SF Mambo

If you love to dance salsa, you have to go this place. It’s every 2^nd Sunday in SF, it starts early and end early, so most of dancers come out because it doesn’t affect anyone’s Monday morning! Great quality of music. It’s 90%Salsa, 10% Cha cha, no Bachata. So if you are expecting Bachata, this is not the place for you. People are friendly, I ask many people to dance with, and nobody turned me down (which happens at other places tho).
Oh don’t forget to bring extra towel, T-​shirt, and water. It’s usually the dance studio. So there is no bar. Meaning it’s for ALL AGES. If you forget those, they are kindly selling water and T-​shirt ;)

This is one of the only good spots left for salsa in the Bay. I wish it lasted longer (5−9pm is a little weird time for me, but also good cuz Sunday). It’s organized by great dancers, for dancers and they always try to bring awesome instructors in for events.
Nice music (I’m pretty picky), awesome floor/​space, good lighting (I can actually see? omg) and plenty of on2 dancers. I think there’s usually some lessons before the social so there’s that for more new salsa people.

This is easily the best salsa party in San Francisco. It is a beautiful and easily accessible space (near BART and a horde of bus stops). It is cheaper than most of the socials (and not for profit; all the money goes into organizing the socials, DJs, guests, etc). The music is phenomenal and exciting (even though there’s no bachata); a fun mix of salsa and cha cha. The regular crowd is definitely the best thing about SF Mambo. The dancers are incredibly friendly and passionate, and though the level of dancing is really high, there’s real camaraderie and a lack of judgement.
Definitely bring an extra shirt.

Edit Dec-​2015: these guys are a MONTHLY event happening 6−10pm on the SECOND SUNDAY of the month. (5−6pm is a guest instructor spot that varies and may or may not happen.)
SF *finally* gets its mambo venue! The organizers rented Ava’s studio (Symbolic Dance) and hold a monthly mambo gathering from 5pm-​9pm, just like the Jimmy Anton social in NY. The venue plays a lot of on-​2 «New York-​style» salsa and gathers a fairly intermediate to advanced crowd of dancers here.
Venue itself is clean and fairly big (enough to accommodate about 80 – 100 people at a time I’d say?) The floor is great since it’s a dance studio — nobody boozing up the floor. :P
Had a bunch of GREAT dances here on the opening social — DJ Hong and DJ Willie were both there with lots of classics. Hopefully they’ll keep the quality up! :)