Cyril Magnin St, Downtown

Fifth in SoMa is a nice wide city street with lots of stores and hotels. It is just beyond the museum district but not yet into the gay leather section of SoMa or the more industrialized looking section. The Chronicle has its headquarters here in a big building that Minna carves through. You can also find a couple of hotels, the classic looking Pickwick with its Dickensian reference and overall charm; and the tall skyscraping Intercontinental with its tinted glass windows. I would recommend the first, just because of the nice name and outward appearance though I haven’t been in either one.

As far as I am concerned Fifth Street in SoMa is all about the Irish and the French. For the Irish, you have the Chieftain. I don’t mean to sound like a lush, but this is a great Irish Pub. The food is yummy and the atmosphere really does make you feel like you stepped across the Atlantic and into Ireland. (Of course, I’ve never been to Ireland, but my fantasy version of Ireland anyway.) The other reason to take a trip down Fifth is the French food. Le Charm French Bistro is one of the French places on 5th. It is a nice little place although the prices are a bit high and there is not much to look at outside the window, unless you like a bit of rundown looking section of street. Then there is Chez Papa, which is on a better part of the street but equally expensive. Both are good places to celebrate an anniversary, if your spouse likes French food.

Beyond these more Continental draws, 5th also has an Abercrombie and Fitch, just in case you were hooked by their naughty catalogue and if you would like to exercise, the SF Tennis Club is on the south side of Highway 80.

Much of the rest of the street is unremarkable. There is, for example, a place called Harvey’s Place down near Highway 80, but don’t be fooled, this is just a dingy liquor deli. It is not cool Bar and Grill in the Castro, though no doubt it is trying to capitalize on the name of the murdered representative, Harvey Milk. As you get close to Highway 80, the street also gets down right ugly. There are far too many parking lots.

I don’t recall there being anywhere to live on this street, but looks can be misleading in SoMa since so many of the apartments are lofts above the stores. All in all, I don’t think I would want to live right here anyway, regardless of how much I might like the Chieftain.