Bay Area summer 2025: Beat the heat with cool events and activities
Find relief with foggy local beaches. Hike a favorite trail to a grassy knoll for a picnic lunch, visit a museum or see a movie. Dive into local pools and water parks like Hurricane Harbor in Concord, the Dublin Wave or South Bay Shores at California's Great America. And don't miss the opportunity to go out after sunset, with cool night markets, movies in the park and more offering a welcome respite from the daytime heat.
Check out the Chronicle's guide to beating the heat with cool indoor and outdoor events and activities:
Enjoy the ocean's cool influence at the weekly after-hours event at the zoo with live music, family-friendly activities, outdoor bars for adults over 21, animal interactions and more. Daytime zoo visitors may stay and attend at no additional charge.
5-7 p.m. Friday, July 18. Through Aug. 29. $14, under 12 free. Playfield Lawn, Sloat Blvd. at the Great Hwy., S.F. Zoo, S.F. 415-753-7080.
Summer of Music SF
Sponsored by Civic Joy Fund and produced in partnership with Noise Pop, this free series offers a full lineup of live, local bands performing alongside the food, artisan vendors, family-friendly fun and chill energy of San Francisco's monthly Castro, Chinatown, Glen Park, Noe Valley, North Beach, Richmond, Valencia and SOMA neighborhood night market events.
4-8 and 5-10 p.m. on select Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. Free. See website for schedule. Various locations throughout San Francisco. www.summerofmusicsf.com
San Anselmo Live on the Avenue
The small North Bay town goes big every weekend with a downtown event featuring two stages of live music, closed streets, children's activities, late shopping and dining. Scheduled performances include Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, Brian Melvin, the Wreckless Strangers, Shana Morrison, Scott Amendola Trio, Sgt. Splendor with Eric McFadden, Sun Ra cellist Kash Killion, Jinx Jones, Pride and Joy, El Radio Fantastique, Super Diamond and others.
National Carousel Day: 'A Spin Around the World'
Head over to the Creativity Museum (adjacent to Yerba Buena Gardens) to enjoy free rides on the 1906 Le Roy Carousel, carousel-themed workshops from the Museum of the African Diaspora, the Mexican Museum and American Bookbinders Museum, live music from René y Familia, shaved ice, games and more.
11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, July 19. Free. Le Roy Carousel, Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St., S.F. 415-820-3320. www.creativity.org/historic-carousel
Blankets & Blockbusters at Thrive City
Explore an interactive kids zone or a couples arts and crafts station. Spread out a blanket and get some snacks to enjoy during outdoor screenings of 'Wicked' in July and '10 Things I Hate About You' in August.
Enjoy classic boardwalk amusements, then rock out to live music and entertainment as local bands, DJs, magicians and acrobats perform on Saturday-Thursday evenings on the beachfront stage throughout summer.
Settle in with fresh saltwater taffy, corn dogs and other boardwalk snacks for family-friendly movies every Friday night on a shoreside big screen in front of the colonnade. Bring a beach blanket or low-back chair for seating.
Magicians and Acrobats 8:30-9:30 p.m. Monday-Wednesday; Live music 8:30 p.m. Thursday; Movies 9 p.m. Friday; DJ dance parties 8:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday. Through Aug. 7. Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, 400 Beach St., Santa Cruz. 831-423-5590.
626 Night Market
The sprawling food festival is set to include more than 200 diverse food and merchandise vendors, games, live music and entertainment for all ages.
3-11 p.m. Friday, July 25; 1-11 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, July 26-27. $5-$25. Alameda County Fairgrounds, 4501 Pleasanton Ave., Pleasanton. www.626nightmarket.com
Summer Stride at the San Francisco Botanical Garden
Celebrate summer with San Francisco Public Library at an afternoon event featuring live drumming and dance workshops with Duniya Drum and Dance Company, storytelling from children's authors Monica Wesolowska and author-illustrator Kenard Pak, hands-on screen-printing with Haight Street Art Center, collaborative art activities, nature play, STEM activities, button-making and an all-ages book giveaway.
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, July 26. Free. Terrace Lawn, San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, 100 John F. Kennedy Dr., S.F. 415-661-1316. www.gggp.org
Oakland Ice Center
Indoor skating is available year-round at this rink, owned and operated by the parent company of the San Jose Sharks.
$11-$23; see website for daily public skate schedule. 519 18th St., Oakland. 510-268-9000. www.oaklandice.com
Summer at Snoopy's Home Ice
The cool and spacious ice rink, located in Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz's hometown, offers year-round ice skating with campy Swiss chalet vibes. A robust summer schedule includes drop-in classes, camps, public skates, a toddlers-on-ice program, team and pickup hockey games, night skate events and more. The onsite Warm Puppy Cafe offers refreshments.
See website for schedule. Free-$20. Snoopy's Home Ice, 1667 W. Steele Lane, Santa Rosa. 707-546-7147.
Yerba Buena Skate
The downtown skating rink on the Yerba Buena Gardens campus offers daily public skate hours year-round.
World Dog Surfing Championships
Hang ten with man's best friend. Scheduled activities include a dog surfing competition, informational tents, activities and more. Participants will receive a goodie bag with treats for pups.
9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 2. Free admission. Linda Mar Beach, 5000 Pacific Coast Hwy., Pacifica. www.surfdogchampionships.com
Cat Video Fest 2025
All hail our fuzzy overlords. Cool cats are featured on the big screen in the air-conditioned North Bay theater as part of a curated compilation of short films. A portion of proceeds from the Smith Rafael Film Center screenings will benefit Jake's Place Cat Rescue.
4:15 p.m. Aug. 2; 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 3-4. $14.50. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415-454-5813. www.rafaelfilm.cafilm.org/cat-video-fest-2025
San Jose Jazz Summer Fest
Keep cool at a three-day festival featuring high-caliber jazz performances on multiple indoor and outdoor stages. Proceeds will benefit the music nonprofit's educational programming and year-round concerts and festivals.
This year's stellar lineup includes Ghost-Note, Dave Binney Action Trio, Louis Cole, Common, Malo, Carl Allen, Butcher Brown, Mary Stallings, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, John Pizzarelli, Tyreek McDole, Marina Crouse, Lalah Hathaway, Femi Kuti, Ricardo Lemvo and Makina Loca, Ray Obiedo, Lilan Kane, Mavis Staples, Stella Cole and many others.
4-9:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 8; 10 a.m.- 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 9; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 10. $30-$680. Plaza de César Chavez Park, 194 S Market St., San Jose. www.summerfest.sanjosejazz.org
Blue Muse and the Celestial Voice Sound Bath Experience
Release anxiety and chill out while soaking up sympathetic vibrations from crystal singing bowls, gongs, chimes and more, amidst the florid tranquility of the Conservatory of Flowers' Orchid Pavilion.
7:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24. $48. Orchid Pavilion, Conservatory of Flowers, 100 John F. Kennedy Dr., S.F. 415-661-1316.
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The Coen brothers have been writing together in San Francisco. But first, there's ‘Honey Don't!'
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San Francisco Chronicle
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Kimchi, burrito bowls, KFC: People love sneaking food into movie theaters. Here's why you should stop
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My hatred of outside food in the theater solidified during my 18 years as a Chronicle movie critic, when I would often go to advance screenings, filled by people who won radio contests. As if the free tickets weren't enough, many brought their own full dinners. (I'll never forget the woman who pulled out a Ziploc bag full of kimchi, and as the lights went down, started eating it with her fingers.) The concession stand prices can seem to justify the crime. The AMC Metreon in San Francisco sells a large popcorn for $11.79. Red Vines are $6.99, more than triple the cost of an identical box an escalator ride away at Target. (Independent theaters often have better deals, like the Cameo's bring-your-own-bowl $4 popcorn special. The Grand Lake Theater's popcorn prices range from $5 to $7, with real butter.) Truth be told, I hauled a Matson cargo ship worth of candy into theaters as a child, and in college wore a trenchcoat in summer weather so I could smuggle burritos for me and two friends into 'Days of Thunder' at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo. Let he who is free of Skittles in his pockets cast the first stone … And yet as a journalist, I've written too many stories about historic Bay Area theaters going full 'The Last Picture Show' and closing forever. Others seek non-profit models, GoFundMe campaigns and personal debt to stay afloat. If you love movies this should feel personal. And when it feels personal, paying $6.50 for a diet soda should feel less like robbery and more like a carbonated civic act. My first call is to Allen Michaan, who owns the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland and has been managing theaters since Aug. 16, 1972, when he took over the Rialto in Berkeley. 'The food subsidizes the operations of the theater,' Michaan begins, before giving a lesson in cinema economics. Theaters give between 50% and 65% of ticket sales back to the studio, with the blockbuster films that fill theaters all summer usually on the higher end of that range. And some studio films require a minimum length in theaters. If they bomb, theater owners are stuck with near-empty rooms. 'The remainder (of ticket revenue) is not enough to cover the operations of the theater,' Michaan said. 'We absolutely rely on the food sales to get us into the black.' For Cameo-owner Cathy Buck, being in the center of Wine Country has meant Wine Country problems. 'Before we had our beer and wine license, we used to have full wine bottles all the time in the theater,' she said. Michaan's darkest years just passed. For decades, a KFC was across the alley from his theater. 'We used to have people try to sneak in Kentucky Fried Chicken, which was always smelly and a mess,' he said. 'Thankfully the chicken place isn't next to the Grand Lake any more. Now it's a Starbucks.' When considering outside food, I place the corporate multiplexes in a different category. What you do there is between you and your god. But everyone I've met who runs an indie movie theater is hustling, and no one is getting rich. Michaan lost money on the Grand Lake for years — I wrote about it in 2010 — subsidizing the theater with his successful auction and antiques fair businesses. If there's an owner who is using those $6 boxes of Junior Mints to fund a stable of race horses, I haven't met her yet. However, one recent trend is combatting the outside food urges: better movie theater menus. The Alameda Theatre near my home partners with the adjacent Cinema Grill to offer movie-themed food and drink specials that align with what's playing. (Currently serving: 'The Human Torch,' a Fireball/Rumchata drink for the new 'Fantastic Four' movie.) 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In fact his biggest outside food problem, decades ago at a theater in Menlo Park, came from a manager who took the policy too strictly, at one point interrogating a couple with a small child. 'She made them pour out the formula in the baby's bottle, because it was outside food,' Michaan said. 'And I fired her! I mean, it's possible to take these things too far.'
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘Eden' director Ron Howard talks George Lucas' influence, rediscovering acting and ‘getting the hell out'
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Now 71, Howard, an Oscar winner for 'A Beautiful Mind' (2001), is back with his first feature film in three years, 'Eden,' based on the true story of a group of German idealists who moved to Floreana, a deserted island in the Galapagos, to escape the chaos of post-World War I Europe. It opens in theaters Friday, Aug. 22. The director of films such as 'Cocoon,' ' Apollo 13 ' and ' Solo: A Star Wars Story ' admits the film is a tonal departure for him; it is perhaps his bleakest movie. To tell the story, Howard turned to screenwriter Noah Pink, with whom he collaborated on the Albert Einstein episodes of the National Geographic series 'Genius,' and an all-star cast led by Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: This doesn't seem like a Ron Howard-type movie. A: I acted with Henry Fonda in a television series that nobody knows about, nor should they, because it was pretty bad, called 'The Smith Family,' when I was 15, 16 years old. He was really the first voice of the industry that encouraged me to be a filmmaker. He was looking at my short films and reading the little scripts that I'd written, and he said, 'If you don't take a big creative risk every year and a half or two, you're not servicing your talent or the audience or the medium that you love.' Q: So then obviously, when you were filming 'American Graffiti,' you were already thinking of becoming a director? A: Yeah. My real common ground with George Lucas, who was in those days very withdrawn and quiet but a very nice guy, but we connected because I'd already been accepted to USC film school (Lucas' alma mater) and I was probably one of the few cast members who had seen the 'THX 1138' short. I had read about Lucas in a collection of interviews by Joseph Gelmis, who was a film critic at the time, called 'Film Director as Superstar' (1970). Francis Coppola was in it, there was a picture of him holding a handheld 16mm camera or an ARRI or something, and he mentioned George at the end of his interview. (Coppola) said, 'Independent filmmaking is gonna be very exciting. And I've been working with this young filmmaker out of USC. His film 'THX 1138' is fantastic.' So it was the beginning of the idea of a kind of an American independent film culture. Q: 'Eden' may be set around 1930, but it has appeal to a lot of modern people who might dream of deactivating all social media accounts and moving to a deserted island. A: 'Off the grid' is one of the most searched terms, so it's always been a big idea. I think one of the reasons that these three groups were German was that not only were they facing this horrible aftermath of World War I and the hopelessness of oppression and the autocracy that was filling the void in ways that were frightening, but also the book 'Robinson Crusoe' was this cultural event at the time. So that idea of getting the hell out and finding a desert island and making a go of it was a romantic one. Dr. Ritter (Law) and Dora (Kirby) were this Adam and Eve, and they became pop icons in German media and then later the U.S. as well. Q: How did you hear about the story, and what was the appeal for you? A: About 15 years ago I was on a vacation with the family in the Galapagos, a place I'd always wanted to go, and had been to Floreana, and I heard about a mystery and a twisted story of people coming into conflict. They had a museum about the Galapagos, and they had a whole room dedicated to this (story) and a lot of images, some of which we use at the end of the movie. Q: What's the most glaringly obvious mistake these people made? A: That the whole notion of running away from society and rediscovering yourself only to recognize that you are part of society. Your humanity is part of what you're trying to run away from. Q: Sydney Sweeney is great in this movie. Any take on the American Eagle jeans commercial controversy? A: I have no opinion about it. (Laughs and shakes head). I'm doing a documentary right now about the photographer, Richard Avedon, and so we have a segment about the (1980s) Brooke Shields (Calvin Klein) jeans ad. But I haven't been paying any attention to the controversy. I don't really even understand it. Q: Do you ever see yourself retiring? A: No, I don't. That's the beauty of this kind of business. My father (Rance Howard) acted until the day before he was stricken and lapsed into a coma, and he was 89. I look at Clint Eastwood and Scorsese and Ridley Scott and they're doing fine work. So if my health holds, I'm loving the process. Q: You appeared as yourself in the Apple TV+ series ' The Studio ' earlier this year. Could we see more of you in front of the camera? A: I could see myself trying to do a little acting again. That was the first time I really had to do any acting in decades where I really learned a lot of lines, even though I played myself. I really enjoyed it.
