The Old Ship Saloon’s claim to being the oldest bar in San Francisco is disputed, but what’s indisputable is the awesomeness of the Old Ship’s origin story. When a Gold Rush ship named the Arkansas ran aground on Alcatraz in 1849, it was towed to shore. There, it got a second life in 1851, when someone cut a hole in the side of the ship, dropped a gangplank and advertised booze inside. Over time, the “bar” was landlocked by landfill and a building was built atop it.

Claiming to be the second-oldest continually operating bar in San Francisco, this tiny Mission District watering hole has been through several incarnations since opening in 1858. Now known for its whiskey selection, antique decorations and cozy, wood-paneled interior, Elixir stays current on cocktail trends without getting pretentious, while small touches like Sunday Bloody Marys and barbecue have kept it a local’s spot.

A curious number of bars in San Francisco claim to be the city’s oldest, but if the Saloon, allegedly open since 1861, doesn’t qualify as the oldest it certainly comes close. For such a small space, the bar manages to pack in a lot of energy. What The Saloon lacks in polish it makes up for in spirit: smiling bartenders, raucous dancing, sultry blues.

The Sunset is a reservoir of standout dives and neighborhood bars. Silver Spur. Shannon Arms. The Four Deuces. The list goes on. We, regrettably, couldn’t include them all on this particular list, so we thought it best to pay respects to the elder statesman: Little Shamrock, established the same year Grover Cleveland was president and the Ferris wheel was invented.

With a wood-burning stove, peanut shells on the floor and a vast whiskey selection, this cozy, dog-friendly Mission hideout dates to 1902. That means it’s survived earthquakes, fires and Prohibition (when it became a popular “lunch counter” that served booze on the sly). With aesthetic touches like deep red and gold wallpaper, a pressed tin ceiling and some tastefully scandalous paintings of nude ladies, the Homestead has done an admirable job of preserving a laid-back local feel.

Built in 1908, this SoMa saloon is a homey vestige of old San Francisco in a neighborhood that has transformed several times over since the tech boom(s). In the 1930s, it was a hangout for gamblers, longshoremen and ladies of the night; by the ’50s, the ornate wooden barback, imported from Belgium, served as the setting for customers like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. In the ’70s, owner Paul Gaer installed a stage and promptly ushered in a new age of live music and comedy.

Bars are windows into different eras across time, and a stop at Double Play is a throwback to the midcentury era of baseball on 16th Street, when San Francisco Seals and Mission Reds played across the street at Seals Stadium. It doesn’t seem like Double Play’s trappings have changed much over the decades. These days, it’s home to a contingent of regulars, $4 beers and a full food menu, set to a backdrop of memorabilia and one of the finest signs around.

The grand, clock-less House of Shields has been encouraging patrons to lose track of time for more than a century. The SoMa bar’s history is full of scandalous legends, some not entirely verifiable, like the rumor that President Warren Harding died here in the arms of his mistress. (Official records indicate he died across the street at the Palace Hotel.)

This Glen Park institution since 1926, with a “liquor to take out” addendum on its vintage sign, doesn’t stray from its mission. Black and white photos cover the walls and a fireplace and line of green bar stools stand at the ready for a steady influx of neighbors.

Tony Nik’s is old-school but not kitschy, clean but not snobby, fun but not divey. It’s the kind of place you want to bring a particularly promising date to chat at a cozy back table over potent boulevardiers. It’s the sort of spot where you can gather a crowd of friends for beers before heading out for pizza, or roll in solo to talk with whoever’s working that night.

When Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster opened the Twin Peaks in 1972, it was revolutionary: a gay bar with big enough windows to show the world who was inside. The Twin Peaks has retained the 1970s love of Victoriana – stained glass, ornate carpentry – as well as a certain pre-tech-boom pace of life. In a neighborhood whose weekend energy brings in bar-crawlers, it’s a place where you can while away the afternoon watching the Castro pass by.

Some bars that purport to be “dives” are not, in fact, dives — they’re great spots for a laid-back date, or simply a bar without a fancy cocktail menu. Clooney’s is not one of those bars. Clooney’s is a true dive. Clooney’s, which somehow hides in plain sight at 25th and Valencia, opens at 6 a.m., and what happens after that at the horseshoe-shaped bar or around the pool table is between you and the bartender (and the community of loyal, hard-drinking regulars).

Perhaps you’ve heard the legend of Zam Zam’s former owner, Bruno Mooshei, who mixed impeccable martinis and 86’ed aspiring drinkers for the slightest peccadillo (taking a seat at the table instead of the bar; ordering vodka). His legacy lives on in a house cocktail that transcends the martini’s fall from fashion and return and fall again, and in the decor of one of San Francisco’s most intimate bars, a fantastical blend of Deco and Persian art.

Gino & Carlo is the bar equivalent of a North Beach red sauce joint: basic, old-school and comforting. The main difference is that you’re more likely to see longtime regulars at the bar here than tourists. Old photographs of champion boxers, family members and the occasional celebrity line the walls surrounding two pool tables.

Founded in 1947, Tommy’s Joynt at Van Ness and Geary is a civic treasure, the original S.F. beer bar, one of the last remaining hofbraus, a unicorn in this field of horses.

The history of Pop’s dates back to 1947, when army veteran Jack O’Connor had returned from fighting in World War II and decided to go into business with his father – his “pop.” The bar has changed hands several times since. Its neon light on 24th Street remains a comforting sign that cocktail bars haven’t completely eclipsed the Mission’s great dives.

Vesuvio is a landmark that belongs to North Beach, and it’s here that you’ll sit alone on the mezzanine with an Anchor and look out onto City Lights Bookstore and Columbus Avenue and the traffic and the neon lights, and you’ll feel part of something bigger than yourself, a speck in a century of a city that has reinvented itself over and over, oftentimes told through this very saloon where great minds and misfits and hippies and beatniks once contemplated this city in just the way you are now.

The year of this bar’s founding, 1933, is auspicious – the founders must have moved fast to open between the repeal of Prohibition on Dec. 5, 1933, and the beginning of 1934. Located on Mission Street in between Bernal Heights, Glen Park and the Excelsior, and near the original site of St. Mary’s College, it holds fast to its dive bar identity even though its round, red vinyl tufted booths and linoleum tables were upgraded not long ago.

With its old-school Giants paraphernalia, punk-filled jukebox, cramped photo booth, fresh-squeezed greyhounds and glittering neon signage beckoning the thirsty from blocks away, the 500 Club's still got it where it counts.

No other bar in San Francisco – and probably the entire Bay Area – is as closely linked to a drink as the Buena Vista is to its famous invention, the Irish coffee. On most days, a light veneer of tourists may gloss the bar, but the real secret is that San Franciscans love this place more than anyone.

Serving up plates of hearty Ethiopian food, red velvet wallpaper and a homey atmosphere, Waziema is a crowd-pleaser even if you don’t know the room’s history. But knowing the history doesn’t hurt: From 1959 to 1978, Waziema was Club Morocco, a jazz club whose stage welcomed Tina Turner, James Brown, Billie Holiday and Marvin Gaye, and saw regulars like Willie Mays and Herb Caen. After lying empty for 20 years, it reopened in 1999.

Doc's Clock was forced to relocate a few years ago, but the vibe remains. The new Doc’s is strikingly unchanged from the old: It’s still got mangled Barbie dolls, shuffleboard tables and curmudgeonly signs along the backbar, as in “Shut up and drink!” That’s an order.

Late owners Pat Ramseyer and Nancy White opened the place in 1962 in Oakland – naming the bar after the Barbara Stanwyck film “Walk on the Wild Side” – before moving the bar west to San Francisco a few years later. Considered an institution by its loyal patrons, drinks are strong and cheap by S.F. standards, but what truly sets this neighborhood saloon apart is its eclectic character, which among other things includes a shrine of women’s shoes near the bar.

Next time you enjoy a margarita made with lime, agave and really, really good tequila, raise your glass in thanks to Julio Bermejo. After being introduced to Herradura Tequila in the late 1980s, he began overhauling the bar at his family’s Outer Richmond restaurant. It was a move that ended up revolutionizing how we think of Tequila in the Bay Area (and beyond). Tommy’s maintains one of the most interesting and thoughtfully curated Tequila collections outside of Mexico.

How beloved is this no-frills 1967 dive, perched at the border of Chinatown and North Beach? When word got out in 2016 that the charmingly grimy bar had been sold and could possibly close, none other than Anthony Bourdain chimed in. Thankfully, Mr. Bing’s new proprietor didn't close the place, and it remains a must-visit dive with old-school S.F. appeal.

In a cluster of very old and very character-filled bars in North Beach, Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe stands out for its melange of tchotchkes. Items including an Alaskan king crab line its cluttered walls. The late Richard “Specs” Simmons, a former Vesuvio bartender, opened his namesake bar in 1968, and his bespectacled face was a fixture there until his death in 2016. It’s an exceedingly friendly place that draws a loyal crowd along the tourists.