The Detour, San Francisco

About The Detour

The Detour is an arcade bar and restaurant on upper Market Street in the Castro, running about 50 games across roughly 5,000 square feet, from classic cabinets and pinball to skee-ball, basketball and large-format games, alongside a full bar and a Pan-Pacific kitchen that serves late. It opened as the craft-beer-focused Brewcade in 2015 and rebranded as The Detour in 2019 after expanding into the space next door; the name is a nod to a longtime neighborhood gay bar of the same name that closed in 2005. The crowd is casual and queer-leaning, there to play as much as to drink, and the weekly calendar leans into that with drag bingo, trivia, board-game and gaming nights, and a RuPaul's Drag Race watch party. It's the Castro's go-to when you want something to do with your hands and a low-stakes, social room rather than a dance floor or a cruise bar, good for groups, good for a first date, and easy to fold into a night that starts or ends at the bigger Market Street spots nearby.