The Westfield San Francisco Centre in San Francisco, California: A Review

The Westfield Center is conveniently located directly off of the Powell Street BART and MUNI station, a vexing fact to those of us that don't frequent the Westfield since it turns the Powell stop into an almost constant traffic hell. Out of town visitors from the East Bay can be pumped directly to the Westfield via BART's underground tubes, enter the mall directly from underground, and leave the same way never once having to step outside and possibly encounter one of those scary "bums" they've heard so much about.

The thing you'll first notice about the main concourse of the Westfield Center is that it was clearly designed with aesthetics in mind over functionality. The spiraling center leading up to the fourth floor balcony is lovely and all, but if you've ever tried shopping here at the holidays, those narrow stairways and escalators are a ridiculous traffic artery clogger. Plus, there always has to be the obligatory band of half-stoned slouchy beanie-over-the-eyes skater kids who stumble around aimlessly and nearly walk into everyone. Because that's just what a mall means to America.

The hours are OK, at 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. all days except Sunday, where they cut it back to 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. I have to take off serious points for the bathroom situation, however. In the case of the men's room, this four floor mall with literally over a hundred shops has a grand total of one restroom with one toilet stall and two urinals in it. This is because San Francisco city ordinance states that making sure the homeless can't go peeps or poopoos in a civilized way is the highest priority of downtown at all times and comes before even the comfort of our various guests and visitors. Of course, some homeless dude always spites the system by camping the bathroom as soon as the mall opens and taking up residence in the one stall until forcibly removed. A free tip, the anchoring Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom's stores both have their own restrooms, which are more spacious and which seem to be kept in better shape.

The store selection is large, but is decidedly dominated by your typical mall clothing chains - Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle, Banana Republic, Bebe, Calvin Klein, Champs Sports, Eddie Bauer, Guess?, Hot Topic, Juicy Couture, so on and so forth.

The Century 9 movie theater is a little overpriced, but welcome to San Francisco, there's no escaping that here. It somewhat makes up for it by actually having nice seats, reasonably clean theaters and the option of buying coffee to go with your movie (I can't recall any other theater I've ever been to anywhere that sold coffee ... beer at a few of them ... never coffee though.)

San Francisco State University now has a satellite campus here on the upper floors. It's too bad it's only for business classes because it's actually pretty nice. Then again, I guess the plan is to specifically immerse business students in the sort of Faux Luxe illusionary atmosphere that will dominate their lives from here on out. Get them used to breathing recycled mall air conditioner air that is tainted with chemicals scientifically proven to increase the shopping urge, and all that.

To finish up, let's talk food court. They do have a pretty huge selection of restaurants but it's largely too pricey for me, so I don't have much to contribute on that end. They have a Beard Papa for tasty pumpkin creampuffs, though there's another Beard Papa not far away on 4th and Mission so it seems like overkill to have another one here. For "cheap" options they just have Panda Express and Rubio's, and the Rubio's is one of the few that doesn't offer dollar fish tacos on Tuesday nights, which basically makes the whole enterprise fail.

Westfield San Francisco Centre
865 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
# 415-512-6776
http://www.westfield.com/sanfrancisco