Peña Pachamama Cultural Center Profile

Since 1999, Peña Pachamama, has served as a San Francisco based center of Latin American music, food, art and culture (this "peña" or "gathering place" established by SUKAY). As such, Peña Pachamama has provided community members the opportunity to experience musicians, composers, artists and dancers, who celebrate the multiplicity of cultures of the Americas, inside a landmark location in North Beach.

This year (2009), Peña Pachamama has re-emerged as a full-time 501(c)(3) Non-Profit Cultural Center! The Peña Pachamama Cultural Center presents weekly concerts of Flamenco, Cuban, Bolivian, Brazilian, Hawaiian, Carnaval, Tango or contemporary world music. We're looking forward to 2010 as we hope to bring you more cultural events to the City of San Francisco. We plan on holding dance & language classes, music instruction classes, theatrical performances and to continue to educate local SF schools. We can't do this alone! We have a donation page (located on our homepage) where you can contribute to the Peña Pachamama Cultural Center. We truly do appreciate all the love and support you've all shown Peña Pachamama!

Robin Williams declared the wildly rhythmic nightspot "the kind of place even the Amish would dance." - SF Chronicle 2/20/05

“San Francisco’s most fun underground club" - ZAGAT Best of San Francisco 2002-2008

“...This has to be the friendliest, most inviting nightspot in the city. Another translation of Pachamama is “Mother Earth” and as soon as you walk into the place you feel like you’re part of some extended global family. (Peña means “a circle of people coming together.”) On the stage there may be jazz, flamenco, or salsa to spice up your meal, depending on the day of the week, and Saturday nights belong to Sukay. The band has played venues around the world and its musicmaking and showmanship inspire a glow of pleasure. One of the charms of the place is that the restaurant’s staff is also part of the entertainment, so the guy playing the charango is actually Eddy the bartender (and one of Bolivia’s most known composers), the maitre d’ is the Yma Sumac-esque vocalist and panpipe virtuoso, and the pastry chef emerges from the kitchen long enough to demonstrate a particularly athletic indigenous dance step. At one point another dancer moves among the tables in dazzling native garb topped off with feather-lined, parasollike headgear; for a multicultural change of pace the band might serve up the occasional bluegrass number. It’s a great spot to celebrate a birthday (there were three going on the night we visited), especially when the cocktail waitress leads an impromptu salsa lesson and everyone gets up to dance the night away." - from the SF Weekly