Balboa Cafe Reviews

Great neighborhood bar and restaurant. Been many times for business lunches since 1984.

Love the balbs! Whether it's to meet the girls for a glass of wine after work or brunching hard on sundays Balboa is always the perfect mix of people. Don't forget to stop in on Wednesday to have the Chicken Pallard!

San Francisco institution and the pride of Cow Hollow. Great food. Classic atmosphere. Great service.

Angry bartenders during Santa con and not very attentive to customers

If your looking to pick someone up, this is a great place to go as people are always looking to meet other people here. And the people watching on a Friday of Saturday night is amazing. The drinks are actually pretty good too. Bartenders wear while coats that give Balboa a distinctive look. And if you are hungry, have the balboa burger, it's delicious.

I stumbled upon Balboa Cafe for dinner.
I ordered the Steak Frite medium rare and the server got my order wrong.

I was served the NY steak OVERCOOKED.
On top of that the temperature for the gratin was off.

I am not impressed.

Nice vibes. Good to bring a group of friends too. Drinks are expensive

Stopped to eat and the food and drinks were not good.

Heritage SF restaurant, they prove why they are still there every time we go in. Classic perfectly prepared dishes and an awesome bar

Omg I just loved this place! The pour over was delicious. Perfect temperature and purely coffee with no bitterness or over-lasting flavors after drinking a 12 ounce. I m really impressed! Plus... the adorable outside seating was lovely! xo

Cozy place, with bar food on Christmas day. Nice waitstaff, old-fashioned decor, unpretentious clientele. Excellent caesar salad and baguette burger. The calamari fritti are a bit too dry.

Placed strategically between the Marina and the Pacific Heights, it attracts a fine, younger and not so younger crowd. Definitely a place to see and mingle with the beautiful people, gets very busy on thursdays and weekends. Food is good but nothing special

Terrific local gem with great food and drinks. Wonderful, friendly service. Great for lunch, dinner, or cocktails. Perfect vodka martinis.

It is recommended to do it late at night and there is also an atmosphere.

Great food! Kale salad was awesome. However, getting a table was difficult and confusing - they said it was first come first serve till 2pm, after which they take reservations. Our party called repeatedly that morning to check availability and try to get a reservation, but they said we couldn't reserve till 2pm. When we got there at 1pm, there was an empty table ready for us, but they said it was reserved for 130pm! What gives? Finally, we did get seated, but they basically rushed us out to seat a 2pm reservation. Not handled well.

Love this neighborhood icon. Always personalized service and a warm welcome!

Brunch: Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice was... Fresh. Bloody is the best around by far.

Perfect location. Wonderful accommodating wait staff. Delicious Deviled Eggs..only thing they ran out of Pliny the Elder Lager. My husband was crying

if you want to hang out with a bunch of kids that were born with silver spoons coming out of their mouth with no manners and never worked a day in their life this is a spot for you

This is always a good place to grab some food. The food is great, drinks always good. Fun!

Calamari fritti today. Nicely prepared. A sundae passed by that was totally eye-catching.

Great pick-up place for middle aged and lonely people.

Good place with tradition, friendly service, decent food.

The food was ok ,but service was not nice .He was bad mooded and it seems like he is always like that.So my day did not start good because of it

I'd actually made a new years resolution to not write any more negative reviews...so thanks, Balboa Cafe, for breaking me down.

Brunch this morning: Corned beef hash. The most unappetizing item I've eaten in recent history. Oddly reminiscent of cat food, overly salty and otherwise tasteless. But the texture, such a complete turnoff! The toasted english muffin was so overdone that it was nearly impossible to cut through.

I've been here for brunch four times now, and my previous meals have ranged from decent to mediocre. Unfortunately, today's was terrible.

The best place to take a good cold you will not regret

Favorite hangout in SF. Fun people and great food and drink.

For decades a premiere watering hole in SF...opened in the 70 s...huge hit, it was THE place to be seen and see...

I am in no way a fan of the marina. But, during a weekday afternoon, this place is perfect. Beautiful bar with bartenders who really know how to make a classic cocktail - none of those fluffy, overly fancy hipster drinks either.
Note: Try their fries. Tiny yet crispy goodness.

THE BEST burger I've had in the last 15 years! Absolutely the bomb!

Locals hangout. True be told, we were all nursing hangovers. The waiter promptly got us something to cure it. The food was good but not what my stomach was interested in at the time. I'd love to return and have a second chance to sample their cuisine again, without the hangover. At the very least, their Bloody Mary's are to die for!

Nice place to meet people and eat and dine and i never tried there food yet. Crowd there and nice place to drink at night and social and people there are mature and sober and good place to meet people. Lots of group friends and certain few single people there at times and nice place to meet certain women in leather and are lots of business professionals there to and network. People just wanting to have a good time and night there to and a good place to go at day and night.

I drove all the way from Marin there, and they were closed. It was 12 am only but google maps said that they closed at 2 am. False information!!

Really bad.... owner is horrible. Lies to get 3 million from relief funds. Uses fraud.

Went here Friday Night for a few after dinner cocktails. Place was packed. Problem was my girlfriend was 1 of 6 girls in the whole place. There seemed to be like 100 dudes there. Not sure if this is unique to this bar or SF in general. Drinks were nothing special but the bartenders wear these white lab coats and are very attentive.

Good food, reasonable prices, good service, pleasant ambience. One of our favorite brunch places in the City.

Excellent service by staff who were really accommodating playing along with a practical joke we had set up for my dad s birthday. The place looks totally different on the inside than out - very prim and proper compared with the off-licence sign hanging on the building.

The food was very good though I felt it was overpriced for what it was. Much more of a lunch than a brunch feel.

Not a terrible place overall, but I don't really have a whole lot positive to say either. It's a large space, but the layout somehow manages to make it overly crowded anyway. Drinks & decor were nothing special. And beyond that, most of what you care about in a bar has to do with the crowd: on that front, the night we were here this place was extremely man-heavy (probably at _least_ a 60/40 male/female split). On the plus side though, most of the guys didn't have the douche vibe that's common in the Marina. Then of the women who were here, a majority were definitely approaching "cougar" territory -- older than the typical Marina crowd, yet overly made up, and feeling like they're out on the prowl to snag a younger guy. If you want to have a drink but take a break from the overly loud and douchey bars elsewhere in the Marina, this place is probably a good bet; but aside from that I can't really recommend it.

Great place for brunch! Attentive. professional, staff. Outstanding service from waiter Brian today at breakfast! Lovely ambiance. Clean and tidy restaurant. We love this place and most definitely recommend!!

Fun spot, great drinks and people watching vantage points. Friendly staff made or visit pleasant. We will return for drinks and snacks.

Sad to report my Irish coffee was rather unremarkable.

Quality food and good strong cocktails, delivered consistently. A little old school, but always a solid choice in the Marina. Can be quite a scene nights and weekends, with plenty of cougars on the prowl.

Balboa, so much more than just a cafe. The thundering masses, the throngs, the braunschweiger.

We sat outside in their "Tini Garden" area, was cute and it was nice to be outside during this stretch of nicer weather. We got the Balboa Burger, which was pretty good - girlfriend and I shared one and it was more than enough.

We ordered 2 cocktails - the Plumjack's Margarita and the El Diablo. The El Diablo wasn't bad, a fairly normal cocktail, slightly overpriced. The Plumjack Margarita was not good, didn't taste like a margarita at all. Overall a 3.5-4 star plate IMO, was nice to sit outside, staff was friendly, and it's a nice area to walk around/shop in.

Great staple of the marina restaurant scene, if not the most iconic

We went for dinner and it was more of a bar than a restaurant. The food was good but too salty for my taste. I had a pasta that was pretty yummy but very very salty. Maybe I chose the wrong things because my dessert was too sweet, I had the chocolate tart and it had a honey and marshmallow so it was good but SWEET. My husband had the pork and I liked that!

Good menu, good food, good bathroom, good atmosphere... loved it...will go back

Awesome lunch! Wow great place! Put one in Chicago please! Would be huge there!!!

Marina neighborhood and San Francisco favorite is Open! with lots of outdoor seating and a few tables inside too. The burger is a legend, and we also enjoyed a 2-taco plate.

Literally the worst food I've had in a long time. The oysters were mangled and filled with grit. The deviled eggs were a bland egg salad at best, the tuna tartar was weird at best and the chicken paillard tasted like the cheapest mechanically separated chicken with watered down aunt jamima syrup smothering the plate, completely inedible. Still had to pay for it. Cocktails were incorrect as well, the only saving grace is the people watching and atmosphere

Nice atmosphere, bit pricy for the food. Overall, a pleasant experience.

Delicious food, wonderful waiter! Very loud, noisy. Still I'd go back.

A local's and visitors favorite and for good reason. The location in the "Triangle," near the Mania District, as very nice. The food is superb, the bar, well stocked and the staff, impeccable. If you go, get there early. The place is not very big, and fills up quickly. It's a great place to show your friends that you know where to get a great drink in nice local bar. Of course, if it's too full, the Triangle is one of the areas rich with great establishments serving good food and great drinks.

I had the chicken sandwich and it was a soggy mess. Not the quality I have come to expect from the Balboa Cafe.

Good quality food, busy, loud, crowded and with good cocktails. Good weekend spot if you look for action

We were having snacks and drinks - fun with family!

Had good experience the first time visiting this restaurant.
However, today: security staff decided to selectively enforce against my hispsnic friend ONLY an arbitrary rule to stand across the street where he could not hear that his table was ready, while NOT requiring a group of white females drinking alcohol on the sidewalk or a group of white men the same rule. My friend believes that this was a blatant violation of the Unruh civil rights act which prohibits racial discrimination and was outrageous after the black lives movement. Needless to say, we would not recommend going to an establishment that engages in such tactics.

Really enjoyed eating here. Great menu selection and the staff really know the menu and wine selection.

Once was THE hot spot in SF - everyone flocked to the Balboa...
made the society column - a lot. Now there is no Society Column.
Our Gov and the Getty kids took over...We used to call the area The Four Corners as there was a hot bar on each corner...

Great find by our stay in Coventry Inn. Great old bar with friendly staff. Food was great and drinks were flowing. The Irish coffee is the best. Try this place for drinks or food.

Excellence is paired with food and drink. Don't think about going elsewhere. You'll only be disappointed.

Iconic meeting point of the Marina of San Francisco. Pleasant atmosphere and discreet food.