The Hot Spot

bought a beer, asked if they were playing the warriors game, got yelled at. not the most fun use of my money.

First time & I really enjoyed it. I will most def b back! The atmosphere was awesome & so we’re the drinks. They even have a «special» combo that was a beer, a shot & a scratcher which was fun!

Awsome dive bar… special ghouls night out, electro, new wave old romantic goth queer club call dark room… follow them on facebook rock it!

Go in knowing it’s a cash-​only, recently renovated dive bar and you’ll be set. Interesting and diverse crowd, especially immediately after the work day on Friday, but lots of options are available. Get «the special» and you’ll receive a shot of whiskey and bottle of beer (think Bud Light… nothing fancy), plus a scratcher for $ 6. Atmosphere is relaxed, especially for a Giants game on TV. Pool table and old school video games are also upstairs. Great spot for a couple of drinks.

A bar with a Pacman machine upstairs? Yeah, I’m down.
Great place to come for a drink after work. Kind of appears unassuming from the outside, but with seating on two stories, there’s a decent amount of space. Definitely got a testosterone-​heavy vibe if you’re down for that.
Plus, they have scratchers. Pacman and scratchers what more could you want?

What a find. A friendly decent bar on mid Market. Neighborhood, not pretentious feel, not at all a dive, mostly young profs.50/50 MF split when I was there. Décor a bit cool and stark, but patrons give the place warmth. Lots of TV’s probably fun here at events. Pool table somewhere. Decent Happy Hour prices.

WTF? DJ over the juke box? Sorry man, the customers have taste also. Stop thinking so much and serve the community.

The Hot Spot was just recently remodeled. It looks and feels the same. It’s the best bar around for me and my coworkers to grab cheap drinks.
$ 6 dollar specials and chill bartenders What’s not to like?

Submitted for reopen. Current showing World Series with a friendly crowd. Man I missed this place (I am the the one who Unilocal closed it!). No real food yet and Drinko noticeably missing but scheduled to return. But… The $ 6 beer + shot + lotto deal asks why are you not using this as a start or end spot? Get over here and say Rum Junkie sent you!

Quality dive bar. $ 5 for a can beer, shot, and $ 1 scratcher.
Drinko (aka Plinko for jello shots, or better if you’re lucky).
Hot Spot is your local quality dive, in all the best ways.

In my opinion, you can’t judge a dive bar until you are so drunk you have difficulty standing up. Until you get to that point, you’re not appreciating it in the proper context. It took four of the $ 5 recession specials to get me to the point where I liked The Hot Spot, but it’s hard to say no to a PBR, lottery ticket, and a huge shot of the well liquor of your choice… more accurately, it was really easy for me to say no when I was standing outside of the place with my friend, but after having two it was really hard to say no to two more.
I got drunk, I had a good time, and I won $ 10. What’s not to like?

Uh, I think this place just became my new favorite bar.
It’s a dive. Do not come here expecting some mixologist foo-​foo crap.
Do come here and take delight in the fact you get a beer, a shot, and a scratcher for $ 5. Do come here and hop on the really old karaōke machine. Do come here and hang out with Michelle, the sweetest and awesomest bartender. Do come here and play drinko.
There’s also a pool table upstairs with chairs and benches, which is good if you have a large group. It’s also conveniently close to the BART station so you don’t have to worry about driving!
If the owners are checking these, Michelle is absolutely fantastic! She was so helpful to our group of 12 and handled everything so well.

I lived directly next to this bar all summer so I came here quite a few times. Some bar tenders were really cool, some not. Some random thoughts:
–The $ 5 PBR, tequila shot, scratch card special was a cool idea. It made it a whole lot easier to get drunk really cheap.
–They rarely card here. In Manhattan, they take carding so seriously. So it seemed weird that I never got carded here. I look like I’m a teenager without make up on. And there were plenty of blatantly under 21ers in the bar one night. Like… talking about how they were under 21. Odd.
— The DJ was good, but it was nice without as well. Depends on your mood.
–For being a small bar, it’s a good set up. There is one bigger table in the back, a few benches along a wall, and the bar. Plus some tables up front.
— DRINKO! is awesome.
— Not all bartenders charge the same amount. I paid $ 7 for a shot one night and $ 5 another. Ouch.
— They’re very tolerant of large groups. Appreciated.
–They sell Chef Boyardee. I found this really amusing when I was drunk.
Hot Spot is a good local bar. It’s fine if you live near here, but don’t go out of your way to come here.

Five stars across the board. PBR, random whiskey, $ 1 scratcher all for $ 5? SOLID. Nice dive bar vibe. Oh, and the Drinko game? LEGIT. Michelle, the bartender taught my friend Travis and I a new way to do Jello Shots (we won them at the Drinko game) and then I proceeded to feed her a Jello shot… all on a Sunday afternoon.
Oh, and it’s a two block walk/​stumble/​crawl to MUNI Metro and BART… so yeah, that gets it points also.

I ended up here during Pride weekend on a Saturday afternoon and ordered a margarita. Felt a little sketchy when the bartender made the drink under the counter so I could not see what ingredients he was pouring but whatever it was worked! It was sour and salty with a punch but in a good way! My high maintenance friend tried ordering a fancy cocktail and asked «What can you make?» and all he pointed at my drink, lol! We used the bathroom before we left and noticed boxes of beers stacked in the hallway and in the woman’s restroom… but then I remembered I was at a dive bar in SF.
FYI: My drink was $ 7.00 and they have a $ 15.00 minimum to use credit card.

DRINKO! A dive bar in the van ness /​market street corridor. Plus stars for the selection of music in the jukebox.
There’s an upstairs to this place that has a pool table for $ 1 games and pac-​man (om nom nom)! Beers are cheap here. Mix drinks vary from $ 4– 7. At the end of the night, the prices add up. They also accept credit cards! And they have scratchers/​lotto machine.

I LOVE DRINKO! I kept wanting to play just to get more jello shots! Unfortunately I landed on the grape vodka shot — which was NASTY — so I asked for chaser.
First of all the owner is all glaring at me because I kept wanting to play drinko instead of ordering a «real drink» I suppose. if that’s your problem then why do you have the game up anyway?!
Second of all, they would not give me chaser. No chaser, barely gave me any water and that too was given very hesitantly. I just wanted a jello shot! They wouldn’t even let me switch it out! I had to use a water bottle I luckily had in my purse.
This was on Super Bowl 2013 game day. They have a bunch of snacks laid out. My friends and I drink really slowly and we had the whole day so we were ordering slowly too. Owner gets pissed at us and tells us to get away from the food if we aren’t going to order. DOOD!!! We’ve been playing drinko for the past 10 minutes! My friends ordered 2 beers too. Still glaring at us for eating. At this point we just got so sick of the attitude we just left. I love my 49ers and I’m not about to ruin game day because of some rude bar owners who don’t know how to treat customers with some respect. If they had asked politely in the beginning, we totally would have ordered a lot more.

Definitely an acquired taste.
My first night in California, I met a dude on the bus and we went bar hopping, you know, ’cause people are friendly as hell in SF. Anyway, I had to abandon ship because apparently it was karaōke night and I value my ears and sanity.

«Dad’s are the original hipsters.»
Apparently, this quote is true. My hipster roommate has oft wanted to come here, but it was my set of «psyudeo hipster dad» work collegues who finally brought me here. Yes. 4 fully grown men, with babies, took me to a hipster spot.
And then they rocked out to 90’s rap. It was awesome. Cheap beers, pool table, get the lookout deck if you can. So so much fun.

I really don’t have a whole lot to say about this one, one of our stops on our San Francisco downtown pub crawl that my friend had heard about. It’s a simple little neighborhood spot, I wouldn’t call it a dive, but «watering hole» might be appropriate. It’s small, but there’s a pool table and lounge upstairs. The drinks are cheap, but they do have a minimum. Great tunes and an 80’s post-​punk décor.
There was a sign on the door that expressly forbid the use of cell phones in the bar. I honestly thought it was a joke, but as we were getting ready to split someone came on the mic and reiterated this. Is this normal for downtown San Fran, or is there some specific reason?
Anyway, it was a fun little spot, the bartender was great, and it wasn’t very crowded when we were there. My feeling is that it picks up late at night.