San Francisco hotspots that serve up lounge culture, with food and a youthful perkiness Cafe du Nord (2170 Market St, 415-979-6545), musically, offers everything from swing dance to spoken word to rockabilly, but culturally, definitely a funky dressy cocktail scene. Bruno's (2389 Mission, 415-550-7455), Deep-set circular red booths, women in 40s suits with slicked back hair and cigarette-holders, cosmopolitans, and miracle of miracles, absolutely delicious food The Tonga Room (Fairmont Hotel, California and Mason, 415-772-5278), A Polynesian-themed Bar-Mitzvah. Check out the lagoon, the bamboo-backed booths, the fake rigging, the simulated thundershow ers that spew "rain" down the sides of the room. The band on the barge sings almost on-key renditions of Tony Bennett and Don Ho numbers. Free food at happy hour; tourists all the time. Big stupid drinks. How high is your kitsch tolerance? Julie Ring's Heart and Soul (1695 Polk St 415-673-7100), Her earlier venture, Julie's Supper Club, had a 50s feeling; this one is more 40s. Dark, glam, a spot where Desi Arnaz would have played before he married Lucy and lost his edge. And a bone for you Actual Grownups: Starlight Room (Sir Francis Drake Hotel, 450 Powell St, 415-395-8595), Beautiful views of the city, a low-key glamorous feeling, a tasty nibbling menu, no one under 35 in the joint. The Washington Square Bar and Grill (1707 Powell, 415-982-8123), Good house jazz quartet, gifted bartenders, decent food, lots of SF powerguys. A favorite of local columnist/treasure Herb Caen.

As always, the dewy young hipsters have found, colonized, devoured and discarded the Next Big Thing, like the ravenous little thrill vultures they are. It happened so fast, you probably missed it.

While you were sleeping or working a day job, twentysomethings were discovering the cocktail party. Over the last couple of years they abandoned the slam-dancing dens of iniquity of the early '90s in favor of finger food and the finger-clickin' sounds of Combustible Edison and Esquivel. Dressing up was seen as new and nifty and fun. Martinis and cosmopolitans, shiny bobs, peplum and bright red lipstick, trim 'n' dapper Dick Van Dyke suits and Brilliantine were all the rage.

A lovely trend, when you think about it. No earplugs, attractive footwear, sophisticated beverages served in actual glass receptacles (with, like, stems), no one yelling "GO GO GO GO GO" as a former frat-boy chugs a pitcher of Coors. And of course, there's the positive social pressure to provide sparkling conversation, an art our young people sorely need to cultivate. Oh sure, there are challenges. Cocktail food is inherently problematic. It is, in theory, small, so you can just pop it into your mouth. However, it is always just a smidgen too big for one bite and you end up, to quote one young sophisticate, "bending over and sort of gagging on the stupid thing while phyllo flakes fly all over your little outfit." There is the stress of trying to juggle napkin, teeny plate, food, drink, the aforementioned sparkling conversation, the fear of spinach-tooth while throwing back your head in a throaty Barbara Stanwyck-type laugh. Then there is the time problem. Is this dinner? Are we having dinner afterward? Do only the A-list people get dinner? How am I to budget my fat calories? Am I driving? Am I drunk?

But as I pointed out a scant three paragraphs ago, the true novelty-seekers already see the cocktail fad as passe. Lounges are beginning to fill with yuppies who have no sense of irony, no edge. The trickle-down theory of hipness proves itself wrongheaded once again--the popularity of a trend invariably presages its death. As you read this on the web, you pomo thing you, trendsters are abandoning Lounge Culture (for this is what the glossy magazines have termed this "revival," which is of course not a revival to those who were in Huggies the first time around), looking hungrily for the next big cultural co-opt or theft-worthy historical period. Hey gang, let's all look like Mongolian peasants! Or Hasidim! Or Chinese Cultural Revolutionaries! Let's do fingerwaves like Zelda Fitzgerald! Or get bustles and go 19th century! Have you tried heroin? It's so much now-er than gin!

Sigh. As Barbra Streisand put it so eloquently, enough is enough is enough.