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What are the best locations in the greater Bay Area to host company events, like offsites or parties?
I am interested in both working locations (like Moss Beach or hotels in Half Moon Bay) and entertainment locations (like wineries.)
Location specific: San Francisco Bay Area
Good Answers (4)
Orly K
Marketing at LinkedIn
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (3), Conference Venues (1), Organizational Development (1)
To provide you with several options, or the most tailored answer, I would have to ask a few fundamental questions to event planning. Is there a budget, what is the group size (and who are the members of the group), what are the goals and objectives for the meeting (or event) and what time of year will it take place? There's a plethora of options to list, and some may seem obvious, but here are few ideas for consideration:
Team Building Events / Off-sites
- Ropes courses or team sailing (Adventure Associates, great feedback)
- Wine making such as at the Cuvaison Winery where teams learn to make wine, bottle their product and create a unique label for their wine.
- Team Cooking such as at Emile's
Outdoor Activities & Venues
- Parks & recreation: Angel Island, Rancho San Antonio or Fremont Older, Shoreline, Jack London State Park, Filoli Gardens
- Pick-Your-Own fruit and vegetable farms which abound here in the Bay Area
- Cooper-Garrod Winery and Stables in Saratoga allows you spend a day horse back riding through the hills, then enjoy wine at the estate tasting room
- Paint ball, go-karting, mini golf
- Hike at Ano Nuevo picnic at Pescadero
- Santa Cruz Wine valley tour (as another option to Nappa and Sonoma)
Family Activities
(in addition to several options listed above)
- Bonfante which also has private space to rent along with the park
- Blackberry Farms
- Safari West in Calistoga
- Ardenwood Farms
- Lemos & other local farms at Half Moon Bay
- Hidden Villa
Indoor Activities, Entertainment & Venues
- TheTech Museum
- Computer History Museum
- Cantor Arts Center
- Metreon
- Monterey Bay
- Bocce Ball
- Teatro ZinZanni
Hotels with great meeting space:
(a few additions to those already listed)
- Hyatt & Westin near SFO
- Hallf Moon Bay Lodge (visit Cetrella while in town)
- Hilton Santa Rosa
- Fountaingrove Hotel
- Santa Clara Marriott (not to be missed, Parcel 104 restaurant)
Ellen L
Vice President Corporate Development & Strategy at LinkedIn
Best Answers in: Conference Venues (1), Mergers and Acquisitions (1), Events Marketing (1), Organizational Development (1), Starting Up (1), Web Development (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Depending on the type of function/gathering, a couple places come to mind (random thoughts):
1. Pacific Athletic Club facilities
2. A couple of the bowling alleys
3. Speedring (indoor kart racing)
4. Stanford campus facilities, such as the faculty club (most need you to have a "Stanford sponsor" but worth looking in to).
5. For working environment - Garden Court Hotel
Hi Reid,
Not sure if you're planning the event yourself, but I'd recommend some of the following destinations:
Napa Valley/Sonoma:
www.meadowood.com
www.searanchlodge.com
www.bodegabaylodge.com
www.kenwoodinn.com (for smaller group)
Half Moon Bay/Santa Cruz/Carmel:
www.ritzcarlton.com/resorts/half_moon_bay
www.seascaperesort.com
www.quaillodge.com
www.byington.com
If you're interested in "event planners" the following are some excellent services I've used before:
www.adventureassoc.com (multiple locations)
www.hunterproductionssf.com (multiple locations)
www.wineanddinetours.com (Napa Valley and Sonoma)
Personally, I'd opt for Vegas, but that's just me.
Hope this helps.
For small events, I have found Vino Venue ( http://www.vinovenue.net ) to be a good place to gather informally. It's located in downtown San Francisco, just a short way down from the Metreon.
Continuing the wine theme, the Kunde vineyard in Sonoma can be booked for company events. Includes a tour of the wine caves, as well as full catering and wine tasting. Great for an evening event.
On the same track, so to speak, is the Napa wine train. An entire car (or cars) can be booked, with a train tour of the valley, dinner, and of course a variety of wines.
Down in the south bay, a charming hotel tucked away in the hills of Soquel, is the Chaminade resort. It has spectacular views of the ocean, and has fantastic catering.
More Answers (17)
If you're looking in the south bay area, look in to Hakone Gardens in Saratoga ( http://hakone.com/ ). Beautiful, with several different sized buildings you can book and good rates. You'll have to get catering separately though.
A great fun and hidden spot in the city, if your group is small, is the wine bar behind the Liberty Cafe in Bernal Heights. The wine bar has its own building and patio and is completely secluded from the restaurant in front. The food is terrific and the wine bar quite respectable, but parking can be difficult.
Links:
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a great place for after-hours company parties. You can reserve the whole aquarium or just certain sections for your function. It's really a nice treat to be there without the normal crowds.
As for off-sites, the Asilomar (also in Monterey) is my favorite. It's right near the water and the smell of the pine trees allows you to relax and forget about trivial day-to-day stresses.
Links:
Mike L
UI Designer, Art Enthusiast
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (2), Job Search (1), Interface Design (1)
Campo di Bocce in Los Gatos is a pretty fun location for company events.
You can play a game of bocce ball, and then dine on Italian food.
Links:
If you would like something that mixes a bit of fun with some team building, I would recommend the Go Game. This recommendation is second-hand as I have not participated myself (would love to), but have heard positive remarks from a lot of colleagues at Mozilla who did this in San Francisco last year.
Cheers!
Links:
Mike N
Marketing and strategy of manufacturing and supply chain solutions and services (toplinked.com)
Best Answers in: Computers and Software (1)
Try: Chaminade - (800) 283-6569 - 1 Chaminade Ln, Santa Cruz, CA - http://www.chaminade.com/
Adam G
Professional Networker / InfoMonger of Technology / Entrepreneur / Quality Engineering/Managment
Hi Reid,
From experience these are some recommendations.
For Nice Weather and family enjoyment:
Ardenwood in the East Bay
San Jose's Heritage Park
Not recommended because it is to difficult to pull together people at:
Great America - Not a cohesive meeting
Speedway - Racing and waiting. Lots of competitive stories afterwards, though.
Local Drinking and Socializing:
Tide House - Mountain View - Seperate back porch area - food is ok. Only beer and wine
Brewery that used to be Stoddards - Sunnyvale
Reid, sounds like many of your folks like this question!
Regards-
Adam Glickman
Bear Creek Paintball
Mike Lin already said this...
Campo di Bocce
went there for a family party, however, should translate over great for a corporate event.
Links:
Hey Reid, Kevin Collins here. Mitchell Katz Winery in Pleasanton is a great place for events. Hope you're doing well. Kevin
Links:
Steve G
Principal Web Developer at LinkedIn
Best Answers in: Web Development (2), Using LinkedIn (1)
Via Susie Wyshak:
A little known retreat right in the middle of the action in the Los Altos hills is Hidden Villa.
Links:
Jonathan D
Sr. Staff Engineer - Analog/Mixed Signal/RF Design Verification at Qualcomm
Best Answers in: Job Search (1), Career Management (1)
"City Beach" in Santa Clara.. volley ball, fooseball, pool, table tennis, tennis, food, and their staff will organize team games to play..
then you eat..
Links:
Pacific Athletic Club is a great location - for smaller groups, especially vendor-customer, makes them feel very welcomed & important.
Also had good experiences at Napa Marriott.
For unexpected location -
* Palace of Fine Arts
* Bowling alley in the Presidio
*
One of the companies I worked at in the past had their holiday party at the exploratorium in San Francisco. It is a very nice place esp. for all "geek" in each one of us.
Links:
Lesser known but great SF locations:
- The Ferry Building has rooms upstairs w/ Bay View you can rent.
- The Presidio rents different venues
Links:
Costanoa is an option for a small group retreat. It's between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.
Links:
Daniel T
Marketing & policy professional focused on public-benefit technologies for government efficiency, homeland security, etc
Reid - how many people do you need to host at the venue? I have a list of some excellent places, but all are relatively equal in terms of function (a/v equipment, connectivity, relative geographic beauty, etc.). The largest variable is how many people need to be hosted.
Best,
Dan