San Francisco & San Mateo County

One of the best things about meeting in San Francisco and San Mateo County is being there—surrounded by the scenic beauty of the Pacific Ocean and coastal hills, the beaches, the fog, the redwoods, the world-class cultural institutions, the restaurants, the busy downtowns, and the great outlying neighborhoods.

With the region’s spectacular settings, there are so many great locations for off-sites that it’s tough to know where to begin—although Anne LeClair, CEO of the San Mateo County CVB, is willing to try.

“One of the reasons [San Mateo County] is a great destination is we’re close to San Francisco—but then we’re 72 percent open space, so we can have off-sites on beaches, amid giant redwoods, on farms, at a winery. People don’t realize we can be so close to a big city and have so many venues for off-sites.”

And if stationary off-sites don’t do it for planners, LeClair can simply put in a call to the local commuter railway.

“We have a great relationship with CalTrain,” Le Clair says. “We can add a special car to a train, and groups can get off at the ballgame or wherever.”

Kathryn Horton, director of convention services at the San Francisco CVB, chimes in with some of the most recent off-site options to debut in the city.

“New venues have opened up in the Presidio and along the waterfront, such as the Ferry Building and AT&T Park, South of Market, and under the dome of Westfield Shopping Centre,” she says. “The natural backsplash of San Francisco creates a unique environment for events outdoors, and events can be tailored to create themed [programs] such as ‘A Taste of San Francisco,’ highlighting the different neighborhoods.”

With these officials’ raves as a starting point, Meetings West asked several local event and meeting planners to pick the hottest off-site venues in San Francisco and San Mateo County. The envelopes, please:


SAN FRANCISCO

Kim Teevan, Owner/Producer, Teevan Events, www.teevanevents.com

• Yacht SF: What better way to get people out of the hotel than to launch them to sea? Yacht SF offers a variety of private charters, from an intimate, 150-person yacht to a 700-person cruising machine.
  
  
• Fort Mason: Fort Mason offers so much variety, it feels criminal to be listing it under one heading. It covers the spectrum of large event spaces (Herbst Pavilion, 3,000-person capacity, and Festival Pavilion, 5,000-person capacity) to a variety of smaller venues, such as the Fort Mason Officers’ Club in upper Fort Mason and the Golden Gate Club (both 400-person capacity).
  
  
• Bently Reserve: Originally part of the lobby of the 1924 Federal Reserve Bank, the event space has been fully restored, and the building in which it’s housed is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The Bently Reserve has a capacity of 820 and is a gorgeous space that recently got a lot of media attention for hosting the Global Green event, which brought celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Salma Hayek and Orlando Bloom up from Hollywood.

, President and Founder, Key Events, www.keyevents.com

• Dogpatch Studios, which is a photographic studio located in—you guessed it—the Dogpatch section at the base of Potrero Hill. This three-level studio starts with a large room with roll-up door access for easy move-in. The space has a small mezzanine and a huge expanse of cement walls that can be decorated to fit the theme and decor. The second level has wood floors and windows looking out to the street, while the fourth floor has 20-foot glass walls that look out over the city, plus an outdoor patio.
  
  
• Temple is a new club located South of Market that has yet to open. It has three levels, with the lower level being a video bar—sleek, white, New Age. It has video screens all the way around the top of the room. The main room is a re-creation of a Thai temple. There is a secret women’s club that is only accessible through a stall in the women’s bathroom; it has one-way mirrors so that you can see everyone, but they can’t see you.
  
  
• Supper Club is a new dinner-theater restaurant located close to Moscone Center. Everyone sits on beds while they eat dinner and watch the show.
  
  
• The rooftop of the Hotel Vitale is the perfect place for a clear tent and a sweeping view of San Francisco Bay!

, Partner, Perfect World Events, www.perfectworldevents.com

• Belden Place: Considered the French Quarter of San Francisco, Belden Place offers an atmosphere that parallels dining in the most intimate restaurants of Europe. Featuring restaurants serving different types of international cuisine—French (Cafe Bastille and Plouf), Italian (Cafe Tiramisu) and Catalan (B44) to name a few, this European-style side street is a great place to have a block party under the stars for a large group. Street performers and strung lights add just the right ambience, and with its central location just off Union Square, it is also easy to reach!
  
  
• Treasure Island: The Great Lawn is an expansive grass area of approximately 125,000 square feet. Located on Treasure Island’s western shore, it has magnificent views of the San Francisco skyline and is perfect for large tented events. Whether it’s a formal sit-down event or standing reception, ending the night with fireworks over the bay makes this a location unlike any in the world. There’s also the Casa de la Vista, a former officers’ club built in 1944, which offers spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline and surrounding islands. The Building 1 lobby, built for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, adds a magnificent Art Deco aura to any event. Lastly, Building 180, used mainly for film production, is great for theme parties for very large groups. I recently did a pharmaceutical party here for 1,800 people with a “planet” theme, including 1 million square feet of drape and three separate stages.
  
  
• City Hall: Whether for a sit-down event with classical strings and 75,000 roses for 200 guests or a Left Coast theme party for 1,800 featuring the atrium and balcony, City Hall is a magnificent venue. Its beautiful dome is modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome; today it is one of the city’s most breathtaking landmarks, towering over 306 feet above the ground and featuring gleaming 24-carat gold. The rotunda’s focal point is the magnificent grand staircase to the second-floor balcony. A beautiful venue, City Hall provides a wonderful canvas that is easily transformed for many themes and various group sizes.

, Executive Vice President and Director of Marketing, Borel Private Bank & Trust Co., www.borel.com

• San Mateo County History Museum: We’ve done a beautiful event at the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City—a retirement party for the president of a bank. It was beautiful because the museum is in the old county courthouse on the main floor under this beautiful stained-glass dome. We had candles on the tables and used antiques that the president collects as centerpieces—things that were meaningful in his life and of historical significance. We had cocktails in the balcony area beneath the dome, then had about 200 guests down below for dinner. Some of the museum’s exhibits were open, and we had music since the acoustics are quite nice. We had a slideshow—a “roast” type of thing. We have also done Rotary events there, with dancing in the courtroom. It’s really stunningly different; even our Boston counterparts who came were wowed, because they don’t think there’s any history here.
  
  
• The Filoli Estate: The Filoli Estate is spectacular, with lovely gardens all around. We hosted an event there as part of the centennial observation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. We started in the main house, where we had a beautiful setting with hors d’oeuvres and wine and champagne for about 125, and then Simon Winchester, who wrote A Crack in the Edge of the World about the 1906 earthquake and fire, spoke. The estate is right on the Hayward Fault, so it’s an interesting place to have an event. He spoke in the main ballroom, which is this gorgeous frescoed and painted space. Again, it’s just a beautiful venue for an event, with great parking and greeters all along the way. We held this in April, and the flowers were in bloom, so we gave tours of the garden or particular portions of the garden. I’ve also been to jazz concerts there—they have tennis courts where jazz greats have performed in the summer. So there’s all sorts of things that can be done there both outdoors and indoors.
  
  
• Atherton Appliance: We did a “culinary kitchen” at Atherton Appliance, a sit-down dinner with a food presentation by celebrity chef Jesse Cool. She gave a presentation and then we moved into their showroom for a sit-down dinner for clients. Cool is a well-known local chef who has two restaurants in Menlo Park. She spoke to about 50 of our clients, and they really got a huge kick out of that.
  
  
• Sam’s Chowder House and Harley Farms: I’ve attended events on the coast at places like Sam’s Chowder House in Half Moon Bay or Harley Farms in Pescadero, which is a goat farm, and I buy a lot of their cheeses. They’ve got some super locations where you could have a dinner in this farmhouse. It would only seat about 12 people, but it’s on a farm overlooking the goats! You can also go to the coast and meet the fishermen who run out into the ocean, and they tell you how you can buy fresh fish.

, CMP, Senior Communications Specialist, Nektar Therapeutics, San Carlos, www.nektar.com

• The Sofitel in Redwood Shores or the Crowne Plaza Foster City: At the Crowne Plaza, Arthur Wood, the events coordinator there, is just amazing. We had our holiday party there and had every conference room and every meeting room in the whole place. Arthur goes above and beyond; he’s just amazing to work with. The Sofitel has been renovated and updated so it’s just a very nice venue—very upscale. We hold all our meetings there.
  
  
• San Mateo Expo Center: We had a really amazing event over at the San Mateo Expo Center. It was just a huge venue; you can do a lot with it. People there are very helpful and responsive. We brought in our own entertainers and decorators, but the Expo Center is just a blank slate, so you can do whatever you want. It’s the size of a football field, and we had close to 2,000 people, with one area sectioned off for a cocktail reception. The curtains opened and people moved over for dinner and dancing and entertainment, so that was good for our group.
  
  
• The Peninsula Country Club: The Peninsula Country Club is really nice; we used to hold our holiday parties there and people really enjoyed it. We outgrew it, but if you have less than 500 people and you know a member, it’s a great place.
  
  
  For More Info
  
  San Francisco CVB    415.974.6900     www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com
  
  San Mateo County CVB    650.348.7600     www.visitsanmateocounty.com