Every time I step into a stranger’s house in San Francisco, I make a mental bet with myself. If the occasion is a house party, I’ll shoulder my way to the kitchen. If it’s an ordinary visit, I’ll wait patiently for an opportunity to inspect my host’s glassware. Fifty percent of the time, I spot what I’m looking for as I scan their shelves: a short, stout wine glass with an orange smiley face on the side. Sometimes several.

Among a certain subset of the city’s population — transplants in their 20s who drink, primarily — these glasses, and their smiley face logos, are everywhere. They populate apartments across the city, sitting like trophies on mantles. They share shelves with Goodwill mugs, Costco plates and other accoutrements of young rentership. These are glasses from Bar Part Time, a Mission District wine bar and dance club. Almost invariably, they are stolen.

For bars and restaurants, petty theft isn’t particularly unusual. San Francisco’s Tiki bars have had problems with stolen glassware. What makes Bar Part Time’s glasses unique, though, is their ubiquity. In particular circles, it seems to be an open secret, or a sort of inside joke, that everyone takes these. 

Article continues below this ad

Nina and Kim’s collections of Bar Part Time glasses.

Kim, 27, said she knew at least five people who had never stolen anything in their lives, aside from wine glasses from Bar Part Time. She summarizes the phenomenon:

“I can’t tell if this is selection bias because of who I surround myself with — aka people who commit petty crimes — but I would probably say like 60% of people I know have a glass in their house or apartment.”

Don't let Google decide who you trust.

All of which begs the question: Why? Why do so many people steal glasses from one San Francisco bar? 

Article continues below this ad

In one respect, Bar Part Time is an unusual San Francisco nightlife establishment. In a city where some clubs are deserted by 12:30 a.m., the bar, which describes itself as “probably the best wine bar in the world,” is consistently packed. On Friday and Saturday nights, a line trails out the door, sometimes wrapping around the corner to Guerrero Street. The bar pours natural wine, though this reporter suspects that some of the younger weekend customers would be hard pressed to explain what “natural wine” actually means.

Bartender Sonia Herron pours a glass of wine at Bar Part Time in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026.

Inside, some patrons sit in their booths, sip and chat. But the gravitational center of the dark room is its dance floor, illuminated by the steady twirl of disco ball overhead. The crowd is young, a bit sloppy and, by San Francisco standards, decently dressed. The room gets sweaty, fast; by midnight, any shoulder room is precious. 

That dance floor is a magnet for normies and house music cognoscenti alike. Jeremy Castillo, a co-owner, is a DJ; the room’s bookings reflect an insider’s taste. James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem spun at the bar’s opening party. Scrolling through flyers on the bar’s Instagram grid, one spots a who’s who of Bay Area DJs. Bored Lord and DJ Patrick are resident DJs; last year, HydeFM, a popular San Francisco internet radio station, had a residency. Big touring acts like “Beats in Space” radio host Tim Sweeney play intimate sets at the venue.

Article continues below this ad

Bar Part Time is the creation of partners Castillo, Justin Dolezal and Dan Small, all veterans of the Bay Area’s natural wine scene. The concept, which first took shape in the form of a COVID delivery service, then a series of pop-ups, was a wine bar resolutely free of stuffiness, with an emphasis on bottles, DJs and dancing. Later this year, the owners are planning to open a much larger nightclub, Downtime, at the former home of Bissap Baobab on Mission Street.

Bottles of wine at Bar Part Time in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026.

Dolezal, a co-owner, said that he and his partners are aware that the glasses tend to go missing. While he couldn’t give an exact figure for how many stolen glasses Bar Part Time replaces — that calculation is complicated by the fact that many glasses break as well — Dolezal said that three or four times a year, the bar purchases a pallet of thousands of new wine glasses.

Early on, Dolezal and his partners noticed that glasses were disappearing faster than they should. 

Article continues below this ad

“It’s probably a pretty unique issue we have relative to a lot of places,” he said. “I wish we didn’t have to buy so many glasses. It would certainly help our bottom line if we didn’t have to replenish them that much.”

Patrons cheers after ordering glasses of wine at Bar Part Time in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026.

The glasses are for sale. (“I would love for you to include this in the story,” Dolezal said.) But some of the petty thieves interviewed weren’t aware they could be acquired by legal means. “Maybe they should sell them,” Nina, who has five stolen glasses, suggested.

“The business side of me says, ‘Please pay for them. Support the bar,’” Dolezal said. “However, we are flattered that people love them so much.” 

Article continues below this ad

Central Coast | 'Doomsday fish': Once-in-a-lifetime sea creature encountered in Monterey BayTechnology| A Calif. teen trusted ChatGPT for drug advice. He died from an overdose.Central Coast| He gifted Calif. one of its largest city parks. Then he shot his wife.Culture | Tragedy cut Sublime's fame short. Now the singer's son has the mic.

Get SFGATE's top stories sent to your inbox by signing up for The Daily newsletter here.

Brandon, a 22-year-old student, is one of those people. (All of the thieves asked to be identified by their first names.) He snatched his glass last summer. Part of the draw, he said, was the bar’s image: “I feel like Bar Part Time has a rep to be cool, and artsy people go there,” he said. It helped that he was drunk, too. On the packed dance floor, nobody spotted him slip the glass into his friend’s bag. 

For a while Brandon used his wine glass to drink kefir, but it shattered when he knocked it over. He has not yet replaced it.

Bartender Sonia Herron pours a glass of wine at Bar Part Time in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026.

Nina, 24, knows of six other households in the city with stolen glasses. She agreed that the bar’s image plays into their appeal: “I think they’ve become so reputable that it’s kind of cool to have.” 

Article continues below this ad

Like Nina, Kim has five Bar Part Time glasses. They sit in a row in her living room. They’re easy to take because they can fit up a jacket’s sleeve, she said. For Kim, the glasses’ smiley face logo — designed by New York artist Elijah Anderson — “almost winks at you, slash wants you to take it home.”

When Talia, 25, moved to the city four years ago, she spotted one of the glasses in another person’s home and decided she had to take one for herself.  She currently owns three stolen wine glasses from Bar Part Time, but she’s amassed seven or eight over the years. Some go to her friends; others break. Talia described her method of acquiring the glasses as “a little five-finger discount.” Sometimes she takes two at a time, depending on how big her bag is. 

The rear seating area that turns into a dance floor on the weekend at Bar Part Time in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 2026.

“It’s sort of a rite of passage to me,” she said.

Article continues below this ad

Talia said she considered the theft to be harmless, and assumed that having a Bar Part Time glass would serve as free advertising for the bar. (Dolezal acknowledged that the wine glasses’ tendency to grow legs likely doubles as unintentional guerrilla marketing,)

After speaking to a few thieves, the answer to the mystery seems pretty banal: The glasses are everywhere because Bar Part Time is popular. Aside from the world-class DJ roster, young people go there because other young people go there. They steal glasses because their friends do. It’s a sort of perpetual motion machine, one that deposits glassware in living rooms around the Bay Area.

Maybe in 15 years, when natural wine and the Valencia Street corridor are no longer cool, San Francisco’s Gen Z renters will ditch their roommates to move in with partners. When that day comes, the shelves at Community Thrift and Salvation Army will be flooded with an excess of Bar Part Time glasses, priced at two dollars apiece. Maybe some shopper strolling the aisles will glance at the rows of orange smiley faces and idly wonder how they all got there. 

Article continues below this ad

— The messy, viral fight over America's fourth 'major' city

— SF restaurant that closed after influencer went viral quietly reopens

— Calif. parks jump on viral Gen Z social media trend

© SFGate