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: Pitt's Pub.
While much of the world sweats and swelters under the oppressive summer sun, I’ve been sleeping with two down comforters and preheating my hoodies with a space heater. If it weren’t for the longer days, it’d be hard to tell today from March from November from August. I refer to it as “the bleed,” how the days and seasons and years bleed together under a blanket of offshore fog.
Nonetheless, summer comes and goes; if you don’t want it to slip through your fingers, you need to take advantage of those long days, fog or shine. After work recently, I hopped on my bike and took myself through Golden Gate Park out to the ocean despite the whipping, wet headwind. All throughout the park, people were making do. Some volleyballers played barefoot and in tank tops like it was Pacific Beach. Others laid with their abdomens to the sky, as if under the sun, on blankets and towels. Girls caught up over spritzes in their puffers.
I sought a vibe of beachside towns further south for a summertime beer; I found a bar two blocks from the ocean, though you’d never know it save for the salty air that wafts in through its perma-open saloon door and the revolving door of Oakley-wearing lifeguards.
Pitt’s Pub is an unassuming dive with a loyal following on the corner of 47th and Judah. Pitt’s (formerly known as Pittsburgh’s) has always been divey and grimey, though it’s gotten friendlier ever since a couple local surfers decided to take the helm post-pandemic. One of these local surfers is Andy Olive, who, in addition to co-owning Pitt’s, is a part owner of Hook Fish Company and also co-founded the brand San Franpsycho. Olive co-owns Pitt’s with Matt Lopez, who opened the very Santa Barbara-coded cocktail bar White Cap, also in the Outer Sunset.
I wasn’t the only one who felt at home at Pitt’s. In one corner, some pool-playing buddies lounged on couches, their feet kicked up onto the coffee table with collegiate ease. Several dogs came in and out, and patrons helped themselves to treats from a bin behind the bar in an attempt to earn their affections. Some left their half-drank beers for several minutes and returned to the bar with an array of corner store snacks, turning the repurposed keg tables into a makeshift feast.
Pitt’s is an aural assault. The bar plays an eclectic mix of obnoxious turn-of-the-century rap-rock and hip-hop, including Limp Bizkit, Cypress Hill, and Crazy Town. (The cleanest thing in the bar was the radio edit of “Get Low” by Lil Jon.) The entire building rumbles with every passing N train. The sporadic and piercing crack of the cue against phenolic resin is guaranteed to absolve you of any surviving thoughts.
Pitt’s has a decent draft list that features suspiciously few tried and true classics. They’re currently pouring Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Original Pattern, and Russian River’s notorious Pliny the Elder, among others. There’s a $15 card minimum, so if you’re cashless, the pint of Moscow Mule will clear the bar at $13 plus tax and tip. Or, if you’re looking for something totally irresponsible, the lovely bartender will give you one or two glasses (but no more) of their very boozy hurricane slushie, though you’re capped at two per night.
Much space is left for mingling and movement. On one side, a long bar seats a dozen-plus. Opposite to that, the faux-living room is situated behind the pool table. (There was a bar versus bar game occurring; the guys from International Sports Bar in North Beach were the away team.) The room also features a few cocktail-height tables and a swanky pleather banquette for loungey seating, made only slightly less swanky by the repurposed keg tables. Track lighting behind the banquette frattily illuminates a wood-panelled wall covered in dozens of old framed photographs.
Contrasting aesthetics arm wrestle for space. Both fish and game are mounted on the bar’s various walls: marlins, a deer head (with a lifesaver around its neck), and a boar head. Up high, flags for San Francisco sports teams fill the space left open by old surfboards and Steal Your Faces. Neon beer signs are shoved into the same corner as rusty diving helmets and nets. The blue light of ESPN ricochets off the black-and-white photos of Ocean Beach. Things like land and sea, past and present, here and there, summer and San Francisco are all parts of its whole, not diametric oppositions. It’s boyishly vibe-blind and wonderfully earnest.
As a beach lover who almost never makes it to the Outer Sunset, Pitt’s reminds me of all the diverse ways of living in this seven-by-seven city; how different someone’s day can be based solely on their neighborhood’s longitude. It also reminds me of a bar my family frequents (well, the ones that aren’t banned) at the Jersey Shore: ridiculous vibe, rowdy clientele, khakis and beach patrol hoodies, totally standard drink selection, totally neighborhoody. It reminds me that no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you’re always going to be missing something. Might as well not miss the summer while you got it, however you got it.
Go if you like: Rescue dogs, paying with cash, Barbarian Days, counting a dip in the ocean as a shower
Ask for: A pint-sized mixie
Leave: On your hoodie and your jacket and your beanie
Avoid if you want: To not feel intimidated playing pool
Pitt’s Pub is open 3 p.m. to midnight Monday through Wednesday; til 1 a.m. on Thursday; 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday; and noon to midnight on Sunday.
