Bourbon and Branch
Reservations only, a password emailed before you arrive, ninety minutes at the table and no phones out. If you did not plan ahead, The Library next door takes walk-ins and the password is "books."
Why go
Julia Chen laid out the terms for the Infatuation in August 2024: There's a strict 90-minute time limit per table, speaking volume should be low lest you incur the wrath of a server, and don't even think about taking out your cell phone.
1 Her verdict once you have settled into it is that the drinks carry the theater: it's easy to have a nice time with well-balanced cocktails or a flight of whiskey under the gold tin ceiling.
The address has a genuine claim behind the act. The bar's own page says a speakeasy traded illegally here from 1921 to 1933, listed in the San Francisco Telephone Directory of the day as The Ipswitch - A Beverage Parlor,
and bought as a going concern in 1923 by John J. Russell.2 That is the building's history in the bar's own telling.
Order this / avoid
- Order: a whiskey flight. Neither the review nor the bar's own page names a house cocktail, so ask the bartender for the rest.
- Avoid: arriving on spec. Go next door to The Library.
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation SF (Julia Chen, 8 August 2024):
Once you've acclimated to the near-pitch black and just the sound of hushed conversations, it's easy to have a nice time.
1 - Bourbon & Branch (its own house rules):
Please Be Patient, Our Drinks Are Labor Intensive.
Also on that list: no cell phone use, no standing at the bar, no photography.2
Good to know
- Timing: evenings.
- Booking: essential, and the password arrives with the confirmation.
- Getting there: Jones at O'Farrell, Tenderloin.
Verdict
could-visit — The bar takes reservations only, emails you a password, holds you to ninety minutes and bans phones and standing at the bar. That is a set of constraints a bar has to be able to back, and Julia Chen wrote that it does: well-balanced cocktails and whiskey flights in near-darkness under a gold tin ceiling. No source names a single drink, which is what keeps this below should-visit. The Library next door is the answer when the book is full.