El Tin Tan

This place. Is nightmare people try to looking for the problems the security there supostube take care the costumers, but this guys there drinking beer like the costumer. And if you want said something no body heard you because the dj make extremely noises. If is something like before I going back to this place.

This place is probably a lot better if you’re able to speak Spanish — the bartender had to have both the bouncer and another customer translate «jack and coke» and «gin tonic.» First, the bartender tried to pretend they were out of Jack Daniels and upsell us with Jameson, until I pointed at the bottle of Jack that was RIGHT BEHIND her. We all laughed, hoping it was an honest mistake. It was not. How do we know? She chose to make a gin tonic w/​the same Jack Daniels, instead of USING GIN, and then proceeded to tell us it was gin. Another customer asked her in Spanish on our behalf if it was gin, and she insisted it was. Since it is difficult for me to believe a bartender would mistake brown rum for clear gin, she obviously thought we would be stupid enough to believe her or too polite to cause a scene. Andddd, we paid $ 10/​drink for that shite. Never going back.

This place is the perfect example of a back alley dive bar– little to no service, stiff drinks and no organization at all. The food was prepared fast and it was sub par, but the pool table and the beer special saved the day on this review. The locals where friendly and talkative, but the prices and service needs to improve — the place needs to be remodeled, camera wires and alarm wires all around the broken walls and the décor could use more than a little help-​A broken down stage and carpet was ripped and dirty on more than 1 spot.
I don’t recommend using the bathroom (unless you are standing up and 1ft away from where you are going. The place is on a prime location on 16^th and there’s plenty of other locations that are cleaner and better looking than this one. So I say this place could use an overhaul– but of done right this place could be a classic spot I am prime spot close to restaurants of all kind and easy access with a Parking lot next to it — I would love to see this place remodeled it’s got lots of space and potential — Time will tell–
Hope this helps — stay classy
Enjoy

LOVE El Tin Tan! Hope it still around for long time.
One of my favorites things in there is that there is not hipsters or yuppies or bullshit. This is a real working class Mexican bar.
There are two pool tables, jukebox and an arcade game.
Patrons and bartenders (only girls serving drinks) are friendly.
Spanish speaking is almost mandatory.
LONG LIFE TO EL TIN TAN!

I asked my Mexican boyfriend to take me here after reading the Unilocal reviews, not in small part because I wanted to see the picture of the Pope next to the one of the woman’s butt cheeks in a thong. The place attracts some shady characters and looks kind of scary from the outside, but once you’re in it’s pretty spacious, with a small kitchen in the middle behind the bar and a pool table at the back. (I hear the panuchos are good, but I haven’t tried them.) I saw the Pope. However, I was disappointed that the señorita in the «tanga» had been covered up with an SF Giants banner. I think pretty much everyone in the bar was Mexican and male, except for 2 bartenders, one of whom spoke English. Actually, this is a «Yucatecan» bar, as most of the clientele comes from that region of Mexico. We paid $ 40 for 4 shots of Milagro tequila (I don’t know if that’s a rip off or not, but it wasn’t cheap) and put $ 1 in the jukebox. When a song we hadn’t chosen started playing, one of the bartenders explained that the jukebox doesn’t work (there’s no sign saying that). We asked for our $ 1 back, but she refused. Only when we insisted did we get our $ 1 back. Given the blatant dishonesty, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. But if you do come, get a seat near the door so you can run out quick if any shooting or fights erupt.

Mexican dive bar. Felt ripped off. Vodka was so watered down. And to add insult to injury, charged premium price for rail drink. There are too many nice bars in this neighborhood to waste time in a place like this.

This a Mexican dive bar in the Mission. What does that mean?
–Awesome Mariachi blasting out of an excellent sound system
–very little English spoken
–not a great beer selection but good margaritas any time of the day
–questionable bathroom
–questionable clientele
–NO HIPSTERS!
Yep, the hipsters who have infested the Mission in the last few years are afraid to come into this place! THANK GOD! If you are in the Mission and need to get away from a bunch of rich white kids bitching about the «gentrification» of the neighborhood, this is your oasis.

Their micheladas are the best. On Fri and Sat they have a DJ that starts at 8pm and plays the best variety of latin music. Juke Box has great array of music, too.

So I think you either need to go during the day when it’s not busy, or maybe they changed owners after 2010 because this place was not even close to being what all the pre 2010 people described.
First off, I love dive bars, and those are usually the only places I go. So it’s not like I was using unrealistic standards. The divey-​er and sketchier the more comfortable I usually am in them, but this place was on a whole nother level. Basically my three friends and I were looking for a comfortable dive to party down in on a Friday night, and we thought this place would meet our needs. Immediately upon entering, all 35 patrons stopped whatever they were doing to stare at us, and 3 men simultaneously made lewd gestures at us. Obviously it was cause we were the only 4 gringas in the bar, so I find the whole thing pretty funny and we sallied forth. The second we got in the door this older waitress in a sexy outfit, who pretty much acted like the Madame of the place, sailed up to us and started talking at us only Spanish and not letting us go anywhere else in the bar. I think she was trying to get us to leave by talking at us really fast and think we’d get intimidated and go, but me and another friend knew enough Spanish to place orders. I ordered a shot of Jose Cuervo, cause I thought it would be the cheapest, and my one friend tried to order a vodka cranberry, but the waitress said they didn’t have vodka so she settled for a Tequila cranberry.
The Madame escorted us to a table in the back (Which I think she did to get us out of harms way as people were still staring, or it could have been another tactic to get us to leave) right next to the huge loud speaker blaring some pretty sweet remixed Cumbia music and brought us our drinks, which as other people have said were a complete and total rip off. One normal shot of well Jose Cuervo was $ 10, and a basic tequila cranberry was also $ 10. Then I noticed that all the waitresses were supposed to wear tight outfits and walked around carrying large handfuls of cash, which made me think that perhaps something else was being sold here besides over priced drinks. That suspicion was somewhat confirmed when the Madame started dirty dancing with some dude on the dance floor, and no one else was dancing or even noticed.
We played Hang Man on a bar napkin as being sat directly next to the speaker made it way too loud to talk, finished our drinks and were out of there.
I could see how this place might be better if you went on a weeknight or during the day, but I think the drinks would be a rip off no matter what. Unless you’re Latin or speak completely flawless Mexican Spanish, I wouldn’t even bother.

The servers here will try to rip you off every time, especially if you are a gringo. They will say you gave them a 5 or 10 when you gave them a 20. One common tactic they use is having a server come up to you, ask you what you want, take your money, then they come back and say they don’t have it and give you less money than you gave them.
They also have a shady receipt system and the staff is rude. Don’t go to this bar.

RIP OFF ALERT! Watch your money. I’ve gone in here a number of times for a drink, but last night one of the older servers ripped me off. I ordered three beers. One for me, and two for a couple of dudes I was talking to. It came to $ 11. They give you a little paper receipt with every purchase, which is kind of strange. Anyway, it was time for me to leave and as I’m leaving, the door security guy stops me and says the server said I didn’t pay! She’s an older server of the bunch with lots of eye make up. I told her she was ripping me off and she said no. Bull crap! Why would I have gotten a receipt if I hadn’t paid her? In my haste to leave, I left the receipt on the bar which I’m convinced she saw and threw away, figuring she could make an extra $ 11 as I’d have no proof of purchase. Lady, if you’re reading this, shame on you!

So after leaving cha cha cha’s we were in search for a good bar in the area. We stopped by beauty for one drink and kept on strolling, we found this one and went in with our group of ten.
They gave us a table right away. we ordered our shots and coronas and started dancing away! It was fun, loud, and everyone was smiling

I dig bars where I’m the only one not speaking Spanish. Why? Because I don’t speak Spanish and I like a challenge. Something about two people interacting without having a clue what each other is talking about makes me hawt.
I usually swing open the door at good ol’ El Tin Tan because I’m traveling on foot and could use a swift shot of tequila. I’m the only non-​Mexican patron but who cares? It’s fun, I pretend I’m on some super secret spy mission or something. I hum the Mission Impossible theme while doing spin moves all the way to the bathroom. If that’s not entertaining enough I can always bank on the dude playing guitar and/​or his homie on accordion. Makes me all happy and stuff, plus I can absorb the ambiance while catching soccer on the tele.
I would kick it here on the regular if the booze wasn’t such a ripoff. The bartenders rarely speak English and I think they’re programmed to tell any gringo that every shot of tequila is $ 9. How can all tequila, including crap tequila, be $ 9? This is not one confused visit, this is the carbon copy answer I’ve gotten 4 times. Luckily I know the scam so I’m prepared for such nonsense. If we could meet in the middle around $ 5 or something I’d sit here for hours, get hammered, and maybe slowly learn Spanish. That would be awesome, it would justify drinking. «No no, don’t be foolish… I’m not here to get my drink on, I’m simply in Spanish class».
2 stars for making me pay $ 9 for sub par tequila, 4 stars for the soccer, and 5 stars for the badass dude rocking that accordion. I too hope to someday wear a cowboy hat and play accordion, I just don’t want to drop $ 9 a shot while doing so.

My best friend and I had just finished a day strolling along Mission and had about an hour to kill before we wanted to head home. So what better to pass the time than to drink? After a very unsuccessful search on Unilocal (what do you mean bars aren’t open at 3pm?) we decided to just hoof it down 16^th St and hope we find something. Luckily, we didn’t have to search too far.
Out of El Tin Tan’s doors comes blaring Mexican music, and we decide this is the perfect place to finish our day. Plus — alcohol. So we head in and sit at the end of like a 500 ft bar. OK, exaggeration — but it was long.
We were on an Amaretto sour streak, but the bartender didn’t know what an Amaretto sour was! My best friend explained how to make it (in Spanish, the bartender didn’t speak much English) and a few minutes later — two Amaretto sours came our way. After a taste test, we gave the drinks our seal of approval. My best friend asked for cherries and the bartender came back with a cup FULL of cherries… PERFECT. My best friend and I had been practicing tying cherry stems with our tongues all week and now we had tons to practice on! YES we are the most juvenile people you will ever meet! (Speaking of juvenile, the bartender scrutinized my ID for like 5 solid minutes and even asked if I was 21… I am, but I’m Asian and therefore look like I’m 11. But now you know this is a law-​abiding establishment.)
Anyway, so after we got our drinks the bartender came back and asked in Spanish if our drinks were OK and if they were too sweet. She was so cute and genuinely wanted to make sure we liked them. My best friend answered in Spanish that yes, they were fine. And I just smiled like a doofus, because I’m Chinese and useless.
There were also pool tables, classy posters of half-​naked girls on the walls, food, and I think with the exception of my friend and myself, everybody was a local — mostly older males — and minded to themselves. I’d go back, but only if I had my Spanish speaking buddy in tow.

I can’t say I’ve never been in a Latin bar before, in fact I used to frequent them before I turned 21, but I haven’t been in one for a long time.
First off any bar in San Francisco that doesn’t offer Anchor Steam at all loses one star right off the bat. They have Fat Tire on tap so it’s not like it’s a Budweiser and Corona only place.
This place is a little too bright, the music is a little too loud, and worst of all the night I was there it was a sausage fest. There was around thirty hombres and besides the barmaids only two senoritas. I didn’t even stay in there long enough to finish my Fat Tire.
I’ll give them another try if I’m hanging out with someone that really wants to go but I don’t think it’s my kind of place.

Host to the coziest men’s bathroom in the city.

Less intimidating than El Trebol-​more easygoing.
Mexican, not latin.
Long bar, pool tables, food too, though I did not try it.
Saturn II Jukebox blasting the sounds.
Décor shows some thought.
Live music on weekends.

Picture of the Pope? Check! Picture of a woman pulling a thong out of her ass and captioned «100% Chingonas!»? Check! Picture of the Pope and the thong next to each other? Check!
I LOVE EL TIN TAN. Totally random place. All Mexicans, all the time. The bartenders (at least the ladies working on Friday nights) DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. You either have to know a little Spanish or get good at pointing to what you want.
No one will bother you. Everyone will either ignore you or act like they’ve known you all their lives. It’s not a place to go just to show how cool you are and there were no yuppies, poseurs or hipsters anywhere near the joint (thank god). It’s a place that most white folks would probably be scared to enter, but the fear is unfounded. This place is as authentic as it gets. Yes, they blast Mexican banda music and sped-​up 1990’s dance hits, just like the bars in TJ. And the drinks were pretty cheap. Oh yeah, and the entire place smells like cheap cologne and Suavitel.

This is a place you have to be in the mood for. You have to want loud banda music, you have to want the feel of a border-​town bar, and if you do, you will be VERY happy.
I had gone a few times, but it really lived up to its reputation when I took a friend there, and upon entering, being walloped by the sound of Mexican music so loud it’s deafening, but at the same time, seeing a guy passed out on the bar. Perfect.
So sit down, enjoy your drink, drink your drink and practice your Spanish.

An unexpected turn in finals morning, and I was eating nachos at Pancho Villa and having a cocktail at El Tin Tan next door before noon.
We all did well and passed our tests.
I loved this place. The owner was really nice and poured a nice Bloody Mary. The women behind the bar were sassy! It struck us as funny and great that the place was filled with women and one man.
Was just a good vibe. I will go back for sure, I love dive bars.