Written By Mauricio Segura // Photo: Golden Bay Times Graphics Dept.
San Francisco’s holiday heart is officially back on blades, as the Safeway Holiday Ice Rink at Union Square opened for its 2025-26 season with daily public skating from Wednesday, November 5 through Monday, January 19, 2026, a brisk, camera-ready loop framed by palms, cable cars, and the towering Union Square tree.
Hour-long sessions start every 90 minutes from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. (closing early at 9:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve), and this year’s general admission is $22, or $17 for kids eight and under, skate rental included, making it one of downtown’s most accessible winter outings even as the city pushes hard to revive the core. The rink’s opening celebration set the tone, offering the first hundred guests free admission to the 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. sessions, a small but clever way to get locals back in the habit of choosing the Square for their holiday rituals. It also anchors a broader calendar of crowd-pleasers: Drag on Ice returns Thursday, December 4 (6:30-8 p.m., $35), the one-night Silent Skate takes over Thursday, December 11 (7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., $35), and weekend “Learn to Skate” classes at 8-9 a.m. are free via lottery, 50 spots a day, because a city that birthed counterculture can also teach a solid hockey stop.
If you’re keeping score, 2025 marks the rink’s 18th season, a run that’s grown from “cute holiday pop-up” into a bona fide civic tradition that outlasted a pandemic pause and continues to pull families, date nights, and influencers into the Square for that swoopy holiday B-roll. The practicals are straightforward: book a 60-minute session, show up a bit early to lace up, stash your stuff, and spin beneath the downtown skyline. The rink sits at 333 Post Street, and sessions run like clockwork, which keeps lines moving and energy high.
What elevates this place beyond another seasonal rink is the setting and the story unfolding around it. Community and business leaders have leaned on the rink as a cheerful, literal centerpiece for a downtown comeback narrative, and local coverage of opening week underscores how visible wins like this matter when you’re trying to lure people back to shop, sip, and linger. SFist put it plainly on opening day: the blades are back, daily, through January 19, and with the holiday tree lighting queued up, the Square is once again playing holiday postcard for the region.
History buffs can appreciate the longer arc. Union Square has been the civic living room since the 19th century, a stage for everything from Civil War rallies to department store windows. Swapping sand dunes for an annual sheet of ice is just the latest reinvention of a place built to gather people in public. And pop culture wise, the rink has a knack for moments: drag royalty carving arabesques, DJs broadcasting silent disco channels to a sea of glowing headsets, tourists filming their holiday “we did a thing” cutaway while locals weave past with the kind of casual edge that says they learned to skate on hills.
Put simply, if you’re hunting for an all-ages tradition that still feels fresh, this is it: affordable, photogenic, and right in the middle of downtown’s winter glow up. Book a primetime slot if you want the full tree lights and crowd buzz, or an early morning for that calm, silver-blue light and extra-grippy ice, and let Union Square remind you how a city wins people back, one clean glide at a time.
For more information: Union Square Ice Rink
