Indian businesses and services in San Francisco, United States

San Francisco itself has a smaller South Asian residential community than the suburbs to the south and east, but it holds some important history. The Ghadar Party, the anti-colonial movement founded by Indian immigrants on the Pacific coast in 1913, had its headquarters in the city. The original building on Hill Street is gone, but the Ghadar Memorial on Wood Street, managed by the Indian consulate, keeps the story alive. The Vedanta Society's Old Temple on Webster Street in Cow Hollow, completed in 1906, is described as the first Hindu temple in the Western Hemisphere.

For food and shopping, the city is scattered, with restaurants spread through the Mission, SoMa and other neighbourhoods rather than gathered in one district. Across the bay, University Avenue in Berkeley has a run of Indian grocers, sweet shops and restaurants close to the UC Berkeley campus, and Oakland has South Asian businesses of its own. Many of the region's largest temples and gurdwaras are further out, in Fremont, San Jose and the Tri-Valley.

Practical notes: BART connects the city with Berkeley and Oakland, and parking in San Francisco is scarce and expensive, so transit is usually the better option. Diwali, Holi and Navratri events in the city tend to be organised by community groups, student associations and cultural organisations in rented venues, so venues change from year to year. This page covers San Francisco, the inner peninsula and the nearby East Bay.