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Karaoke inSan Francisco
San Francisco runs two completely different kinds of karaoke night, and it is generous with both: free open mics that start at 5pm, and private rooms you can book at eleven in the morning. Knowing which night you are walking into is the whole game.
16written up in this guide103tracked in and around San Francisco
This guide walks the standouts. The full San Francisco map lives in the KaraokeList app — free, kept current by the singers who use it.
The split is between open mic — put your name in the book, wait, sing to a room of strangers — and a private room, rented by the hour for you and your friends and nobody else. The city has plenty of both, and they ask completely different things of you.
Open mic is cheaper, usually free, and the wait is the price of the crowd. A room costs money and removes every reason to be nervous. If you have never done this before, start in a room; the open mics will still be there when you want an audience.
4 confirmed venues
If you want to sing to a room
Open mic, no booking, put your name down when you get there. All four of these run every night of the week, which makes them the safe answer when it's already 10pm and nobody planned anything.
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Sool Bar
323 Grant Ave · ChinatownFree, every night, on the main stage from 5pm. The lowest-commitment way to find out whether you like doing this at all.
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Bow Bow Cocktail Lounge
1155 Grant Ave · ChinatownTwo blocks up the same street, a small dive that runs karaoke 5:30pm to 1am every day of the week. Starts early enough to be a first stop rather than a last one.
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Silver Clouds
1994 Lombard St · MarinaSeven nights a week, 9pm start. A later, louder room than the Chinatown two, and the Marina's default answer.
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Gold Dust Lounge
165 Jefferson St · Fisherman's WharfKaraoke every night at 8pm until close. Worth knowing about mostly because it is the one that exists down by the water.
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4 confirmed venues
If you want a room of your own
Booked by the hour, doors closed, no audience but the people you came with. Four of the city's rooms sit within a few blocks of each other in Japantown — see below — so these are the ones worth knowing outside that cluster, plus the two that keep the strangest hours.
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Festa
1825A Post St · JapantownUpstairs on Post, open from 6:30pm — until 2am on Friday and Saturday, 1am the rest of the week.
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Do-Re-Mi
1604 Post Street · Japantown5pm to 2am most nights and 3am on Friday — the latest room in the city, and the reason a Friday here can go badly wrong.
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K-BOX
1660 Geary Blvd · FillmoreOpens at 11am, seven days a week. Almost nowhere else will sell you a karaoke room in the early afternoon.
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Pure Karaoke
870 Taraval St · Outer Sunset6:30pm to 2am daily, out on Taraval. The one that saves you a trip across town if you already live out here.
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87 more where these came from.
We keep tabs on 103 karaoke spots in and around San Francisco — this guide writes up 16. The rest are on the map in the app, next to the part that matters: what you’ll sing when the book comes around.
The Post Street run
Four karaoke venues sit within seven blocks of each other on Post Street, in and around Japantown: Taisho at 1161, Do-Re-Mi at 1604, Dimples at 1700 and Festa at 1825A. All four run seven nights a week.
It is the only stretch of the city where the choice is genuinely made on the pavement. Taisho, Do-Re-Mi and Festa are private rooms; Dimples is an open-mic bar running 5pm to 2am. You can walk out of one and into the other kind of night in about four minutes, which is a useful thing to know when the group cannot agree.
Nights that are their own thing
A handful of San Francisco karaoke nights are not really karaoke nights in the ordinary sense, and they are worth planning around rather than stumbling into.
Martuni's, at 4 Valencia, does piano karaoke on Mondays — a live pianist instead of a backing track, which changes the job considerably. Lion's Den Lounge, tucked into Wentworth Place off Chinatown, runs live band karaoke on Thursdays from 8pm; you are fronting an actual band. And on Tuesdays at 1190 Folsom, the Cat Club runs two at once — KoR Karaoke in the front room and Caritas, a goth and industrial night, in the back.
Butter on 11th Street does a Sunday night it calls Trash Karaoke. Bottom's Up on Mission runs Thursdays, 10pm to 2am, 21 and over.
Questions
Do I need to book karaoke in San Francisco?
For an open-mic bar, no — you turn up and put your name in the book. For a private room you should book, especially Thursday through Saturday, and especially in the Japantown cluster on Post Street, where four venues share the same few blocks and fill up on the same nights.
Where can I do karaoke in San Francisco tonight, on a weeknight?
Several rooms run seven nights a week, so a Tuesday is not a problem here. Sool Bar and Bow Bow Cocktail Lounge on Grant Avenue, Silver Clouds on Lombard and Gold Dust Lounge at the Wharf all run open-mic karaoke every night; Festa, Do-Re-Mi, K-BOX and Pure Karaoke all rent private rooms nightly.
What is the difference between open-mic karaoke and a karaoke box?
Open mic means one stage and one queue: you sign up, wait your turn, and sing to whoever is in the bar. A karaoke box or private room is a room you rent by the hour for your own group, with its own screen and mics and nobody watching. Bars are cheaper and usually free; rooms cost money and are far easier if you are nervous or if your group wants to sing together.
How late does karaoke go in San Francisco?
Most rooms run to 2am. Do-Re-Mi on Post Street goes to 3am on Fridays, which is the latest we have confirmed in the city. At the other end, K-BOX on Geary opens at 11am if you want to sing in daylight.
Is this every karaoke bar in San Francisco?
No. This page names the ones worth knowing first and describes what each is actually like. The full verified list for San Francisco lives in the KaraokeList app, along with the nights each one runs.
You found the bar.
Now what are you singing?
KaraokeList keeps every karaoke song you can actually pull off — and when the list runs dry, it finds you new ones, each with a reason. The full verified list of San Francisco venues is in there too.