SF now has a darts bar with a bulls-eye menu

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At Golden Eye Social, an “interactive darts” bar that opened Wednesday in SoMa, chucking sharp objects at the wall is almost beside the point. Although there are six augmented-reality darts lanes — where customers throw magnetized darts at physical targets, with five types of games at various difficulty levels and electronic scoring —  the real point is the food and drink.

“We didn’t want to be your regular brewery menu, with Buffalo wings and a cheeseburger,” said Jordan Grosser, a corporate chef for Stag Dining Group, which helped put together Golden Eye’s menu. “We wanted to do a menu that was brasserie-esque.”

With its art deco interior and two bars, the 6,500-square-foot space, formerly Osha Thai, is essentially an upscale gastropub that is also a dart bar. Patrons will find bone marrow with caper gremolata ($18); quail eggs pickled a deep pink and served with tangy piparra pickles and good, old-fashioned bar pretzels ($8); and three presentations of tinned seafood, including mussels in escabeche, with Kewpie egg salad and a baguette ($22).

The most sophisticated dish by far is the seven-layer tuna tartare, buried under chive sour cream, sieved egg, shallots, and marinated salmon roe, with nori breadsticks for dipping ($22). “We’re using a puff pastry and pressing it so it doesn’t rise,” Grosser said. “It’s just playful.”

And because this is still a pub, there is a burger. But it’s the rarefied, $22 kind, topped with caramelized onions, gruyére, and a spicy remoulade on a pain de mie bun, alongside a fistful of shoestring fries. 

The truth is, at Golden Eye, you don’t need to be into darts at all. There are pinkies-out wine bars that don’t get anywhere near this level of fancy. 

Still, interactive darts, which updates the classic pub game the way Top Golf does the fairway, is fun to play. Similar to bowling alleys, the dart lanes can be reserved for 90 minutes ($45 for up to six players; $60 for up to eight). You have to stay behind the oche — the throw line that rhymes with “hockey” — but at least you get to wear your own shoes. When Mayor Daniel Lurie swung through Tuesday night for a pre-opening party, he reportedly hit just outside the bull’s-eye on his first throw.

Golden Eye’s location, within spitting distance of the Moscone Center, seems designed to attract thirsty convention-goers and corporate buyouts. Mike Schwindt, the assistant general manager and beverage program director, believes the bar is sitting on a hot corner. “We’ve noticed that this is the main people highway for Giants fans,” he said. “They’ll go from the BART station on Market, walk right past our doors, go see the boys in orange play, and then they’ll come right back.”

Schwindt is hoping to capture some of that traffic with a list of cocktails, all $15, that tilts strongly in the direction of mezcal and tequila. Standouts include ¿Dónde está la biblioteca?, which blends Don Julio blanco with amaro nonino, banana, and chile liqueurs, and a wealth of fruits, like Cara Cara oranges, passion fruit, and lime, as well as the Combination Finish, a gin gimlet zhuzhed up with elderflower and egg whites, with a slice of cucumber wrapped around the inside of the glass. As a rule, Schwindt is drawn to elegant garnishes, with no fewer than six types of dehydrated citrus wheels in the well.

So: How elevated is too elevated for a glorified dart bar? League players at old-school darts destinations like Yancy’s in the Sunset might arch an eyebrow at Golden Eye’s prawn cocktails and wallpaper. But the execution is top-notch. Plus there are some goofy details, like a big, red button in one restroom labeled “Do not push.” (No spoilers, except to say you’d better like dad rock.) Overall, it’s heavy on bull’s-eyes, light on bullshit.