The Slate Pool
Hot, 104°F
Lined in honed slate and fed by a mineral blend heavy in magnesium and potassium. Sit under the skylight or find a quiet corner.
Outer Sunset, San Francisco
Take the plunge.
Three mineral pools, a cedar sauna, and a eucalyptus steam room, one block from Ocean Beach.
The Pools
Three temperatures, no rules.
Move between them as you like. Most guests go hot to cold and back again.
The River Pool
Warm, 99°F
Our largest pool and the social one. Pacific sea salt and river stone underfoot, built for lingering conversation.
The Basalt Plunge
Cold, 54°F
Black basalt, glacier cold. Thirty seconds is plenty. Most people come back for more.
Cedar Sauna
Dry heat, 180°F
Western red cedar, built by hand.
Eucalyptus Steam Room
Wet heat, 115°F
Steam infused with eucalyptus and bay leaf.
Before You Soak
A few good rules.
Nothing complicated. Enough to keep the water, and the room, good for everyone.
Rinse first
A quick shower before any pool. No soap or lotion in the water.
No glass past the lockers
Bottles, glassware and stemware stay in the café. Water only on the deck.
Fifteen minutes in the Slate Pool
Step out, cool down in the River Pool or the plunge, and go back if you like.
Phones in the locker
Nothing between you and the water but stone. This is a quiet room.
Forty guests at a time
Walk-ins welcome most hours. Reservations get priority on weekends.
Check with a doctor first
If you are pregnant, manage a heart condition or high blood pressure, or have any condition affected by heat. Skip the hot pools and sauna after drinking. Staff are on the deck the whole time we are open, so ask if anything feels off.
Treatments
Some things water can’t do alone.
River Stone Massage
60 min $14590 min $195
Warmed basalt stones, worked into the muscle with long strokes. Booked most often after the cold plunge.
Salt Scrub and Soak
45 min $95
A full body exfoliation with coarse Pacific sea salt, followed by twenty minutes in the pool of your choice.
Contrast Facial
50 min $135
Hot towels, cold jade rollers, and a clay mask suited to fog belt skin.
Kelp Wrap
60 min $150
Bladderwrack and sea minerals, wrapped and left to work while you rest.
The Space
A body shop, once. A bathhouse, now.
Riverbed occupies a converted 1947 auto body garage at Judah and La Playa, a block from Ocean Beach. We kept the steel roof trusses and the concrete floor, and added what the fog took away: warmth. Walls are hand troweled lime plaster in basalt grey. Benches are teak, aged to silver by the salt air. The warm pool sits under a single skylight, positioned so the afternoon fog rolls directly overhead.
Riverbed was built by Mara Voss and Theo Lindqvist. Mara trained in Scandinavian bathhouses for a decade before returning to the city she grew up surfing in. Theo, an architect, designed the space around a simple rule: nothing between you and the water but stone.
Visit
Come back for good.
Day passes
Weekday
$54All three pools, sauna, steam room, towel and robe included. Monday through Friday.
Weekend
$64Same access, Saturday and Sunday.
Memberships
Tide
$140per month
Four visits per month, one guest pass per month.
Current
$240per month
Unlimited visits, two guest passes per month, early access 6 to 7am before the day passes open.
Founding memberships, the first 150, keep their rate for as long as they stay members.
Visit Us
Hours and location.
- Monday to Friday
- 7am to 10pm
- Saturday and Sunday
- 6am to 10pm
Reserve
Ready when you are.
Day passes and treatments book fastest on weekend mornings.