Harrington's holds down 245 Front Street in the Financial District and has been an Irish bar on this block since 1935. After four dark years it reopened in 2024, and it now runs as a downtown room to catch the game with a pint and a plate. Walk in, no reservation needed.
San Francisco does not have many bars that predate World War II still pouring under the same name. Harrington's is one of them, an Irish landmark that opened in 1935 and spent decades as the FiDi's after-work standby before going quiet. It came back in March 2024, reopening just before St. Patrick's Day, which for an Irish bar is the only correct week to relaunch.
The room is old San Francisco done straight, dark wood, a long bar, the kind of worn-in feel you cannot fake with a fit-out budget. New owners revived it as part of the push to bring downtown back to life, and one of them told the San Francisco Examiner he wants more Front Street block parties as the city works to turn the area into an entertainment zone. Screens went up for the game; the bones stayed the same.
What you are drinking in is continuity, which downtown San Francisco has been short on lately. Harrington's opened the year the Bay Bridge did, served generations of Financial District workers, and went dark when the offices emptied out. The reopening is part of a slow bet that downtown comes back, and a 90-year-old Irish bar is a sensible place to start, because the thing already has the history that newer rooms spend years trying to manufacture. The fit-out did not need reinventing. It needed the lights turned back on and the taps reconnected.
What to order: a pint of Guinness poured with patience, a draft off the rotating list, and a plate of pub food when the kitchen is on, the bar and grill half of the name is not decoration. Pricing runs at honest downtown-pub level, a fair deal for Front Street, and the bar pours the kind of Guinness that rewards waiting the extra minute.
For now the bar plays to its block. The after-work crowd files in once the offices let out, the kitchen runs pub standards through the day, and the screens carry whatever weekday game is on while the room fills with regulars rediscovering a place they thought they had lost. The weekend closure is the obvious catch for a sports bar, so it works best as a Tuesday-through-Friday proposition. Treat it as the FiDi's history lesson with a pint, and it delivers exactly what it promises.
Who it is for: the after-work FiDi crowd who want a real bar over a hotel lobby, anyone who values a room with history, and lunch-and-a-game regulars. One catch worth knowing, it currently runs a weekday schedule and is closed on weekends, so plan a Saturday game elsewhere. For the wider field, our ranked guide to the best sports bars in San Francisco sets it in context, and our editorial round-up of San Francisco's best bars for watching the game covers the rest of downtown and beyond.
Best time to go: a weekday evening for the after-work crowd, or a weekday afternoon game with a pint and a burger. The kitchen runs through the day, so a midweek lunch holds up. Because the bar keeps weekday-only hours for now, save Sunday football for a room that opens, such as Public House by the ballpark. Our full San Francisco guide covers the city's other sports bars.
Sources: Harrington's (official) · Yelp (updated May 2026) · Downtown SF Partnership · San Francisco Examiner
