These are our favorite foodie Bay Area day trips for the long weekend

One of the best things about the Bay Area is how quickly you can be somewhere totally different from your day-to-day.

To help set you off on a course for culinary adventure this weekend, the SFGATE team has put together this guide to our favorite foodie day trip ideas from San Francisco. 

On the way home, do what Guerrero did and hit Marin French Cheese Co. in Petaluma for provisions for a charcuterie board dinner to finish out the day. The shop sells cheeses the creamery makes on site that aren’t easy to find at local grocery stores, among them the limited Golden Gate triple cream brie, which is smooth with a striking gold exterior due to brine washing and aging.

On the way to or from the coast, classic roadhouses pop up on the winding two-lanes through Sonoma County. Madrigal-Yankowski visits “friendly, yet straightforward” Casino Bar and Grill, where a chef from Connecticut cooks treats like Iberico ham fried rice. But there are plenty more around: Dinucci’s, Catelli’s, the Union Hotel Restaurant in Occidental, and Washoe House, the site of what may be the “cleanest” Civil War battle in history.

After all, people have been going there for Arcangeli Grocery Co.’s artichoke garlic-herb bread since the 1970s. Made in small batches from a family recipe, it keeps people biking and driving back to Pescadero on the regular. Other delicacies worth the drive are the olallieberry pie (well, anything olalliberry, really) at Duarte’s Tavern and goat cheese from Harley Farms — or if not the cheese itself, visiting the goats.

If you’re still in the mood for a drink on the way back, highway haunt Ernie’s Tin Bar in Petaluma tempts with what travel editor Silas Valentino calls a “highly curated list of craft beer.” Run by a third-generation proprietor, it’s a cellphone-free zone where bargoers are more likely to be playing liar’s dice than posting on Instagram. And Montucky Cold Snacks can be had for just $1.75.

At 84-year-old Gizdich Ranch, co-owner Nita Gizdich learned how to bake pies in the 1980s and the rest is history. People come from miles away to line up for the ranch’s fruit-heavy, low-sugar pies, now baked by a staff of 17. If you go, “don’t miss the chance to order a single slice of pie a la mode to enjoy in their charming barn-side picnic area, with long wooden tables shaded by trees and a big red tractor for children to climb on,” writes Wells. The $14 full pie price is half of what you’d pay in San Francisco. Watsonville is the farthest drive on this list at about 95 miles from the city.

You can also “u-pick” at Gizdich, as copy chief Victoria Sepulveda did this July, because “nothing is as sweet as a fresh, warm strawberry,” she writes. (Gizdich allows you to taste one or two.) When strawberry season ends, apple-picking season begins. But no fruit-picking adventure is complete without a side trip to Tacos El Jerry, a bright green food truck parked in town. Owner Jerry Jimenez has been around food trucks since he was 7, and knows what he’s doing: get Tacos El Jerry’s “platonic ideal of a burrito: perfectly seasoned and moist rice, beans and meat without being overly soggy or greasy.”