This tiny Bay Area downtown has cheap food, cool art and a 100-year-old indoor pool

San Francisco’s Sutro Baths haven’t welcomed swimmers since they burned down 60 years ago.

But as I attempt the backstroke at the Richmond Plunge, floating in the saltwater and looking up at a ceiling that resembles one of Adolf Sutro’s indoor engineering marvels, I feel like a time traveler in swimming trunks, like I’m living in those Bay Area stories of the past that my grandparents once told me.

While much of the region is embracing the future, Richmond Point is enjoying saying goodbye to the past. Chronicle columnist Margaret Patterson Doss wrote in 1968 that the community “sits on the Contra Costa (coast) like a fragment of yesterday, drifting across the bay and beached at low tide.”

Generations later, that description still holds true. In addition to its 100-year-old indoor swimming pool, the town also boasts a triangular historic downtown and two railroad crossings from the early 1900s. The most modern thing I can say about Point Richmond is first “Toy Story” was filmed here.

But that’s part of the charm. This cheap, fun, and surprising neighborhood is one of the most popular and least visited destinations in the Bay Area.

Point Richmond, located between Interstate 580 and the San Francisco Bay, is a neighborhood in Richmond with its own small downtown, a hill filled with houses, and two tunnels through the hillside that connect the village to the 295-acre Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline Park. Driving north on the highway toward the Richmond Bridge, the contrast is stark: warehouses and refinery tanks on the right, and the tree-lined beauty of Richmond Point Nicol Knob (elevation 371 feet) on the left.

Point Richmond has a population of less than 5,000 people and is about one-twentieth the size of the city. But with the return of the Richmond passenger ship in 2019 (it docks just a few miles away near the Craneway Pavilion), the town has become the most accessible to San Francisco since the last passenger ship left its previous stop in 1956.

Long before that, Point Richmond had been an island surrounded by water and marsh, and its land belonged to John Nicholl, a farmer and real estate speculator in the 1800s. The southwest corner of his property plunges like a cliff into the San Francisco Bay, making it the perfect terminus for the railroad line built in the late 1800s from Bakersfield to the East Bay, where goods continued to be shipped by ferry to China Basin.

The Santa Fe Railroad bought the rights, dug a tunnel connecting Point Ferry to downtown, and a town emerged. Drilling for oil on the city side of the tunnel, Nicole dropped 1,200 feet of pipe but encountered nothing but water. So he donated the land. The Richmond Municipal Swimming Pool (now the Plunge), completed in 1926, used some of Sutro’s methods to pump in salt water from San Francisco Bay.

I cycled 2.2 miles from the San Francisco Bay Ferry Station to the small downtown of Point Richmond and saw little evidence of this history. But after crossing the railroad tracks at Railroad Avenue and West Richmond Avenue, I entered a triangular business district with theme park-level charm and cleanliness.

The Richmond Plunge remains the dominant structure, with its grand “Municipal Swimming Pool” sign and tunnel entrance next door, offering a glimpse of the familiar Miller/Knox area coastline. Selma Rowell, 84, locked her bike next to mine, looking refreshed after her morning swim. She had lived in Point Richmond since 1970.

“Why should I leave?” she said. “It’s a very nice little town and it’s never changed. The people are friendly and great and you get to know them all.”

As I walked along Park Place, one of the three streets that make up the perimeter of downtown, I understood what she meant. I passed an early 1900s fire station and jail (now a law office) and the bar still had old drunken cans inside.

Park Place Barbers, located in a historic brick building, advertised an upcoming live jazz night inside; before I even looked inside, I heard Charles Mingus’ bass lines playing on an old stereo. Nearby is Little Louie’s Cafe, a favorite among Pixar employees when the studio was based nearby in the early 1990s.

Next door is the Masquers Playhouse, a 90-seat theater that staged its first production in 1960. (I was sad to learn that the company’s musical production of Steven Spielberg’s “Catch Me If You Can” ended in December.) At the center of the triangle is a small park. A Native American statue at the tip of the triangle serves as a resting place for ambitious cyclists wearing colorful sweatshirts and jackets as they ride through town on the 350-mile Bay Trail.

At the end of the park’s broad expanse is the interesting Point Richmond History Museum, which occupies an area the size of a Sprinter van and has been here since 1903. There were long lines across the street at Maya Taqueria, whose outdoor seating is popular with cyclists.

I passed Mom & Pop Art store owner Kelly Nicolaisen, who was standing outside her vintage wonderland filled with photographic art, posters, matchboxes and hats, many of them bearing Richmond Point landmarks or slogans. She was about to smash a small table and turn it into more art. The store is scheduled to close in April after a decade — and Nicolaisen noted there are bargains everywhere — but she has nothing negative to say about Richmond Point.

“It’s very artsy, very community-based,” she said. “There are so many places where people can meet and gather. I know everyone’s story in this town.”

I bought a Fillmore concert poster and two Cape Richmond-themed greeting cards, then headed to the Plunge, where free swims range in price from $4 to $8.75. With swimmers in the pool, children learning to dog paddle and adults with disabilities being lowered into the pool by two assistants, there’s plenty of room for everyone in a space filled with natural light. A mural on the far wall depicts the nearby coastline, filled with happy herons and geese.

After Nicolaisen recommended Jin Ye, a small Chinese restaurant that offered $11 lunch specials (entree, rice, soup, and spring rolls), I changed my plans to eat at Hotel Mac, my favorite restaurant in the guide. Hungry from the swim and skeptical of the 90s pricing, I was surprised to find it was more than adequate.

Of all my trips to the under-the-radar Bay Area downtown, we’ve been there nine times! – Point Richmond prices are closest to those of the 20th century. My round trip ferry ride, swim, lunch, and visit to the Rosie the Riveter WWII Museum (free admission) all cost less than $30.

There was much more to see – the Miller/Knox area coastline, which was even more lush than the last time I visited; the quirky fairy tale houses on Washington Avenue – but there was no time to explore, so I biked back to the ferry and spent a few minutes exploring the aforementioned museums. This is enough time to realize that this particular trip is worth it.

I’m happy on the other side of the bay. But sometimes I get tired of Waymos, chlorine pools, and buildings four stories and above. It’s good to know that you can take the ferry to nostalgic Point Richmond for only $4.90.

This article was originally published on This tiny Bay Area downtown has cheap food, cool art, and a 100-year-old indoor pool.