Mezzanine

Best Dance Club

Many of San Francisco's nightclubs have a gimmick; something that a venue is known for. That can be a good thing, but all too often it makes a place predictable. Mezzanine is a spot that is thankfully hard to pigeonhole, and the crowd varies widely depending on the night, giving it a chameleonic quality. To hip-hop fans, it's often a packed-to-the-gills sweatbox that's the only place to see national artists who might not have otherwise stopped here. To electronic music fetishists, it can take on a gallerylike atmosphere (if the music is more on the experimental side), or resemble a world-class hedonistic danceteria of rhythm revelers. Indie rockers love it, too. Best of all, the sound won't cause ear bleeding.