The Box SF hosts off-site meetings, training sessions, workshops, executive dinners, tastings, product launches, receptions and small weddings. Its top floor takes up to 80 guests seated or 125 standing, and three suites on the second floor take groups of 10 to 30. The building is a 1926 former printing plant at 1069 to 1073 Howard Street, in the South of Market area of San Francisco.
Seminars and company events
Meetings are the core business. The Gate Room on the third floor is built around a 338-year-old table made from antique Chinese village gate doors. The table seats 32, and the room seats 50 for a meeting or dinner with a second table added. Outside the Gate Room, the main room on the same floor can be set theater style or for conference and reception layouts.
The second floor works as a breakout level. The Buddy Suite and Classroom takes up to 30 people, the Webster Suite up to 16 and the Willy Suite up to 10. Suites are rented by the hour with a four-hour minimum, and each includes a pull-down projection screen, Wi-Fi and furniture; the Buddy Suite also has a flatscreen monitor. Gigabit Wi-Fi runs through the building, a projector can be added and a full technical buildout is available. A freight elevator helps with load-in. All floors connect, so a group can combine a plenary upstairs with breakouts below.
Weddings and receptions
The venue hosts wedding receptions, rehearsal dinners and small weddings. The Gate Room table makes a long banquet for a family dinner, and the ground-floor Pressroom and Mercantile suits a standing reception or a small ceremony.
Rooms and capacities
Top floor: 80 seated and 125 standing in total, including the Gate Room (50 seated, 32 at the table). Second floor: Buddy Suite and Classroom (30), Webster Suite (16), Willy Suite (10). Ground floor: the Pressroom and Mercantile, rented for creative off-sites, small board meetings, classes and receptions of about 40 standing. Basement: The Sipping Room, a hidden speakeasy for 8 to 10 people reached through two antique moving fireplaces, offered only as an add-on to an event with a bar upstairs. An on-site venue manager is included with every booking.
Catering
The venue offers full bar packages and several catering options from its approved list. A caterer outside that list can be used for an extra fee. There are no food or beverage minimums.
History and setting
The building was a printing plant of William Randolph Hearst. In 2018 it was expanded and restored to house a large collection of printed history. The ground floor is a letterpress shop and store, laid out like a 19th-century mercantile, with working presses dating from as early as 1838 and millions of pieces of antique ephemera, posters, labels and books. The store is open to the public by day, and the Gate Room table gives the top floor its character.
Getting there
The Box SF is on Howard Street between 6th and 7th streets, two blocks from Moscone Center and Civic Center BART station. Interstates 101 and 280 are close by. Tours are by appointment on weekdays, and evening or weekend times can be requested. San Francisco International Airport serves guests flying in.
