Park Chow's Restaurant, San Francisco

Great food, great service, nice ambiente, affordable prices.

I love love love love Park Chow!! Their food is always tasty. The waiters and waitresses are helpful and friendly. Unfortunately, parking is hard. Prices are reasonable. And their warm chocolate cake is to die for!!!

The food is tasty-- I'd consider it california-style cuisine; prices are moderate; atmosphere is hip & comfortable; service is decent

hands down best veggie burger ever. great lemonade and the ginger cake was yummy. cute servers, especially one named lance. i heart park chow. -smitty

Family Friend A+ This place is an Inner Sunset standard for my family. The food is consistently delicious, service friendly and the beer is cold. Favorites include Lasagna with Spinach, shortribs, flank steak and fresh grilled fish. On a sunny day eat upstairs when they open the sunroof. Kids are welcome and they have crayons and great food for kids, mini pizza, chicken and fish and shakes.

Park Chow has been a family favorite for years. We started going there when our son was around 6, and is even one of the places we were considering for his wedding rehearsal dinner, recently. But, alas, because of their popularity, we were not able to book tables for that event on the date we wanted. It is a bit noisy downstairs, but upstairs is much quieter, with heaters for cold SF evenings, and even a room with a fireplace. The person who gave it a negative review must have been there on a really bad day, because we have never encountered any of the negative factors he/she listed, except for the noise in the downstairs dining room. The menu offers a great selection, and portions are humongous. I usually manage to get dinner, plus a lunch for the next day from the leftovers with every visit. My favorite has always been the pork chops because they are HUGE, and ALWAYS cooked just tender, NEVER dry. I don't order pork chops anywhere else but Park Chow. The staff is young and very informal, which suits the atmosphere and most of the customers. If you want a stuffy wait staff, you won't find it there. If you don't want a long wait, call ahead to get your name on a list, because they don't take reservations. Parking is a breeze if you're willing to walk a block into Golden Gate Park. We always order the mussels when they're in season, and they're always succulent and delicious. Their desserts are terrific, esp. the ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream. We even ordered a whole tiramisu cake once for our Christmas celebration at home--yum! Park Chow is undeniably reliable for its great food, huge portions and friendly service.

There are too many stools at the counter. They are jammed together to get more people in, but in the meantime, NOBODY is comfortable sitting there trying to eat or drink. They need to take two stools away. People are cramped and complain about it when the counter is filling up.

This place is a favorite of ours, as it is in our neighborhood, but it's also somewhere we like to take guests and people from out of town because it has a very cozy, comfy atmosphere that's casual enough to feel relaxed in, but high-quality enough to be considered an elegant restaurant. The service is friendly but a little disorganized, though the food is wonderful. High recommendations for the Steak Sandwich, which is only served on Thursdays, and the chocolate molten cake dessert, which is the perfect way to end one of their pleasantly-filling meals. They also have a great Thai dish which has meat and chicken with noodles and cilantro on top, one of the best items on the menu. Recommended seating is at the top level where there are flowers intertwined around the open windows, but if you would rather be totally sheltered, the downstairs room is also great as there is a fireplace in the middle of the room.

Park Chow is clearly overrated!!! The only good thing about it were the cheap prices of almost every dish. It was unbelievably noisy, the waitstaff was unprofessional and their appearance was shabby, bordering on dirty. The host (manager?) was unfriendly and arrogant. Either the kitchen couldn't handle their Friday-night business or the waiter was just incompetent, but we had to wait a long time to be served after we were finally seated and had to ask for extra flatware or napkins more than once. There was no food presentation to speak of, with all dishes being crammed into luncheon-size plates. The mussels were so unfresh that there was hardly any flesh left on them, just sort of shriveled up and stringy. The pork chops were overcooked and dry from probably being kept too long under the heat lamps. Etc., etc. The cheap prices are not enough to make us go back. Ever!

After reading the reviews, I expected something much tastier. Good enough beverage selection, service was casual but nice, and didn't get anything wrong in our large group, setting was casual and sort of ski lodgey cute. But in a city known for its food, with these 4 and 5 star reviews I expected, foodwise, something actually good to very good, but found it no better than bland and uninspired to relatively ok.