner John Dampeer opened Fool’s Errand in 2018 after two not-so-successful swings at bars elsewhere in the city: He previously ran Caskhouse in Noe Valley and later Hamlet nearby, but eventually closed both. Then Dampeer bet — correctly — on his NoPa bar’s central location, robust foot traffic, and parklet to draw in business.
The bar’s rustic-industrial interior, which is two steps below the sidewalk and largely subterranean, offers a handful of bar seats and some six-seat cocktail tables, great for coming with friends or being encouraged to make new ones. Between the chatter and the street sounds pouring in from the bar’s ever-open door and windows, it’s loud. (So loud, I never noticed what music they were playing.) But this kind of chatty energy, especially on a weeknight in this sleepy city, is worth seeking. Fool’s Errand isn’t a world to sink into, but rather, a blank canvas that assumes the form of its patrons day by day.
On a weeknight, you’ll witness the city’s truest fool’s errand: first dates. However, much like other great bars that just happen to be hotbeds for Hinge users (Horsie’s, The Page, Dalva come to mind) Fool’s Errand shouldn’t get a bad rep for this. It’s easy to drown out the inevitable conversations about sibling counts and SF neighborhoods by inviting your own pals or digitally acquired romantic prospects for scintillating conversation and slaking pours.
Go if you like: Riesling, I guess; a power catch-up with bestie; Warby Parker; The Shins’ Oh, Inverted World; minimal intervention
Ask for: A bottle of the Ayler No. 25, a bone-dry and stony Riesling
Leave: Your Marlboro Golds in your purse (not the vibe)
Avoid if you want: A cozy booth to disappear into
Fool’s Errand is open 2 p.m. to 12 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday and until 10 p.m. on Sunday and Monday.
