South San Francisco

Most locals refer to San Francisco simply as The City. South San Francisco, then, is reasonably known as South City. The shorthand is telling, for South San Francisco has much of what The City to its north offers and some of what it doesn't. A vast and beautiful wilderness in the form of San Bruno Mountain Park, part of the Santa Cruz Mountain Range, borders South San Francisco to the north, and the San Francisco Bay is visible from most places in this gently sloping small metropolis. Downtown South San Francisco is an L-shaped neighborhood of about 1 square mile just under a mile south of the trailheads of San Bruno Mountain Park and 1.5 miles west of the San Francisco Bay. There are some cool new modern townhouse constructions in the vicinity, but for the most part, bungalows, Craftsmans and some midcentury condominium buildings make up the housing stock of Downtown South San Francisco. Homes range from $750,000 to $1.5 million. Renovated Monterey bungalows with two bedrooms, arched entryways and one-car garages on smallish lots are on the market for $900,000. For $1.1 million, you'll find modular townhomes with modern wooden exterior details and four bedrooms. Eater Magazine's list of Everywhere Worth Eating Between San Francisco and SFO (or San Francisco International Airport) includes three restaurants within a mile of any residence in Downtown South San Francisco. Little Lucca Sandwich Shop has some of the largest hoagies in the Bay Area. The magazine says The Night Market is a near-exact replica of the night markets in Hong Kong, from the ambiance to the food. This being California, you'll also find excellent Mexican food in the area, with Taqueria San Bruno being the local favorite. You can grow food in the South San Francisco Community Garden. There are a few ethnic markets Downtown and a Safeway under a mile west. Orange Memorial Park, which is inside the neighborhood, has a renovated sports field and an aquatic center. Sign Hill Park, just a few blocks north, offers 30 acres of hiking with a hilltop view of the Bay, and peaks in the 2,500-acre San Bruno Mountain State & County Park rise to 1,300 feet. According to the Mayor's Office, South City is The Biotech Capital of the World. Biotech pioneer Genentech offers a pipeline to its workforce by partnering with local schools. The South San Francisco Unified School District received a B-plus from the school ranking website Niche. Genentech's partnership with the district is one reason why. The Science Garage is a 4-year biotech track in which students can pursue STEM opportunities with a concentration in biotech in a state-of-the-art facility on the campus of South San Francisco High School donated by the world's biggest biotech company. Not far, Spruce Elementary received a C from Niche and Parkway Heights Middle School received a B-minus. While Downtown South San Francisco is on the flight path of the nearby San Francisco International Airport, its proximity to the airport provides much convenience. State Route 101 runs along the eastern side of the neighborhood, leading north to the Golden Gate Bridge or south all the way to Los Angeles. Otherwise, residents can get from South City to anywhere in The City in under 20 minutes on the BART. Given the strong economy of South City, however, you may be able to bike to work, as most of the major biotech firms are within a mile or two.

The See’s Candies headquarters in Orange Park might not be the same place where Lucy and Ethel made a mess on the company’s assembly line in the classic episode of “I Love Lucy,” but visitors can buy a box of carefully wrapped chocolates there all the same. Situated in South San Francisco, Orange Park features everything typical for this city: biking and walking trails, diverse restaurants, busy warehouses and community-supported schools. Mostly sandwiched between the neighborhood’s namesake park and an industrial warehouse zone, residents live in suburban-style housing tracts with a mix of old and new subdivisions featuring mid-century ranch-style homes and more contemporary two-story residences that range from $800,000 to $1.7 million. South San Francisco was founded in the 19th century as a heavily industrial city filled with factories and smokestacks. There’s a more diverse mix of lighter industries today, but industrial warehouses remain a big part of the area. Some include outlet retail stores such as Raymond’s Sourdough Bread Outlet, where visitors can get loaves of San Francisco’s trademark bread from a bakery owned by a local family since the 1990s. A few blocks down at The Night Market, food stalls serving steaming bowls of noodles, barbecue pork buns and other Hong Kong-style street foods occupy a strip mall storefront near different warehouses and industrial bakeries. Students in the community can attend Los Cerritos Elementary and Parkway Heights Middle School. Niche gives the schools a C and B-minus rating, respectively. Students can go to South San Francisco High, where Niche gives a B-plus. All the city’s public schools feature special hands-on science programs and competitions under a partnership with Genentech, a pioneering biotechnology company rooted in the town since the 1970s. Orange Memorial Park and the adjacent Centennial Way Dog Park are in the neighborhood's east end. Spanning 28 acres, Orange Memorial's numerous amenities include a skate park and bocce ball courts. An aquatic center is slated to open in 2025. Connected to the park, the Centennial Way Trail’s paved walkway courses through the city, passing transit stops and neighborhoods. Orange Park is close to the city’s downtown area so that residents can visit other restaurants and boutique stores in minutes. There isn’t much parking there, so walking may be the most convenient option. Big-box stores such as Target, Marshalls, Lowe’s and The Shops at Tanforan Mall are also nearby in the neighboring city of San Bruno. A BART station is also in a convenient location for commuters who work in downtown San Francisco or Silicon Valley.

Located 14 miles south of Downtown San Francisco, Serra Highlands showcases a postwar suburban landscape, with well-preserved 1950s mid-century homes arranged along quiet, wide sidewalk-lined streetscapes. This South San Francisco neighborhood developed once the city began transitioning from its former heavily industrial roots into a more diverse area with residential housing tracts. Now, with its traditional housing allure, the neighborhood’s proximity to growing Bay Area business sectors is becoming another big draw for Serra Highlands. “It’s very close to the San Francisco biotech industry, which has just really taken off in the last ten years,” says Robert Garrison, a lifelong resident of the Bay Area, local real estate broker and owner of Garrison Properties with over 45 years of real estate experience. With the added benefits of being next to beautiful nearby hiking trails, urban hotspots and public transportation hubs, Sierra Highlands continues to be an attractive place for Peninsula-area residents to call home. Sierra Highlands’ wide residential streets run parallel to each other, with homes sitting close together and uniformly set back from the street. Most homes in Serra Highlands were built in the 1950s, displaying typical architectural designs of that time. These primary housing styles include mid-century ranchers and split-level homes, although there are sprinkles of traditional homes and newer, contemporary designs throughout the neighborhood. Properties commonly feature front porches and brightly colored exteriors, contributing to the neighborhood’s unique character. The neighborhood’s housing prices range from around $1 million to a little over $2 million. The lower pricing end tends to be one-story homes with one-car garages, while the higher end is typically two-story homes with two-car garages and updated interiors. Students are conveniently within walking distance from Buri Buri Middle School, rated at a B-plus by Niche, and the B-rated Alta Loma Middle School. El Camino High School, rated at a B-plus, is just two miles east. “The kids here all go to the same schools where they live, unlike in San Francisco where the zoning is all lottery-based,” Garrison says. Public students at all grade levels get to participate in specialized hands-on science programs under a district partnership with Genentech, a pioneering biotechnology company rooted in the city since the 1970s. Buri Buri Park is located on the neighborhood's south side, connected to the local elementary school. Residents can enjoy the site’s tennis courts, baseball fields and small playground with an intricate climbing structure. On the north side of Serra Highlands is Clay Avenue Park, which features a green playset with picnic tables and a black top section for children to draw on with chalk. Along the neighborhood's eastern border, residents can explore the 7-acre Alta Loma Park. It features paved walking paths and an ample open green space, perfect for picnicking or tossing a frisbee. Residents can also practice serving or shooting hoops at the site’s basketball and tennis courts, while children can run around the colorful modern playground. Just next to Serra Highlands, the California Golf Club of San Francisco is a popular private club with a scenic 18-hole course sprawling across sloped hills with tall pine trees. Numerous local dining and shopping options are just minutes away from Serra Highlands. JoAnn’s Café on El Camino Real has been a neighborhood favorite since 1984, serving American breakfast and lunch fare in a classic diner environment. Next door, the locally owned Karilagan Restaurant has been an area staple since 2003. Residents head here for traditional Filipino dishes, including favorites like crispy pork legs and chicken adobo. The neighborhood is adjacent to a large shopping center with a Costco Wholesale and Trader Joe’s for grocery essentials. For additional shopping, less than three miles north is the expansive Serramonte Center Mall, which offers big national retailers like Target and Old Navy. Residents can enjoy festive, annual community events throughout the South San Francisco area. Just east of Serra Highlands, the South San Francisco Public Library/Parks & Recreation Center hosts seasonal activities, including an annual Santa Comes to Town event at City Hall, where local kids can have a meet and greet with Santa. Another seasonal favorite is the city’s annual Halloween Extravaganza. Taking place a few miles out at Orange Memorial Park, the festival features a trunk-or-treat set-up, a petting zoo, Halloween-themed games, a haunted house and a floating pumpkin patch at the site’s public swimming pool. When looking to commute or travel around the Peninsula by public transportation, the South San Francisco Bay Area Rapid (BART) Transit station is located just east of the neighborhood. The station also includes a bus stop for the city’s local free shuttle that leads downtown. The Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco Medical Center is just across the street from Serra Highlands on the neighborhood's eastern border, while the San Francisco International Airport is seven miles south.

The neighborhood of Sign Hill is named after the park that’s home to the iconic 100-year-old local landmark sign that reads, “South San Francisco The Industrial City.” This South San Francisco suburb was formerly a convenient location for many industrial warehouses that have now become office buildings for numerous biotech companies. Today, its vintage charm is a big appeal for many, with a mixed architectural landscape featuring views of the city and San Bruno Mountain, plus easy access to San Francisco and beyond. “Sign Hill is close to public transportation and is also next to downtown South San Francisco, which is a big draw,” says Wilson Leung, a local realtor of 13 years and co-broker of OWN Real Estate. “It’s probably one of the closest neighborhoods to Oyster Point, which is a big biotech hub in the area, so it’s a very convenient neighborhood for commuting residents.” Sign Hill’s softly hilly streets feature narrow sidewalks with a mix of one-level and two-level homes. “The neighborhood is almost set up into two sections, where in the front part of it, you have a couple of streets with very large homes, more space and nice views of the city,” Leung says. “Then, in the back portion of the neighborhood, there’s more of an older housing track with smaller, one-story homes or properties that have been updated and built up to be two stories.” Although widely varied, the most common housing styles include midcentury ranch homes, split-levels, bungalows from the 1920s and boxy 1930s Mediterranean-style homes. The properties often feature compact front yards either landscaped with flowers and shrubs or transformed into wider driveways. Housing prices start from around $885,000 for smaller single-level properties and up to $1.9 million for two-level, 4-bedroom homes with updated modern interiors and extra lot space. While shopping, dining and grocery essentials are more limited within Sign Hill, many options are located nearby. Sign Hill’s proximity to South San Francisco’s downtown area gives residents access to various eateries along Grand Avenue. Locals often wait in lines for a table at Grand Palace, a Chinese restaurant with a spacious banquet-style dining room, well known for their dim sum and Cantonese delicacies. Brothers Café is a highly rated spot for elevated American comfort food and features a quaint covered front patio. The café’s menu items are made from locally sourced ingredients, with favorites including oatmeal pancakes and eggs benedict. One of the most trendy and hip spots along Grand Avenue is Dead Eye Coffee, serving classic and specialty coffee varieties and pastries. Residents can drive less than two miles west along El Camino Real to pick up groceries at Safeway, or the nearby Pacific Supermarket, which offers specialty Asian food items. For more shopping, the Shops at Tanforan is two miles south of Sign Hill, with popular retailers like Petco and Target. Residents can enjoy recreational attractions inside and outside of the neighborhood. Sign Hill Park, which features the popular Hike Ridge Trail, is located within the neighborhood and offers access to the eponymous “sign” on the “hill.” The 65-foot-tall set of letters reading, “South San Francisco the Industrial City" is an infamous Northern California landmark. Hikers here can get close to it from the Ridge Trail, which spans a little over a mile and winds throughout the park. The site is also popular for its scenic natural surroundings, where native wildlife sightings are common. The Terrabay Gymnasium, located in the northern part of the neighborhood, features a public fitness room, playground area and an open gym for playing badminton, basketball, tennis or pickleball. The gymnasium is home to many of the community’s youth sports league games as well. Just outside and directly north of Sign Hill is the expansive San Bruno Mountain State and County Park where residents can explore scenic hiking and biking trails that lead up to panoramic views of the San Francisco Peninsula. Many events take place throughout the year in the South San Francisco area, particularly at nearby Orange Memorial Park. Less than a mile from the neighborhood, the park hosts a Movie in the Parks event each summer, where residents enjoy family-friendly movies on the lawn. The park also holds a Concerts in the Park series each spring, with live music performances from local musicians. The annual Halloween Extravaganza is another favorite at the park, featuring a trunk-or-treat set-up, a petting zoo, a haunted house and a floating pumpkin patch at the site’s public swimming pool. Students can attend Spruce Elementary School, which gets a C-rating from Niche, followed by the B-minus-rated Parkway Heights Middle School. For high schoolers, South San Francisco High School is rated at a B-plus. In 2017, the school launched its popular Science Garage, a state-of-the-art biotech lab and classroom backed by a $7.8 million grant from the Genentech Foundation. For residents looking for a private school alternative, the nearby All Souls Catholic High School is a popular choice. It serves students from Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 8. Sign Hill sits between two major thoroughfares, El Camino Real and Highway 101's Bayshore Freeway, which connect to Interstate 280 for getting around the Peninsula. San Francisco is located about 10 miles north, and Oakland is 20 miles northeast. Residents have easy access to San Francisco International Airport, less than six miles from Sign Hill. There are multiple public bus stops just south of the neighborhood along Grand Avenue, and less than two miles west is the South San Francisco BART station.

Located in the western portion of South San Francisco, Sunshine Gardens is a peaceful suburban enclave next to plenty of urban amenities. Residentially developed in the 1950s, the neighborhood is known for its classic post-war housing landscape of one-level mid-century homes and its desirable access to transit and commuter corridors. “One of the biggest draws here is its convenient proximity to public transportation, especially the South San Francisco BART station,” says Wilson Leung, a local realtor of 13 years and co-broker of OWN Real Estate. “The neighborhood also has good proximity to some of the city’s main everyday establishments like Costco.” Boasting highly rated schools, quiet residential streetscapes and scenic backdrop views of San Bruno Mountain, Sunshine Gardens is a popular choice for new residents. “The area attracts a lot of younger families or couples looking to settle in with kids on the way,” Leung says. “The neighborhood is a bit more dense, and prices here tend to be lower than in other parts of the city, so it’s a nice starter home community.” The neighborhood’s gently sloping streetscapes have a grid-style layout with narrowly paved sidewalks and extra-wide streets. Many homes display small front lawns with grass and simple landscaping, while others opt for stone and concrete-based landscaping. Most homes are one-story and boast common housing styles like classic ranches, mid-century ranchers and contemporary properties. Newer subdivisions, such as the Promenade near Alta Loma Park, feature rows of larger, two-story homes that are more uniform with Spanish-style architecture. Single-family home prices in Sunshine Gardens range from $900,000 to $1.9 million. The neighborhood also offers a few condominium options, including Park Station, which is one of the first transit-oriented condominium complexes in South San Francisco. The complex is across the street from the BART Station and features amenities, including a gym, public green spaces and outdoor BBQ grills. Condos can start at $480,000 for one bedroom and can go up to $1.2 million for three- to four-bedroom condos with luxury-style interiors. JoAnn’s Café on El Camino Real has been a neighborhood favorite for decades, serving up American breakfast and lunch fare in a classic diner environment. Next door, Gunter’s is a similar longstanding eatery that keeps its regulars coming back for breakfast favorites, including waffles and pancakes. At The Garden Club on Mission Road, residents can enjoy hearty, down-home American classics like prime rib and mashed potatoes in a cozy, casual atmosphere. Residents can pick up groceries at popular chains like Trader Joe’s on El Camino Real or the Safeway on Chestnut Avenue, while nearby Costco offers larger-scale grocery items. The Sunshine Gardens Shopping Center on Mission Road is home to a range of small retailers for other everyday shopping essentials. The community can enjoy numerous annual events in the South San Francisco area. The Movie in the Parks event each summer takes place at Orange Memorial Park, where residents can sit out on the lawn to enjoy family-friendly movies. The park also holds a Concerts in the Park series each spring, with live music performances from local artists and bands. The annual Halloween Extravaganza is another Orange Memorial Park favorite, featuring a trunk or treat set-up, a petting zoo, a haunted house and a popular floating pumpkin patch at the park’s Orange Pool. Neighborhood students can attend Sunshine Gardens Elementary School, which gets a B-minus from Niche, followed by the B-rated Alta Loma Middle School. El Camino High, rated at an A-minus, offers students a robust catalog of AP courses and STEM classes, along with dozens of extracurricular clubs. Both El Camino High and Sunshine Gardens Elementary are located inside the neighborhood, conveniently within walking or biking distance from many residences. Sunshine Gardens is surrounded by natural beauty and green spaces, offering plenty of great nearby outdoor recreation. Bordering west of the neighborhood is the 7-acre Alta Loma Park on Camaritas Avenue. It features paved walking paths and an ample open green space, perfect for picnicking or tossing a frisbee. Residents can also practice serving or shooting hoops at the site’s basketball and tennis courts, while children can run around the colorful modern playground with its intricate climbing structures. West of the neighborhood is Orange Memorial Park, one of the largest parks in South San Francisco. Spanning 21 acres, the site is a one-stop spot for all kinds of outdoor amenities. Locals can enjoy walking trails, athletic fields, bocce courts, a swimming pool, a sculpture garden and a large activity pavilion, where many community events take place. The San Bruno Mountain State and County Park is just three miles north in Brisbane for expansive hiking and biking trails and panoramic views of the entire Peninsula. A big draw for resident commuters is that the South San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station is within walking distance of most of the neighborhood's homes. The area is known for its proximity to the San Francisco International Airport, which is a 7-mile drive south of Sunshine Gardens. For drivers wanting to travel or commute around the Bay Area, main thoroughfares like Highway 82 and Interstate 280 sit just west of the neighborhood, while Route 101 is less than two miles east. The large Kaiser Permanente South San Francisco Medical Center is also conveniently located within Sunshine Gardens.