Franciscano Restaurant Review

It's a traditional house. The crab and seafood coming out of the bowl is a delicacy.

The fresh cooked beignet (donuts) were off the chain wicked. And the coffee was the best I had after 4 weeks in the U.S.

This place had some of the best clam chowder I've ever had! The service was great but the view is amazing. They even have binoculars at each table to help you enjoy the view.
I highly recommend a visit to this restaurant.
There are plenty to choose from, but this one is among the best!

I got the short rib which was admittedly not a great choice at a crab restaurant, but it was really salty and the veggies unimpressive. My wife loved her crab though.

Excellent
Mussel
Squid
Crab
Hot butter

Excellent view, restaurant and food.
Expect to pay $$$, worth it if you love seafood. Steak also available on menu.

great food and service. my first chioce when i visit fisherman wharf

The place is a little old. It is eaten well, although it does not come out of the traditional. It is seen that it is a place for tourism from other times

Good view and the crab was good. Very, very fast in ordering and delivering (1 minute after ordering we got our food!!!). The waitress was very unpolite.

It was ok. Spaces were over crowded and hard to move around.

Service sucks....got water with no ice and when asked ,bring like barely handful

Good food, reasonably priced for SF. Good sized portions. A bit noisy.

After multiple wonderful experiences at fishermans wharf, I am sad to say, this did not measure up. Service is spotty, food is mediocre and the bar only has idiots behind it. Should have gone to Scoma', Aliotos, Tarantino's, In-n-Out...the fantastic view cannot compensate for a miserable dining experience.

Great food, Great service, considering the prices on the area and the location of this restaurant is not that expensive. The service from every body on the place was beyond great!

i can t understand how why this restaurant got 4 stars, it is overrated. The food taste not that good.

Service and ambience is very good, just found the food slightly salty for my taste.

Excellent seafood, ambience and table service. Let down by the chaotic queues waiting for tables with the hostess unable to prioritize accordingly. Saved by the excellent seafood, floor-to-ceiling windows and unexpected fireworks at the bay!

Amazing restaurant with really good and fresh sea food. A nice ambience and the beautiful view to the sea really makes a stay a pleasure.

The whole Fisherman s Wharf area is a pretty crowded place - it is a famous tourist attraction! However, parking is easily possible at the nearby parking area at the center of the area or in the parking garage (approx. two minutes walk).

Despite arriving without a booking when the restaurant was busy the staff were incredibly polite and got us seated within minutes, the minor wait was well worth it for this delicious pasta and life changing clam chowder

It's god place with god dishes and perfect view to the harbor.

Had the sea bass and it was terrible, expressed my concern to the waitress and it was corrected soon after with another plate of same. Besides that, all else was good.

Worst restaurant ever bad and racist staff only if you are white you are welcome here.

Very great atmosphere and food, the "quick fix" menu meal is a really good deal and tastes great. Recommend the ice cream!

Definitely worth trying! Perfect service, delicious food and wine.
Fish soup, crabs were the best!

A San Francisco Institution excellent view of Alcatraz.
Extensive seafood Menu.
I ordered the Dungeness Crab, very tasty.
View for Days of the Water and attentive staff excellent menu .

Amazing service combined with delicious seafood. Would go for it anytime!!

It's a crab house and the crab was just ok, the filet mignon was excellent.

Delicious food. Great scenery. Wonderful experience.

Delicious food, great service. Get the clam chowder over the crab chowder.

Very good I recommend Gioppino is a crab soup with mushrooms and prawns, delicious

So- so food. Had to wait 45 minutes for party of 7 despite reservations. Won't be coming back any time soon.

Favorite Place in SF a little expensive but stunning view and great food.

Cold enchiladas, stale bread, clam chowder was just a point better than what comes from a can. They really need to up their game. I was really looking forward to eating a good meal. Manager charged us.

Franciscan Crab Resturant more like Franciscan awesome food and trap resturant. Went here with my friends for a school trip. This restaurant has the dankest calamari and crab on the planet. The view was extraordinary and the waiters were trappin our with us at the table. They were very professional and had an educated conversation with us about trap culture and lil skies. 8 out of 5 if it was possible.

One of the Best fish and Crab restaurants I have been in. Very good choice with nice pictures of the menus and a great Alcatraz view. Very good service, too.

Fantastic bloody marys here, the mussels & bread bowl chowder with crab is out of this world! GO HERE!

Love sitting next to the window looking out at everything the service that was presented was awesome

Really poor service that started as soon as we walked in!
Not impressed at all with the restaurant management or the staff. Walked in there with my family and the hostess was very unprofessional and rude! She brought us to our table and we waited almost 30 min without any waiter/ waitress coming to even get us drinks! The table behind us that was already there when we walked in were already upset and we overheard them complaining that no one showed up yet to get their order. We literally stood up and started walking away and I told one of the gentleman there who may have been the manager that we would rather spend our money in a place where we would get a proper service as customers, which obviously he didn t care to know anything about the frustration since they are in a busy touristic location in San Francisco and customers would go there for its name and location. I d rather visit good restaurants in less popular areas where you get good service and the food would be tasty.

The food was absolutely delicious and the service was 1st class! Azriel our waiter to the time to explain everything and saw to all our needs. I highly recommend it. We'll be back when we're back!

Place looked great in my opinion, but was horrible. It was a 45 minute wait for cold food and when I ordered desert I got warm Ice cream that I could literally drink out of the mini cup that it was served in. This place has the perfect location but they need to focus on the food.

Crab chowder, deserts and ocean views are well worth a visit

It's expensive and the content is not up to the price

Best seafood restaurant in the pier .. the view is superb

Quality food served by excellent staff! It's expensive, but that is expected from a restaurant like this. Bread is served room temperature (Could be good or bad).

Had the clam chowder and crab. Both were delicious.

Gotta admit, its been many years since I've hungout at Fisherman's wharf! Craving crab, decided to fight traffic and crowds! Soooo happy we did!
Martine was our server and he was amazing! Not overbearing. Totally kind and a joyful server!
By patronizing this spot , our parking was free, too! Great job, you guys! See you soon!!

My favorite place to dine or have cocktails with a water view.

Nice view of the sea, good food, cola tastes like dishwashing water, was replaced but was still so but that is in more restaurants there, Dutch taste is really different, water you get is nice.friendly service

Step back in time with this gem on the water. Enjoy the old photos from the Golden Age of Hollywood & the views with classic cocktails. For the retro at heart

Great view of the San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz. Food was pretty good.

5 Stars. Sit on the patio upstairs outside. Have a large Anchor Steam and enjoy the view as so many have before you.

"But it was that beautiful cut of clouds I could always see above the S.P. alley, puffs floating by from Oakland, or the gate of Marin to the north, or San Jose south..." -Jack Kerouac, The Railroad Earth.

It s expensive, but the food is just phenomenal. Great views and super attentive staff too.

We walked in and were able to sit at the bar immediately. We loved the oysters and the calamari. The old pics of all of the hollywood stars are great fun to look at.

Ate there last night with friends and had a great time, fantastic location overlooking the bay. Service was friendly and food came out quick. As previous reviews have stated, it is quite pricey so you must be prepared for that. I was not overly impressed with the food ( I had Double Crab and Double Shrimp) as I think my dollar could go a lot further at another seafood restaurant but you might not get the amazing views!

A very good place to eat. The crab chowder in peasant bread is delicious. Grilled shrimp and crab are sensational. The pasta with crab is delicious. The grouper is deliciously cooked. Grilled mussels are also very good. Desserts are sensational. The service very attentive and very good. Just one detail. We made a reservation and they DID NOT respect it.

Great menu and ambiance. Had the best Sea Bass I've ever had there.

The low score it's been a mistake. I've been there a year ago, and I've really enjoyed eating seafood and the beautiful views.

Pleasantly surprised. All tables have a water view. Was expecting over priced awful good. It was priced reasonable and everything was delicious. Service was outstanding as well.

Great food in a beatiful place and with an excellent service.

The clam shoulder was just too die for!!!
Inez

In the super touristic Fisherman s Wharf, this is probably your restaurant to try good and well-priced clam chowder in sourdough bread.

Restaurant looks gorgeous, dressed in 70-80s style with so many beautiful details.

This is probably the best view you will get on Alcatraz from a restaurant.

The clam chowder was tasty and big. For 15$ incl. taxes your belly will be satisfied!

Classic SF restaurant serving consistently better than most seafood and pasta. View and location is for tourists, but hey, it's worth it one in a while.

Had the seafood fettuccini. Was the best with a great staff and view.

Very good food and VERY good service. Let me say again, VERY good service. Loved my experience here and plan to make a return trip when I can.

Just top notch place! Service is quick and Awesome! The view is beautiful during the day. So many choices on the menu, I have to come back. Also did a review for The Best In San Francisco dot com

Excellent food and service !!! And a spectacular view to enjoy day!

Really expensive, staff was unattentive except the guy who picked up the dishes, he desserved a big tip. Food was ok but nothing special.

I have visited this restaurant every time i've been out here. I make it a point to eat here, the food is great! The prices can be a little high but its worth it!!! You have to eat here at least once, the views are great also!!! Excellent food and service!

unreal clam chowder, and solid food all around. Usually pretty busy but didnt keep us waiting too long

Came in with low expectations, and still had those crushed. I rarely write reviews but feel the need to in this case. Mostly because I trusted other reviews to even go to this spot, rather than another close by I already knew was good.
Great View even in the back seats where were seated.
Initial Service / porter help was on point. Water quickly placed. Menu has a cute forward, and I was happy to play along with what I thought was the concept of the restaurant. The biggest problem with the menu was its size (huge). It is also disjointed. Apps are mixed in with other small plate options, and the server didn't really give us guidance on whether it was family style or not. We ate there and I still don't know if it was.

Fondue Crab App was pretty decent. Our group kept going back till the cute little pot was clean.

The bread was pretty amazing, if it wasn't from The Boudin Bakery out front, that bakery needs some recognition. Butter was fresh and very nice.

Might have been the worse chowder on the pier/wharf area, but I haven't tasted all of them yet. I have tasted a lot though and it was worse than even the most touristy spots canned tasting one.

The waitress recommended us going slow in ordering, not sure if she thought we couldn't afford it, or was doing us a favor making sure we didn't order too much to fast.

We ended up ordering their $90 combo platter to share. It was the best way to get Crab / Mussels / Shrimp on the same plate while we figured out what entrees we wanted. Bread continued to be the highlight, and every time we asked for more, it arrived quickly. I don't know what season shrimp are in, but the shrimp size was smaller than I had ever gotten at a restaurant of this "caliber" / price point. Think tiny. Crab was roasted beyond recognition, and stuck to the inside of the shell . Mussels were hit or miss, some had good flavor, some were garbage. The sauce they poured on the mussels smelled like white wine, but seemed to add nothing to the flavor. All in all, if you didn't dip every item into the included "butter sauce" from the crab, it was nearly inedible, except for a few choice mussels.

Other than the quick response of porters I asked for bread and water, I rarely saw my waitress, and never got a refill on the only drink at the table other than water. They were not busy, it was just before dinner rush, so I am not sure why the food was so bad along with the service.

We decided against dessert, although it looked like the best thing on the menu. At least the sundae looking ones.

Both the men and women restroom were horrible, and dirty. Dirty even after figuring it would be pretty bad based on high volume of tourists. Bathroom doors open into each other. Trash cans over flowing at 6pm. Been to cleaner gas station bathrooms.

So we left with a tab of $143 for the 4 of us. One shared app, One personal Starter, one 4.5 coke that was never refilled, and a $90 seafood platter. Still tipped 20%, because it's the holiday season, and I hate not tipping.

This is why this restaurant gets a 1 star review.

We were seated with a view of the bay and Alcatraz. Ordered the seafood fettuccini and a side of oysters, both were delicious. We had very good service. Worth the money.