Cresta’s Twenty Two Eleven Club

Oasis: (noun) a pleasant or peaceful area or period in the midst of a difficult, troubled, or hectic place or situation.
synonyms: refuge, haven, retreat, sanctuary, sanctum, shelter, harbor, asylum
In the present-​day desert of douchebaggery that is Russian Hill, Cresta’s is a veritable oasis of calm, a refuge from pretentiousness, a retreat with friendly bartenders, a sanctuary of reasonable prices, a sanctum of neighborhood community, a shelter of good blues music with autographed photos of famous musicians on the wall, a harbor of love, an asylum of the inebriated soul where one can calmly admire the sunlight streaming in across the wood bar and into your glass of warm whiskey…

Cresta would have been 68 now and he was definitely one of the nicest men i have ever met! If not the nicest person!
Love his 2211 Club! Not exactly what i expected but when this Vineland, NJ boy moved to San Francisco he found his niche!
Beautiful old Wood bar and really nice bartenders! My friend came in and almost missed his plane he was enjoying himself so much — just talkin but seems yo be a lost art these days!
Nice meeting you Mrs C!

Pat behind the bar is great. Attentive no matter how busy he was and greeted every guest with care and concern. Place isn’t that big, but it’s still fun. Music in Sunday nights is nice

Definitely five star worthy because it’s a cute little bar with nice staff and totally dog friendly! There was a Labradoodle in there as well as our Shih Tzu pup. So glad to have found Cresta’s!

Stopped in here for a drink after dinner, (Bullitt was way too crazy busy.)
Bartender was pleasant enough, but he made an awful Old Fashioned.
Maybe I’m just spoiled by Martin’s West, but this tasted like straight booze. No balance, just alcohol.
I rarely come to this neighborhood, so I probably wouldn’t be back anyway,

Another Polk St bar classic. Do they still serve the 50cent hot dogs here? It’s been a while. A handful of patrons is all that this place can handle and if the bartder is smoking outside, you’re not getting served. That is of course if you dare to go behind the counter and serve yourself.

If you are looking for a chill place to grab a drink on Polk, and want to avoid the douche-​bro masses that are likely spilling out onto the street from Green’s or the Buccaneer, this place is for you. Good selection of hootch, TV’s for watching the game, and friendly bartenders. Good local spot.

I will always reminisce about being at this bar with a crooked smile.
It was during the week, and the vibe was laid back and chill, with the feel of a neighborhood joint. The bar tenders were warm and welcoming but I only had beer so cannot say much about their drinks. I was told that it gets crowded on weekends. We shared a beer or two, huddled over a table in the corner, and it was special.
My favorite feature? The bench outside. Don’t ask me why.

Small.
Cramped.
Nice people.
Dive bar.
Ya feel me?

Definitely an older happy hour crowd (like…60’s), but a good place to grab a drink if you are in the area and Bullitt is more than you can handle at that moment. Friendly chatty bartenders. Seems like it’s been there longer than it has.

I wandered into Cresta’s last night after attempting to go to Bullett and finding the bar jam packed and crazy loud on a Wednesday night. Cresta’s was right next door so we decided to check it out.
At first I was very unimpressed… it smelled overwhelmingly of cigarette smoke, the draft was broken, there was no music playing, and hardly anyone inside. I knew it was going to be one of those times when everyone in the entire bar overhears your conversation.
But as I sat there drinking my bottle of Anchor Steam I realized that this bar is actually a little gem. The bartender was open, talkative, and made you feel like you’ve known her forever. She gave big warm hugs to her friends coming in, offered us a variety of snacks throughout the night, and entertained us with stories of drinking two whiskey bottles all by herself in a night.
Overall, a great little neighborhood bar on a street normally overrun with drunken girls in short skirts and loud drunken boys ogling them.

We were looking for a nightcap after dinner, and found Cresta’s on Unilocal.It was only a couple blocks away, and the reviews were great, so we walked over. The place is small and quaint, and has a great atmosphere. The place next door was so loud we almost didn’t walk in because we thought it was probably just as loud. I’m glad we did.
Rory was our bartender, and she was awesome. She chatted with us about San Fran (it’s our first visit to the city) and gave us tips and suggestions for places to try. She made our drinks very well, and was just a pleasure to talk to. We enjoyed a few drinks and left, but it’s definitely the type of place I could see myself closing down on a regular basis. I can see it being popular among locals.

Great neighborhood bar in a place that doesn’t have anything even closely resembling a real neighborhood feel most days and nights.
we ducked in here to catch the 49ers and had a great chat about life with a navy man celebrating his 90^th birthday (originally from the same neighborhood as my grandparents in NYC), the amazing bartender (Darren I think), a couple who were trading sips between a bloody mary, a starbucks latte, and fernet (i didn’t ask), and laughing at the spill-​over from Bullitt (which should be youtubed and/​or emailed to Tosh.0).
PS: did i mention they have a HUGE tub of goldfish crackers?

2.75 stars. I have to say the nightlife in San Francisco overall has been a major let down. When I can frankly say that Cresta’s was the pinnacle of that experience and it was described to me by a local I trust as «the only somewhat tolerable bar in my Adams Morgan-​esque neighborhood», it is definitely not a good sign.
After a somewhat rough start with what appeared to be a moderately inebriated doorman, we hustled our way to the free corner at the bar and immediately noticed that there was no bartender anywhere in sight. Good times. On the bright side, that gave us plenty of time to decide on our beer of choice which would have been somewhat awesome except that we had a grand total of three entirely uninteresting taps from which to choose. Eventually, the bartender arrived, and I ordered a $ 7 Hoegaarden.
There was some moderate eye candy is the form of four tanned bleached blondes. My friend disagreed and asked whether I had been drinking on the plane. I acknowledged that I was on my first drink, and she rolled her eyes at my apparent lack of good sense in what I subjectively find marginally physically attractive. To our left, three very drunk twentysomething dudes were engaging in one-​upmanship regarding their own moral superiority in how they would have handled a recent scandal at a large university based in Pennsylvania. One of them did not take too kindly to my suggestion that his course of action might have exacerbated an already awful situation. We promptly left.
While a number of people appear to like this bar as a «dive», the relatively steep beer prices and the awful draft selection seem to dictate otherwise. As much as people in DC complain that we do not have dive bars, I’d take The Raven, The Pug, Wonderland, The Red Derby, and Dan’s any day of the week over this place.

03.12.11
Personal sized bubbly to fill a glass plus.
Plus a G&T.
Less than $ 20.

You know how streets look completely different during the day than at night? Well, every time I’ve walked down Polk at night, I’ve never noticed this bar, but every time I’ve walked on Polk during the day, I’ve seen this tee tiny little bar and thought, «Oh yeah, I should remember to try this place sometime.» It took 5 years, but I finally remembered this place. Glad I did.
Cresta’s is a bar. Nothing more and nothing less. This place is the antithesis of a «scene».

Not much to say here. grabbed a drink with a couple friends, we were just looking for a place in Nob Hill that wasn’t crazy loud so we could catch up. Everything else seemed to have more of a club vibe. Cheap — $ 5/​beer (well, seems cheap to a former New Yorker).
Very narrow, room for 1 row of barstools and people to get by single file. A couple small tables in the back, which we were lucky to grab one of — this was about 12:30am on a Saturday. The music was at a medium level but I swear they kept turning it up — we had to edge closer and closer to each other to even have a conversation.
The bartender waited a good 10 – 15 minutes before asking us for a drink. He was friendly enough, got me a water (I was driving). At last call though, he asked us 3 times that we needed to get out — maybe he didn’t realize that we were waiting for a friend to get out of the bathroom. But we practically ran out he was so persistent, only to realize everyone else in the bar sure as hell was taking their time. We thought he was yelling at everyone, but was it just our little group? Because we each got 1 drink? Geez. we get the point. Not coming back here again.

If Cresta’s is a dive bar, I’d like to know what we’re calling places like Murio’s and Ha-​Ra now. Sh*t bars? Cresta’s isn’t anything fancy but it is a step up from traditional dive bars as we know them in SF.
Cresta’s is long and narrow and the lady bartender is sweet and helpful and will let you eat pizza or tacos (or both) at the bar and then throw away your garbage for you. I stuck to beer so I can’t comment on cocktails, but no one in our group was complaining, so I’m guessing all was well.
Central to everything on Polk Street, this is a good option for a quick drink or a game of catch-​up with friends. It’s non-​descript and low key, with good service and inexpensive drinks. I wouldn’t recommend for large groups– there were about a dozen of us and socializing in a group that big in a space that narrow was a little bit of a challenge.

This place kind of makes me laugh, probably because I never would have known how it existed until I discovered it in a pretty unusual way… So I was actually waiting out front of Bar Johnny next door to meet up with some friends for a drink. Well, I did the call, text, pace thing for about 5 minutes waiting for my friends to show when these two guys standing outside of Cresta’s invited me over for a drink. Reluctantly I went over, I mean, I didn’t have anything better to do until my friends got there, so I guess it wasn’t too reluctantly… Anyways, inside its a total dive, but its got a nice out of the way next to an overpriced place thats way to poshy for its own good type thing going on.
I think my favorite part was the bartender. She was an older lady who was probably the most gone in the whole place. Now that’s how it should be done. Makes for some good bar conversation anyways.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that it was a fun place to end up for a bit and I even stayed a few extra minutes while my friends were getting settled next door.

I love this bar. I think I remember yelling this line out 10 times the last time I was there. They keep serving until 1:45pmish. or maybe I was too drunk and couldn’t read my watch correctly. Could be that.
The bartender was this super nice older lady. She puts all the wussy pretty boy ones to shame!
no douche bags, no pretentious marina people, no loser guidos. Just friendly neighborhood people. just like way the Polk Street area is.