Episode 1 · Neighborhood Overview & Local Vibe
Cow Hollow SF Real Estate: Transit, Weather and Daily Life
Cow Hollow is known for Union Street, a long street of shops, cafes and restaurants, with Fillmore Street crossing it and the Presidio just past the western edge. This page shows what the area is like day to day, how the weather runs, which buses serve it, how schools are assigned, and where to look for what this page leaves out.
💡 Key Insights & Takeaways
- The 45 Union/Stockton and the 22 Fillmore buses run through Cow Hollow, while the 28, 43 and 49 buses stop along its edges.
- Luke's Local Cow Hollow Market on Union Street and Fredericksen Hardware on Fillmore Street cover groceries and hardware.
- The nearest weather station, 1.9 miles away, shows 3.3 days a year at 90°F or higher and 22.89 inches of precipitation, as 1991–2020 normals.
- The San Francisco Unified School District places students by applications and priorities, so living near Sherman Elementary School on Union Street does not guarantee a seat.
- Cow Hollow Playground has a clubhouse but is not a full recreation center, and Moscone Recreation Center sits outside the neighborhood in the Marina.
If you are weighing Cow Hollow for daily errands, start with one figure: the corner of Fillmore Street and Union Street has a Walk Score of 99 (a measure of errands you can do on foot) in a lookup dated 16 October 2026. As of 27 October 2026, no rail or streetcar line enters the neighborhood.
At a glance
Table 1. Cow Hollow at a glance, as of 27 October 2026. Walk Score is from a lookup dated 16 October 2026, and weather rows are 1991–2020 normals from the Downtown San Francisco station, 1.9 miles away in a straight line.
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Walk Score at Fillmore Street and Union Street | 99 |
| Rail or streetcar lines inside Cow Hollow | None |
| Days a year reaching 90°F or higher | 3.3 days |
| Precipitation in a year | 22.89 inches |
| School seats | Placed by applications and priorities; a nearby school does not guarantee a seat |
What is Cow Hollow actually like?
Cow Hollow is built around Union Street, with Fillmore Street crossing it at the center of the shopping blocks. This page treats Cow Hollow as the blocks from Lombard Street on the north to Green Street on the south, and from Lyon Street at the Presidio edge on the west to Van Ness Avenue on the east. That is a working boundary for this page and not an official line, because the city's design guidelines and the Cow Hollow Association each draw their own.
Your daily errands sit on those two streets. Luke's Local Cow Hollow Market on Union Street covers groceries, and Fredericksen Hardware on Fillmore Street covers hardware and paint. The Walgreens on Polk Street is a pharmacy outside the neighborhood. No current dry cleaner was confirmed, and this is not a full list of businesses, so a service missing here is not proof that it is missing from the street.
Union Street carries most of the names. Terzo, Rose's Cafe, Perry's on Union, Wildseed, Flores SF and The Italian Homemade Company are restaurants and cafes, and AVOTOASTY is a coffee shop. Shaw Shoes, West Coast Leather, Carats and Stones and NIKONIKO are shops. Comet Club is a bar on Fillmore Street. Equinox Union Street is a fitness club behind a former cinema front, and that preserved front is one of the street's named features. These names are places to look up, not a ranking, and each was read from the business's own page or the city's page on 16 October 2026, so confirm hours before you go.
For outdoor time, Cow Hollow Playground is a playground with a clubhouse, and it is not a full recreation center. Allyne Park sits at the southern edge along Green Street. Octagon House Museum opens for tours on some Sundays, so check its calendar. The Golden Gate Valley Library is just across Green Street, outside the neighborhood.
Several larger places sit beside Cow Hollow and are not part of it. The Presidio and Crissy Field are past Lyon Street, and the Palace of Fine Arts and Chestnut Street lie just to the north. Moscone Recreation Center is the full recreation center nearby, and it lists basketball, tennis and pickleball. Fort Mason Center holds a farmers market on Sundays, but it is not a Union Street market. The urgent care on Lombard Street, UCSF Health-GoHealth Lombard, is not an emergency department.
Walk Score is a company that scores a location from 0 to 100 on how many errands you can do on foot. Its Transit Score and Bike Score work the same way for buses and bikes. The corner of Fillmore Street and Union Street scores 99 for walking, and Walk Score's own Cow Hollow area scores 94, so the two footprints differ and the numbers are two separate measurements. Do not average them. The lookups show a current page, so they cannot tell you what the scores were in earlier months.
Table 2. Walk Score, Transit Score and Bike Score, lookups dated 16 October 2026, each out of 100.
| Place measured | Walk Score | Transit Score | Bike Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corner of Fillmore Street and Union Street | 99 | 78 | 59 |
| Walk Score's Cow Hollow area | 94 | 68 | 70 |
| San Francisco overall | 89 | 77 | 72 |
What is the weather like in Cow Hollow?
The weather figures here are 1991–2020 normals, which are 30-year averages, and they come from the Downtown San Francisco station. That station is 1.9 miles from the Fillmore Street and Union Street corner in a straight line, and it is the nearest station with monthly normals within 10 miles. They are not readings taken inside Cow Hollow.
Table 3. Weather normals, 1991–2020, Downtown San Francisco station, as of 27 October 2026.
| Measure | Normal | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Days a year reaching 90°F or higher | 3.3 days | Hot days are few |
| Precipitation in a year | 22.89 inches | The 30-year average for a full year |
| Average yearly temperature | 57.7°F | The mean of all days |
| Average daily high | 64.1°F | The mean of each day's top reading |
| Average daily low | 51.3°F | The mean of each day's lowest reading |
The wind and fog are the part a downtown station cannot show. The National Weather Service describes onshore winds that push coastal fog through the Golden Gate. No fog count, sun total or temperature gap has been published for Cow Hollow itself, so the sources show no measured cost for upkeep from the weather, and this page makes no claim about one. For time outdoors near the Presidio or the waterfront, carry a layer. When you tour a home with a terrace, visit at more than one hour of the day to judge the wind and the sun.
How do you get around Cow Hollow, and where does the train begin?
No rail or streetcar line enters Cow Hollow, so the train starts outside it. Powell Street BART station and Caltrain's San Francisco station are both outside the neighborhood, and each takes a bus ride or a walk first. This page gives no trip times, because door-to-door times from Cow Hollow were not measured. A posted bus time leaves out the walk to the stop and the wait, so ride your own route at your own hour before you decide.
Table 4. Muni buses that serve Cow Hollow, as of 27 October 2026.
| Route | Where it goes | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| 45 Union/Stockton | East along Union Street, then Columbus Avenue and Stockton Street to downtown and the Caltrain area | It runs through the shopping blocks and reaches Market Street |
| 22 Fillmore | South on Steiner Street and Fillmore Street to Church Street and Market Street, then 16th Street to Mission Bay and UCSF | It runs around the clock |
| 28 (the 19th Avenue line) | The Golden Gate Bridge and Daly City BART | It stops along Lombard Street at the northern edge |
| 43 Masonic | The Presidio, then central San Francisco | It stops at the northern and western edge |
| 49 Van Ness/Mission | Civic Center and the Mission corridor | It stops along Van Ness Avenue at the eastern edge |
Muni lists the gap between buses by time of day on each route page, and those pages were read on 16 October 2026, so they show current service and not an archived timetable. Read the real timetable for your hour. The agency's route-by-route on-time report was offline when this page was written, so this page gives no on-time figures.
For the jobs people name most, the plans look like this. The 45 heads toward the Financial District and toward Salesforce Tower in SoMa, and each needs a final walk or a connection. The 22 reaches UCSF in Mission Bay, plus a walk across the campus. The 49 on Van Ness Avenue leads toward City Hall in Civic Center. Lucasfilm in the Presidio is a route on the 43 or a walk. None of these trips was timed.
On two wheels, a district study names bike facilities on Greenwich, Steiner, Webster and Octavia Streets, so check the kind of lane and where it ends on the route you would ride. The nearest listed bike-share dock is at Webster Street and Union Street, and live bike counts were not measured. By car, Lombard Street is the route to US 101 and the Presidio approach.
Which schools serve Cow Hollow, and how are they assigned?
The San Francisco Unified School District, called SFUSD, uses citywide choice for 2026–27. You apply, and the district gives priority by attendance area for elementary schools and by feeder school for middle schools. A priority is not a seat. Citywide schools and programs carry no attendance-area priority, and placement still depends on applications, priorities and open seats.
Sherman Elementary School is on Union Street, inside the neighborhood. The district's public lookup placed 4 public landmark addresses on Union Street in Sherman's elementary attendance area. That does not settle every address or every frontage on a block, and a neighboring house can be assigned differently, so look up your own address. Claire Lilienthal Alternative School K–8 is a citywide option on two campuses outside Cow Hollow. Its Madison Campus serves the youngest students and its Winfield Scott Campus the older ones. Marina Middle School and Galileo Academy of Science & Technology also sit outside the neighborhood, and living near either one does not guarantee a seat.
Where can I check schools and crime information for Cow Hollow?
Big Data Realty does not rate schools or neighborhoods. Ratings and reviews are on GreatSchools. The SFUSD School Finder confirms which school an address is assigned to, and the state publishes official school reports on the California School Dashboard. Check them for the most recent information, because boundaries and reports change every school year.
For crime information, check the most recent reports directly with the San Francisco Police Department's crime dashboard.
Which priorities point toward Cow Hollow, and which point elsewhere?
If errands on foot outrank a train, put Cow Hollow on your list. Union Street and Fillmore Street keep groceries, hardware, cafes and shops close, and the Presidio sits at the western edge. If a short rail trip every day is your priority, compare Cow Hollow with the areas people set beside it, using the same measure for each. Walk Score's own Transit Score, in lookups dated 16 October 2026, is 68 for Cow Hollow, 67 for Marina District, 80 for Pacific Heights and 84 for Russian Hill. Its Bike Score is 70, 91, 66 and 68 in that order, and its Walk Score is 94, 94, 97 and 98. These use the provider's own area lines, which differ from this page's lines, so compare them with one another and not with the corner scores above.
If you want a terrace or a yard, plan to visit it at different hours, because wind and sun can differ from one terrace to the next.
Put your priorities in order before you tour a home. The Housing Guide covers what is built here, and the Market Guide covers what is selling.
Common questions
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