Richmond District winners in SFWeekly’s “Best of San Francisco 2013” poll

The view at Lands End

We’re cross-eyed after reviewing the dozens of awards that SFWeekly handed out this week in their annual “Best of San Francisco” poll. Below are the local winners in the roundup – yay for the Richmond District!

Best Aquarium Turned Dance Floor: California Academy of Sciences
Every Thursday evening the museum converts into a makeshift discotheque, using its various rooms to host DJs pulled from the city’s best parties. Venture downstairs to Steinhart Aquarium, and, on select nights, you can dance next to a stunning variety of tropical fish. More

Best Funhouse: Buckshot (3848 Geary)
This bar and game room out in the Inner Richmond puts a whole new twist on the term “drinking games.” Forget the college classics like flip cup, beer pong or kings when you’re putting back the booze. Instead, travel back further into your childhood and play a slew of arcade games, including hipster favorite Big Buck Hunter. More

Skee ball at the Buckshot. Photo by Joey the Cat

Best Feat of Culinary Strength: The Challenge at Pho Garden (2109 Clement)
we’re probably not the best candidates to take The Challenge at Pho Garden, wherein contestants must eat 2 pounds of rice noodles, 2 pounds of combination beef and tripe, and 4 quarts of broth in less than an hour. More

Blogger Madison tries her luck with the Pho Challenge

Best Place to Get Lost: Mile Rock Beach
…with a little more effort on the Lands End hike – over 100 stairs, to be precise – it’s possible to find a place where on a foggy day not even Marin County across the water can be seen from a stretch of sand tucked in between cliffs west of the Golden Gate. More

Best Housing Metaphor: Golden Gate Park’s Tiny Door-in-a-Tree
Whether art project or public statement or another sad escapee from UCSF’s Super-Intelligent Squirrel Development Lab, the door attracted national attention before it got filled with trash, at which point the city intervened, citing (as always) some permitting thing. More

The mini door at the base of a tree in Golden Gate Park. Photos by Erica Reh

Best Amateur Historian: Woody LaBounty
The self-described “Big History Guy” — he is 6-foot-5 — is the executive director of the Western onhealthy topamax topiramate Neighborhoods Project and the keeper of the mesmerizing OutsideLands.org. If ever there were a more surefire way for a history-minded San Franciscan to blow an afternoon perusing amazing old photos and reading insightful essays than visiting this site, we haven’t found it yet.

Best Place for a Mani/Pedi: Aqua Spa (14 Clement)
Before your toes hit the water, the friendly staff offers you tea, puts a warm wrap around your shoulders, and turns on the massage chair. There’s an endless supply of tabloid magazines, but there’s a good chance you’ll never get to that Brangelina story, because they do foot and hand massages that are so relaxing it’s hard to concentrate on celebrity gossip. More

Best Place to Take Small Kids on a Bike Ride:
Ocean Beach Promenade
…there’s no better place, day-in and day-out to pedal along with the wee ones than the flat, forgiving terrain of the Ocean Beach promenade. More

Best Hike to Ruins of an Astronomical Observatory: Summit of Strawberry Hill, Golden Gate Park
You won’t find strawberries atop Strawberry Hill anymore. Nor will you find the Sweeny Observatory, a grand, castle-like structure erected in 1891. Sepia-toned photos reveal a wondrous, circular structure sprouting atop the hill and reflected in Stow Lake. More

The Sweeny Observatory atop Strawberry Hill lay in ruins after the quake of 1906. Photo courtesy of calisphere

Best Marathon Sporting Development Battle: Beach Chalet Soccer Fields
After five years of wrangling and approval by four city agencies, the state’s Coastal Commission finally approved proposed Astroturf fields under 60-foot light towers on the far west of Golden Gate Park. It was a long and odd road; a city document actually argued that the turf-and-lights plan was best because the area had fallen prey to “undesirable uses such as camping and sexual activity.” Turf opponents claimed that artificial grass conflicted with the natural state of a park created atop rolling sand dunes. Barring legal redress, the turf and lights are coming. Whether the camping and sex go away remains to be seen.

Reader’s Poll Winners
Best Museum: De Young
Best Music Festival: Hardy Strictly Bluegrass
Best Hike: Land’s End
Best Park: Golden Gate Park

A conceptual, overhead rendering of the four renovated fields at Beach Chalet