Five SF-Centric Food Gifts You Can Snag at the Last Minute

It's December 23, otherwise known to procrastinators as "crunch time." And unlike the people who spent Black Friday and Cyber Monday checking off item after item from the Eater holiday gift guide, your list is still a mile and a half long. Never fear: we have five gift ideas from local food establishments that will please anyone who enjoys dining in SF—and a few of them can be ordered without even leaving your computer. Consider your bacon saved.

1. ShareTable gift certificates: Anthony Myint and Karen Leibowitz's ShareTable program is one of the best ways to give back that a lot of San Franciscans don't even know about: instead of buying a $50 gift certificate to your favorite restaurant on-premises, you can drop into Myint's Linea Caffe in the Mission and purchase one for any of the following spots: Ame, Aziza, Bar Agricole, Bi-Rite Creamery, Bi-Rite Market, Boulevard, Camino, Coi, Commonwealth, Cotogna, Delfina, Foreign Cinema, Frances, Humphry Slocombe, Ichi Sushi, Jardiniere, Locanda, Mission Chinese Food, Namu Gaji, Nopa, Nopalito, Outerlands, Pizzeria Delfina, Prospect, Quince, Rich Table, and State Bird Provisions. (That list is a good chunk of the Eater 38, by the by.) $5 from each certificate purchase goes to the SF Food Bank, where it will provide hungry people with $30 worth of food. If you're extra-clever, buy a certificate for Bi-Rite Market and move on to #2.

2. Raid the aisles: Local grocery stores like Bi-Rite and Rainbow are awesome assets when it comes to putting together a killer food gift, as they often stock prepared foods made right here in SF. You can easily snag a pound of coffee from a local roaster like Four Barrel or Sightglass; St. George Spirits' Gravenstein apple brandy; some made-in-SF chocolates (Poco Dolce, Recchiuti, Nosh This); 4505 chicharrones; Nana Joe's granola; Boozley's pickles; and local olive oil, then stuff them all into a basket from Cliff's Variety, topped off with some ribbon.

3. Class pass: Cooking classes are always popular with food lovers, and SF boasts plenty of 'em. The San Francisco Cooking School will sell you a gift certificate good for a lesson in crafting pizzeria-style pizza at home, Thai food from the Pok Pok cookbook, and pickles Bar Tartine-style. Meanwhile, restaurant-turned-cooking-school Nombe is offering lessons in making your own sushi, ramen, or ramenburgers; call them and pay over the phone, and they'll e-mail a printable certificate.

4. Send them a drink (or dinner, or dessert): The app Gratafy allows you to make part of dinner at someone's favorite restaurant on you. Send them a cocktail and a burger from Maven, an Allagash White and a soft pretzel at the Monk's Kettle, or a G&T and a paella at Coqueta, among other options.

5. Bar-quality cocktails at home: Online liquor store Merchants of Beverage will send you all the ingredients and recipes to make a cocktail from a local great like Rye's Greg Lindgren, ABV's Ryan Fitzgerald, Smuggler's Cove's Martin Cate, or the Trick Dog guys. (For the purist, they also have kits for a quality Old Fashioned, Martini, or Manhattan.) Order a gift certificate online, and let your recipient choose the cocktail of their dreams to make in the comfort of their home.