Pretty decent dive bar in the Haight. If you're looking to escape trendy and crowded bars and just want a place to sit down and enjoy a drink with your friends, Gold Cane is the right spot.
Beer selection on tap is fairly standard, with nothing you've never heard of before. The bartenders are friendly, but won't strike up a conversation with you. Pretty typical.
The great thing here is that the place is so large, finding seating is usually not a problem. If you can, grab a table by the window; makes for great people watching in one of SF's quirkiest districts. The furniture isn't too comfortable, but it gets the job done.
We stopped by here for a quick drink and to get off our feet after some intense shopping up in the Haight. Honestly, we should have gone to Hobson's a few doors down. The bartender was distracted and busy talking to other customers instead of taking our drink order (and he wasn't serving, he was being way too chatty/friendly, which is *extremely* frustrating when you're waiting for service); the music was super loud, to the point that conversations were nearly impossible with someone right next to you; and ultimately the bathroom was super gross: it smelled like pee and had an open window with people standing underneath. That latter bit wasn't too bad (although a bit uncomfortable) until someone opened a door next to the open window and was pretty much at eye level to my eyes as I was sitting on the can. OH HELL NO.
It wasn't the worst experience I've had, hence the two-star rating instead of one, but I'd make a point of going to Hobson's over this place in the future. Or I'll try out some of the other pubs and divebars in the Haight-Ashbury area over this.
Cheapest drinks in the Haight and probably the city. Â Bartenders are very friendly and fun to talk to. Â There's one pool table that stays busy. Â The back patio is great, especially on nice days or if you're a smoker. Â The owner Brendan, is probably one of the nicest guys you'll meet. Â As mentioned in other reviews, the jukebox is very good and diverse. Â During football season Brendan had free footllong hotdogs on MNF during the season. Â All in all if you like dive bars that are spacious and easy to get a drink at, then you gotta make your way to the Cane.
Review Source:Attentive bartenders.  Great cocktails and a good crowd.  They have plenty of seating and an outdoor patio. Every time I have been I have seen a familiar face or two, a pretty good sign in my opinion.  This is a great place to grab a cocktail or two before or after dinner or just because you feel like a cocktail.  It is super casual and always has  good music playing.
Review Source:A normal bar with both sitdown booths and....the bar. Music is a little too loud for me and the 5 selection of beers on tap is not super interesting. I actually don't remember anything other than Anchor Steam. Price is good with tap beers being $4ish and bottled PBR being $2.50. The bartender was friendly and enthusiastic but we had some difficult getting his attention sometimes to get more rounds.
Crowd seemed mostly casual folks, not super blue collar nor super white collar. We had a couple making out next to us for a long time and it was kind of weird (I didn't feel uncomfortable or whatever, just weird that the bartender let it go on).
This is a great local dive bar in the upper haight.
Drinks are cheap ($5 or less), and this place is never packed so it's easy to get a seat/table and just hang out and relax.
I enjoy sitting by the front window and watching the people walking by, it's equally as enjoyable to just people watch the other patrons of the bar, as it welcomes everyone and you get a great taste of the local atmosphere.
I highly recommend checking out this place if you're in the mood for a cheap drinks at a local regulars dive bar.
Dropped by for my 21st birthday, since I wanted the dive bar experience, and it was great.
I like my whiskey, so I asked the bartender to make me something with that. He ended up fixing me a Manhattan, up. It was delicious, and would've only cost me $5, but he gave it to me free for my birthday. A nice tip for you, sir! I ordered a Salty Dog after, and it was still solid and cheap. Most of my friends ordered beer, which was super cheap, about $4 a pint. The atmosphere and people were pretty chill, not too mellow but also not too crazy. The music was great, and the jukebox had a superb selection: from classics (Etta James, Nina Simone) to eclectic (Talking Heads) to a few modern things (Black Keys, Built to Spill). Three songs for a buck... Yes!
Only minor downside was that my friend didn't dig her Long Island Iced Tea ($8). It was tasty to me though!
The friends and I will definitely come back. Honestly, it'll be a regular stop for me from now on. Cheap and solid mixed drinks and beer. Cash only, bud!
How does one start a day in the haight?
At the Gold Cane!!!!
It's a nice lil dark divey bar down there in the haight. Service wasnt that bad and I cant say much about the food. However the drinks were spot on and what else could keep me warm that cold day but a group favorite - irish whiskey!
Be prepared with the cash, no credit card accepted.
;D
We like to come here to get away from the usual haunts in the avenues, the usual crowd at our neighborhood bars. Â Change of pace and all. Â No pretense, just good solid drinking with a band of soldiers there to do the same. Â All ages and backgrounds are here, most well-worn. Â Don't come here looking for Mr/Mrs. Right. Â Just don't - it's not what this bar is for.
Use the patio to smoke, and not the sidewalk. Â If you smoke on the sidewalk, you'll get hit up for a cigarette by every single person walking past, and even a few from the bar who follow you out for that very reason alone. Â For some reason they don't follow you to the patio...
During my almost week-long stay with a friend who lives a block from this place, I came here about 4 times. Crazy, right? I'm in a city for the first time and spend the majority of my evenings here? Well, there is a reason that my friends call this place their local watering hole and by the end of my trip, I understood why.
It's a total dive, that's for damn sure. The decor isn't anything special, there is a pool table in the back, and a back patio that looks like it belongs in someone's house instead of a bar. Despite that, I felt totally at home. This is the type of place where everyone knows each other and the bartenders know what you want before you even order. Hell, by my last night they knew that I was after a Lagunitas IPA. Pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.
In terms of beer, it's ok. Nothing super amazing, but considering most of the dives in my neighborhood in Philly only serve the main domestics and pony bottles of Rolling Rock, I was more than content with Lagunitas and Fat Tire on draft. All beer is $4, too! Such a steal. I love it.
As I previously alluded, the staff is really nice and awesome. I got into a conversation about classical music with one of them because apparently sometimes I sing "thank you" without even realizing it and he picked up my vibrato. Definitely sit and talk to them; they are interesting people.
If I lived here, you better believe the Cane would be my go-to bar. It just felt like a nice bar-home away from home.
My 50th review!! Also happens to be my 500th Tweet!!
And how pleased am I that it gets to go to one of the most amazing SF landmarks?! Pleased indeed.
The Gold Cane has been around forever and ever and really symbolizes what the Real Haight vibe is about. You won't find a bunch of foreign tourists or yuppies in peace shirts here, no. Instead you will be pleased at the sight of locals in their element having a chill, kick ass time.
The bar serves 'em great and always with a smile and witty remark. The pool table is my reason for living. And you just can't beat the patio anywhere in the Haight.
Definitely a place to come and just relax, the people really make this place special.
Ahh, the Gold Cane. Â This has been my go-to place for a quick, chill beer whenever I find myself in the Haight. Don't let the name fool you, this ain't no snoot-n-toot high-brow monacle-wearin' pimp-daddy extravaganza. This here is Divey McCrustydrunk.... it's Fighty McPukenstumble... it's Drinky McDrankydrunk.
This no frills, no pretense cash-only joint is a quintessential SF dive bar. Decent liquor selection, friendly bartenders, pretty good brews on tap, wooden tables/chairs, solid bar, and supposedly a good patio out back (and windows that open wide to the street int the front). The prices are plenty reasonable for being on the Haight and having such a fancy name.
The last time I was in, however, was a doozy. Post B2B, the place was jam packed full of WASTED drunk people, half in costume, 3/4 sunburned, and all 3-sheets to the wind. I almost witnessed a fight, and was actually surprised that a couple of dudes didn't end up with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice lodged firmly upside their heads. It was a rowdy scene, to say the least. Most of the rest of the times I have been in the joint, it's been super mellow. I'm guessing that, while weekend nights get rowdy, the post B2B crowd was a little beyond.
All in all, a good, solid liquor dispensary.
We almost saw a throw down in here last night after B2B.
Homeboy had WAAAAaaaaaay to much to drink and was cursing out his friends, yelling (so angry spit was flying as he was cursing out his friends) before he headed back out the door here to his Zima malt beverage he had waiting outside on the street for him.
He continued to yell through the window out on the street, and was so mad that I was surprised that the bottle didn't end up back in the bar, in someone's head or on the floor next to them.
At any rate, the Lagunitas was delicious and thankfully it came in a red keg cup. Good call, Gold Cane. I think my evening would have been very different if those beers of yours would have come in pint glasses.
I'd come back if I find myself in the Haight when I'm in town again. It looks like they have a decent patio out back.
Leave it to Yelp to notice when you are taking a little hiatus from the addiction of wasting countless hours on the internet writing embarrassing anecdotes about your bad behavior while throwing in (hopefully) one minuscule tidbit of useful information about a place to the general public who are far too smart to use the site for anything other than its intended purpose. Leave it to Yelp to lure you back in like a crack dealer giving a kid their first rock for free.
Thanks, Yelp for pointing out my tendency toward extremes by publishing my ROTD of my extreme (and extremely difficult) behavior of going vegan for a month. Thanks also for doing it right at the time I thought I was kicking my Yelp habit, thus sucking me in once again to the extreme behavior of wanting more bar reviews than anyone else on Yelp.
This now leads me to write about my extreme behavior of not drinking for a month, and what happens when that month is over.
You end up at the Gold Cane. A bar that, though it is spacious and has a back patio for nice days and nicotine addicts, as well as a decent selection of alcohol and a casual yet not quite dirty feel, you just can't bring yourself to go to unless you are completely trashed.
I don't know what it is about this place but it just lacks personality. In its decor, in its patrons, even in its patio which is such a rare commodity in any SF establishment it can't help but be appreciated.
Not at the Gold Cane. It is forgotten by me, until my friends drag me here for my 5th cocktail on 5 hours after not drinking for 32 days...which lands me on the floor, where I lose my keys and dignity and where I finally realize that even the floors are nondescript. It is also where I realize I would much rather be extreme than nondescript.
Saturday afternoon.
At Gold Cane I mulled about the previous night. Where Anne and I were somehow again at the same bourgeois kind-of party-- a trace of red nail polish, ran up the walls from one of the older women with long nails and diamonds. The whole scene fell in much the same way: blazes of witty conversation, scattered blatting about politics. Sometimes even the men raised their glasses to cheer on a dying conversation.
I knew that these people were carried away with money and power, and the proof-- they were always trying to prove they had been right by namecalling and hostility. They looked so awfully beautiful, pausing to sip their scotch or martinis. Â
There was a girl more humble than the others who talked to us. She owned several yoga studios. She'd lived in Montana all her life until she wanted to go places and moved to San Francisco.
Which brings me to my point.
Anne, me, and our new friend sat at Gold Cane, laughing-- raising our hands to brush our hair away from our cheeks. The hairdos we styled last night now coming down upon the shoulders.
We thought we were better than them, as if we could be proud of being working class. We were glad in all sorts of ways.
This is a great little neighborhood dive bar where the drinks are cheap, the bartenders are friendly and the juke box is jammed with some lovely hard to finds. Â The back patio is cute but probably more loved by the smokers and not so much by the asthmatics.
Its a great place to pull up a stool and watch the game. Â It also appears to be a good place for your drunk friends to easily scoop up and take home a nice piece of classy bar trash. Â awesome.
I dropped by Gold Cane last night for what I thought would be some insane drink deals. Â Upon entering the premises I felt an intense feeling of deja vu. Â I felt like I had walked this walk before, the look and feel of Gold Cane was all too familiar.
And then it hit me, I was at this bar before... Many moons ago, when I was a younger man on a bachelor party bar crawl. Â Unfortunately I could not relive the revelry of that night, the Cane was packed and impossible to get a drink. Â I will have to try again next time I'm in the area. Â 3 dollar wells sound awesome.
Patio that you can smoke on....1 star
Ample space for a somewhat large group of people....1 star
Pool table that you can hustle on...1 star
Relatively cheap drinks that you can consume and will lead you to believe you can hustle pool....1 star
Yah...thats all i got. Â Its a bar on Haight. Â Good for hopping...but i wouldn't necessarily spend an entire evening here.
For nostalgia's sake, I had to write a review about this place.
In college, my friends and I would come here...oh, constantly. Â It is so laid back and great, you can smoke in the back, and the drinks are priced accordingly within a college student's budget...I was outraged to go back and find out they raised their well drinks recently by $0.25...which made them $3.00...haha...
The bartenders are really nice, if they aren't wasted, and make a mean drink...almost to the extent of..."um, excuse me, Bartender...can I have some more mixer in this? Â It's flammable as is..."
which, if you're going to get drunk for cheap, this is your place. Â It's a dive bar for sure, but it holds a special place in my heart :)
Do you like the taste of alcohol?
Hells yeah, I sure do. What a night? Drinking with some friends of mine here last night for his going away party was something else. It started with me driving here around 9pm, looking for the place was rather hard, but I managed. The first thing I saw upon entering was the drink specials, any well mix drinks for $3.
Now, you know me, I love me a good drink especially when it's that cheap. Later on that evening, we were asking shooting the breeze outside the back patio having fun when the neighbors called and said, we were being loud. Thanks neighbors!
So, we decided to move it along the streets. Somehow during the night, things started getting worst when we saw this guy come running towards us, it was no surprise that this guy needed our help. He was in frantic and scared for his life. Our immediate reaction was to help this guy. Following him was this entourage of bullies who obviously wanted to kick his ass, for what reason we don't know. The battlefields were 9 to 5, the 9 being us. We had the advantage, the frantic guy ran into the bar and beg for help. We tried to calm these guys down, obviously we wanted to be heros, instead we let them beat the crap out of the other guy.
One of the our friends knew one of the other guys, the frantic guy had apparently hit one of the other guy in the face for what reason I don't care to know. It's a crazy world we live in and I don't need to know why people are the way they are.
Other than that, this bar has a great atmosphere. The bartender is quite nice and old, but he is nice!
Whoever decided to call this place Gold Cane, deserves a Gold freaking star. Â The name is undoubtedly perfect. Â
This dive bar gem reminds me why I love the Haight and need to come around more often.
First off, you walk in and the smell is unmistakable. Â I don't mean in a bad way (i.e. smells of urine on the streets in the Mission)...simply the moldy, musky, scent of a Midwest dive bar. Â Beer soaked carpets, pool tables, dart boards...memories of the old days come flooding back to me when I'm in here.
Where else can you find such an eclectic crowd? Â My favorite was a guy, clearly stoned out of his mind, doing some version of tai chi while he sat at his table drinking a Stella.
Or, equally as entertaining, the drunk bartender reprimanding our group for moving the tables around (as he muttered in what sounded like Klingon under his breath). Â
GOD, I LOVE THIS CITY!!
This place rocks. Â The bar is great, they have awesome beers and there's even an outdoor area for the smokers in your group.
The Gold Cane is my idea of a perfect night out. Â A great place to chill with friends, catch up and relax. Â I will be stopping by here again, no questions.
It seems like every time I come here I leave feeling happy. I go up to the bar and wait for a perfectly poured Guinness. They know how to pour it right: there's always a four leaf clover in the middle! It's adorable.
Although I've perused over the trivia napkins a thousand times, my boyfriend and I still quiz each other on "What is Amazia?" or "What was the last film George Lucas directed?" It never gets old.
The jukebox is playing some awesome combination of tunes ranging from Bob Dylan to Morrissey. It's great.
If you venture out to the back patio, you're bound to make a new friend. Sunday afternoons are my favorite times to go. The regulars there are so nice and are always generously sharing some crazy story with you as they pass around the occasional bowl. Â I've had some of the most intriguing and bizarre conversations in the back.
So what if the place smells like piss and staleness? You'll always have a good time. Isn't that what's most important? It's probably the four leaf clover poured into my Guinness gives me good luck for my every visit here.
AWESOME dive bar in the Haight! Â Friendly, attentive bar staff, cheap drinks, great selection, witty banter circulating from all groups and a noticeable entourage of regulars that give every neighborhood bar its character. Â I've always gotten a good vibe from this place. Â I'm a fan of Hobson's too, but the Cane never lets me down (esp. when Hobson's is packed). Â
And no, you don't need the Haight Street fair raging outside just to have a good time here.
Two stars for what appears to be a pimp manning the door! I love a pimp as much as I love a strong cocktail in the morning and Gold Cane delivered. That's where my love affair with this hole ends.
Leave it to my brother's friends to pick this place. Said friends and I have a long history of tension and mutual dislike for one another because I rock and they do not. That said, this is totally what I would expect them to come up with.
We showed up around closing time to irritate and be irritated by aforementioned friends and were lucky that Mr. Pimpsuit unlocked the door and let us go in to see my bro. I was unimpressed. Some words that come to mind: old, tired, worn out, musty, smelly...with a crowd to match.
It sounds like the drinks are cheap, so maybe if that's all you care about, this place is ok. With it's proximity to Amir's, I have a feeling we'll find ourselves here again someday.
This was an escape from the craziness of the Haight st fair.
Michelle, KP and I were in need of a beer. We had run into Jessica T who recommended we check out the patio. They had the whole thing open. We made our way through the crowd and found ourselves on the patio. Yeah, they even had a bar up there.
We were actually able to hang out there for awhile.
It is all about the patio.
Good old Gold Cane.
Plain Jane Gold Cane.
Bargain Basement Gold Cane.
I don't go into places like this during prime drinking hours, aka, between 7 and midnight Thurs-Sat. Â It's a great Tuesday afternoon place. Â The interior couldn't be more plain, and that's actually good because the basic design eliminates the tourists and those folks (including many MANY Yelpers) who would condemn a place like this as a Dive Bar. Â It's another great example of a neighborhood bar. Â
Lots of career barflys, great bartenders, the trivia napkins are always fun, and the drinks are CHEAP. Â If you want to take your friend from out of town to a place with "personality" take them to Hobson's. Â If you want to talk to your friend and goof around and enjoy the great jukebox, take them to the Cane.
Bonus points for a backyard area that again isn't fancy, but it's outside. Â Bathroom report: Â two of them, his and hers, very plain, and almost completely without graffitti. Â The last two times I was there, both his and hers were in good shape.
I have to give this place five stars. My friend Michael introduced me to it -- when I lived just a few blocks away -- as the only place on Haight where you can hang outdoors. But it's also one of few places where I can say something truly interesting happens, every time I go there. Things like...
1. Some old hippie dude in the back garden starts blubbering when I borrow his guitar for my rendition of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (it was good, but it wasn't THAT good).
2. A drunk Irishman dances toward me, pulls up his shirt, and takes his front teeth out with his tongue.
3. A male nurse gives me and my friend a huge nug of marijuana before slamming his beer and leaving to start his shift (note to self: never patronize St. Mary's Hospital on Stanyan).
4. I hear Alice and Chains, Bjork, and Coldplay flow out of the jukebox in a row. Huh?!
I just really like this place. Despite the fact that the interior of the bar doesn't have a whole lot of character, and it's always too bright in there... So what. There's LIFE HERE, MAN. Stick around for a while, and you'll encounter some interesting shit.
EVERY
EVERY
EVERY
Time that I have been here. I have laughed....drank...and woken up fine the next morning.
This is not the Jessica way.
For realz.
Definitely not the Jessica way.
But something deep inside me sucks up all the good karma and energy in this place and churns it up into water molecules and an inner "no hangover concoction" and I wake up fresh and ready to...
...... well ......do nothing....but all the same - it's the waking up part that counts.
I discovered a blessed drink here.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with it, and I'm angry that I only now  discovered how unbelivably tasty, painless and beautiful the "Irish Car Bomb" is.
One chug and I get googly eyed. Â The froth. The sweet aftertaste. The curdling. It's the Guinness Golden grail. Â My drink of choice. Not the easiest drink to order at hoighty toighty functions....but I'm Welsh. We're hardcore. I have no probem ordering it...anywhere. We're an item through and through.
It was thanks to my friends and Gold Cane's bartender that I stumbled upon the ICB. I wanted something tasty, something that would go down quickly, and....something that would get me to my
"So ....you guys wanna hear something funny....well this one time in....." point
My friends smiled and said some Irish Car Bombs would do the trick. I had six. I was loving it. I was loving life. I was loving everyone. I was in love....
with the Golden Cane....
I love the book shelf at the back of the place, the cheap drinks, the relaxed non-snobby customers, the back patio, and yes...that lovely familiar San Francisco smell that drifts off the back patio.....
The Gold Cane is Gold.
Cheapest drinks in the Haight. Don't be surprised if your Top Shelf firewater here has a suspicious Bomb Shelter whiff about it.
A destination? Not so much. More of an, "We're stuck here so we may as well get trashed-ination".
Smokeasy on the patio. For kicks, sit next to the regular rummy who can kill with breath alone.
Lived down the street for 5 years and think the GC saved me a couple thousand dollars in having to go to Hobson's Choice every night. Â you could probably actually buy a round for the whole bar at this place and it might still cost less than a night out at red sky for one.
No rules other than we don't give a fuck, be nice to the bartender, and make nice with the crazy people. Â
I miss the GC.
A short list of why the Gold Cane is one of best places on Haight to get good and roaring drunk:
1) Three dollar well drinks.
2) A clientele that is always diverse. Wanna-be bike messenger looking dudes rub shoulders with grizzled SF barflys, and look! There's a hippie chick squinting hard at the jukebox and staggering.
3) Free books in the back! Yes, most of them are weird advance printing of books you'd never want, but I've picked up Salman Rushdie, Richard Yates, and Myra Goldberg for free here.
4) Speaking of picking up, this is not a pick-up bar. Not that it doesn't happen, it's just the raison d'etre of this place is one thing: pulling that liquid blanket nice and tight around yourself.
5) The back patio, which lets those of you who still like to get high a place to do it and also letting a cigarette smoker like myself a place to enjoy my drink and my company while destroying my lungs.
6) They have a barback who is really nice and completely out of his mind. He told me one night that Jim Jones put a demon inside of him when he was a boy, and that there are "at least fourteen demons living in San Francisco." Where, I asked, are they living? "Mostly in the Mission."
I like a bar where the bartender drinks. I love a bar where the bartender is drunk. I love the Gold Cane. Went here with some friends who wanted to drink and smoke. The Gold Cane had them covered. The drinks were strong and cheap. Tipsy bartender would give a little extra pour to top off your glass before serving you your drink. When my little extra bit completely missed the glass, I knew my bartender had had more than me.
There's a pool table, a jukebox, and a large, split-level smoking patio. The drinks are cheap ($4 for a generous pour of Powers Irish Whiskey). There were a couple TVs playing college football, but no one in the half-filled bar seemed to mind.
If I were a professional but not very creative sitcom pitcher and I wanted to model a show after Cheers but set it here in SF, I would probably use the GC as my inspiration. Â Aside from maybe Gino and Carlo's, I think the Cane most consistently offers the best and most authentic frisco (oops, sorry) flava.
In addition to the amay back patio, ample seating, and affable staff (they seem to give out free jukebox picks like they grow on trees), the GC boasts a couple of well situated TVs, so I typically stumble over to catch whatever game I happen to be missing due to my lack of cable. Â I prefer it to Kezar Pub because it is less crowded, and I don't end up missing critical 4th quarter/9th inning/3rd period (? not so much a hockey fan) minutes waiting at the bar.
Three cheers and five stars for the Cane!
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