Musée Mécanique — Attraction in San Francisco

If I could give Musée Mécanique 10 stars, I absolutely would!

During a recent trip to San Francisco for my brother’s cancer treatment, we stumbled upon this hidden gem while looking for things to do—and it did not disappoint! In fact, we loved it so much that we ended up visiting three times over our 12-day stay.

One of the highlights of our trip was meeting a friend of the owner, who shared some of his favorite machines, told us incredible stories about the museum’s history, and even let us stay late as he showed us around. My brother especially loved it, and those moments truly meant the world to us.

On our last night in SF, we made one final visit, and to our surprise, the girl working there was also from Idaho—such a fun coincidence!

Personally, I was obsessed with their player pianos, which brought back childhood memories of our grandma’s piano. The museum has an incredible variety of machines, from turn-of-the-century palm readers and fortune tellers (my favorite) to classic target-shooting games (my brother’s favorite) and even newer arcade games like The Addams Family.

This would be such a fun date night—grab $20 in quarters and just explore! If we’d had more time, I have no doubt we would have gone back a fourth time. If you're in SF, do not...

This is a really cool place featuring antique (and some newer) arcade games! We spent about $30 here playing random games and had a lot of fun! There are games of every kind! Something for everyone! If you’re a princess diaries fan this is a fan spot that they filmed in!

There are also several “miniature” scenes you can play for a quarter or two and I personally loved those best! We also thought the old music boxes were really cool! They also have a “water fueled motorcycle” on display that my husband was very excited about! (Apparently it was a big deal but it’s the only one of its kind)

My only complaint was that they had several “adult” themed viewer boxes ft inappropriate images. There is a small warning on the box, and you do have to pay to view BUT they are scattered throughout the building (which is huge) so if you had your young children with you, and didn’t want to have to follow them around this could be a problem. I wish they were all together in a roped off area. There’s so many cool games and displays there’s no need for anything vulgar or in appropriate

Parking is a little hard to find. There is a paid parking lot nearby but it was pretty expensive. Might be worth it to find free street...

From the point-of-view of an entertainment enthusiast, the Musée Mécanique is one of the best places in all of San Francisco. It has a completely unique collection of mechanical coin-op arcade games (as opposed to modern electronic arcade games). They're not as flashy as modern arcades, but frankly, I consider that a bit of a plus.

These are antiques, so I would plead for any visitors to be mindful of the age and irreplaceability of these treasures.

Not to mention, in absolute terms, the games themselves are pretty cheap to play! There's no entrance fee, last I remember. You can play any number of games (they have a few dozen) as long as you have quarters and time. You can even just enjoy the sight, and watch everyone else play for free--good to drop something in the donation box, though.

Now that Playland-Not-At-The-Beach is gone, there are very few places like the Musée Mécanique, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Maybe not even elsewhere. When these things stop being profitable or suffer calamities, they end up scrapped or in the hands of private collectors, for their own personal use. That would be a sad fate for so much history. So I recommend this place for a visit by anybody who...