Best of the Bay Readers' Poll: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll is and who runs it

The Best of the Bay Readers' Poll is the Bay Area's long-running readers' poll, presented by 48 Hills and the Bay Guardian. It sits in the best-of vertical: instead of crowning a single winner, the ballot lets readers honor their favorite Bay Area people, places and businesses across a broad spread of everyday life. The publisher's announcement for the 2025 edition describes it as a beloved Bay Area tradition made by the people of the Bay Area for the people of the Bay Area.

The ballot lives on sfbg.com, the masthead's own domain, with no contest vendor in between. The voting page sits in the sfbg.com Best of the Bay section, and the site carries the copyright of the San Francisco Center for Newspaper Preservation, the entity behind the masthead. That own-site setup matters for supporters: every announcement, category list and date comes from the publisher itself rather than from an outside contest vendor.

The breadth of the ballot is unusual. Category names the organizer has printed range from Best Burrito, Best Sushi and Best Dive Bar to Best Drag Performer, Best Drag Queen, Best Politician, Best Sex Club, Best DJ, Best Bookstore, Best Museum, Best Plumber and Best Bike Shop. Food, nightlife, politics, culture and trades sit side by side on the same ballot, which is why the poll reads as a portrait of the city rather than a single-industry award.

The dated facts behind the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll

The poll is annual, and its confirmed edition years run from 2021 through 2026. The publisher's own pages trace the tradition much further back: readers have been honoring their Bay Area favorites in the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll since 1974, when the Bay Guardian first put the question to its audience, and 48 Hills now carries the masthead forward.

The 2025 window is the most precisely dated cycle. The organizer asked readers to join it September 2 through September 31, as printed, in showering the Bay Area with kudos, and that edition was billed as the 51st Annual Best of the Bay. The year before, the 50th poll opened on July 9, 2024, with the organizer listing Best Burrito, Best Drag Performer, Best Plumber, Best Dive Bar, Best Politician and Best Sex Club among its prompts. The opening date therefore moves between cycles rather than sitting on a fixed calendar slot.

Deadlines can move too. In 2021 the organizer extended Best of the Bay voting through October 10, giving supporters an extra week to tell their favorites and celebrate the city. The 2026 edition was announced with a vote-now call on September 1, with 2027 the expected next cycle.

Not everything is published. The organizer publishes no ceiling on repeat submissions, no eligibility terms and no full category roster; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

How a supporter votes in the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll

Voting is a plain public action on the masthead's own site. During the open window, a supporter opens the sfbg.com Best of the Bay section, browses the categories on the ballot, and picks a favorite in each one. The publisher's own invitation sums up the action: "tell us what you love!" There is no entry fee, no registration tier and no paid voting path on the ballot page.

Because the poll spans everything from Best Burrito to Best Politician, a single ballot covers a supporter's whole Bay Area life: the taco spot, the dive bar, the bookstore, the DJ, the plumber. That breadth is the mechanic's defining feature and the reason the poll behaves differently from a single-category business award.

Details the ballot's printed material does not settle include whether an account is required to submit and whether repeat visits are allowed within the window. The organizer leaves those terms unstated, so whatever the ballot page instructs while voting runs is the controlling text. What is fixed is the address: the Best of the Bay section page at sfbg.com is where every vote is cast, and the organizer's dated announcements on that site are where each year's window is declared.

Timing matters because the window is finite. In 2025, voting ran from September 2 to September 31 as printed, and the 2021 close was pushed to October 10 by an extension, so a supporter who waits past the printed close date has no path to cast a ballot in that edition.

How the Best of the Bay ballot sits beside its California neighbours

California carries a crowded field of best-of ballots, and this page's sibling programmes show the range. Best of Marin serves a single county next door, while Best of Silicon Valley covers the south Bay tech corridor. Further afield, Best of Orange County, Best of San Diego & Best Restaurants, Best of Central Valley Business and the Best of North State Community's Choice Awards each answer to their own publisher in their own market.

What separates the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll from all of them is its lineage and its host. It is a newspaper readers' poll dating to 1974, put on by 48 Hills and the Bay Guardian on the masthead's own site at sfbg.com, not through a contest platform or a chamber-of-commerce style site. Its market is the whole San Francisco Bay Area metro instead of one city or one county, and its ballot mixes nightlife, politics and culture with the usual food and retail categories.

For a supporter or a Bay Area business, the practical difference is the audience: this ballot is voted on by readers of a Bay Area journalism outlet, so visibility in the poll tracks with standing in the city's everyday culture, not just with customer counts. The sibling programmes above each run on their own calendars and their own rules, so none of their dates or mechanics transfer to this ballot.

Strengthening support in the Best of the Bay Readers' Poll

Support in this poll is built from Bay Area readers who actually submit the ballot, so the dependable work happens before and during the window. A business or nominee that wants votes should make its candidacy visible: tell customers which category to find them in, share the Best of the Bay section link directly, and keep reminders flowing through the open window, since the 2025 window ran from September 2 to September 31 as printed and closed for good at the end of it.

The ballot's breadth helps a push. Because a supporter can honor a burrito spot, a bookstore and a politician on the same ballot, a campaign can ride the poll's own variety rather than fighting for a single slot of attention. The organizer prints nothing on outside or bought votes for this ballot, so the printed window and whatever the ballot page instructs are the only terms a campaign can rely on.

For tactics that carry across public-vote ballots, including reminder timing and audience mobilization, see our votes guide.