Comstock Saloon
What Insiders Are Saying
An old school saloon in North Beach, Comstock Saloon also has a great happy hour.
Food and service was fantastic. Definitely will come back to taste other food in their menu.
They forgot to make my drink, then blamed it on only having one bar tender. They also messed up our parties food order multiple times. Good place if you want to listen to live music in a really busy loud setting and pay for over priced food and cocktails.
noise was too much, could not appreciate the great jazz
Very ordinary food. Worst wine I’ve had in a while. Noisy with no music to be heard before the band started after 8 pm. Easy to find much better in San Francisco.
Loved the music !!!
Service was pushy and rude on NYE. Very weird vibe. Disappointing.
Excellent service and interesting but not intimidating menu with lots of fun little details, like the fact you can order the “family meal”; the one served to the waitstaff, different every night. Great fries, great burger, and excellent cocktail menu. We’ve been three times and would love to go again.
Stumbled upon this place looking for good cocktails, found that and more here! Great drinks and the Cacio e Pepe was spectacular!! Definitely will come back. It is a bit pricey though ($18 for a calamari appetizer ?!) but the food is so good.
Nothing to write home about
I was in town for business and made a reservation about 45 minutes before our arrival for Sunday brunch on 12/16/2018 and arrived by 12:30pm. When we arrived we were immediately escorted to a table with bar stools in the front room by the bar. We had asked if there were additional seating available and the hostess said let me check. She brought us into the back room where there were a handful of tables available, most were booths. She had sat us at a very small table by the door and said “sorry this as good as it gets”. My business partner and I were both taken aback but the comment. She said the other tables were for later parties and that they were reserved. Mind you the restaurant was not busy. In fact it seemed extremely slow for a Sunday at 12:30. I had noticed other booths with couple siting in them so we were confused as to why we weren’t allowed sit there. We had planned on order multiple dishes each and knew that we wouldn’t be able to accommodate our food on aug a small table. Also the table was by a door so there was a draft. I had asked a female manger who came to our table and she said hold on let me see. She can’t back to our table and said no and that again the tables were for reservations only. I had expressed we had a reservation said “oh”. She left and far back about 10 minutes later. She knelt down next to our table and said to me “these tables are for reservations and you only hire booked yours 20 minutes ago”. We were very confused as to not only why she would come back to say that, but also what does it mater how far in advanced we booked the table online. She said it in a try condescending tone. As if to say sorry your reservation isn’t good enough and she just stood tree staring at us not saying a word. It was the most bizarre encounter I ot my colleague have ever experienced and I dine out 2-3 meals a day 7 days a week. I then told her I felt uncomfortable in that moment and she shrugged her shoulders and smirked. Don’t waste your time.
I've had delicious dinners at the Comstock before. This last visit was a mix of excellent and disappointing... The oysters were rather warm and full of broken shell. Most of the waitstaff were amazing, friendly, responsive, delightful... but the bartender in the back room insisted on "airing out the room" occasionally by throwing the doors wide open and causing all of the patrons to suddenly put on their winter coats. It was 40 degrees out and pretty unpleasant to sit in the breeze because he happened to be warm. His response to patrons about this was rude and unapologetic. I can so do without hipster attitude from people in the service industry. The restaurant should find another way to get a little more fresh air in that back room besides freezing the patrons periodically and cooling off their food. The "family meal" was curried udon noodles with pork belly and was soo delicious.
Food was amazing! They just started their brunch menu though so service was lacking. Seemed like they were still getting their sea legs. Manager was awesome and gave us a discount for the slow service (they brought our meals out 15 minutes apart from each other). Food was amazing though and friendly staff
Yum! Unicorn sauce
Spent Sunday afternoon here for an early birthday lunch and had such a fun time. Food, drinks & service were all top notch. The french fries were especially amazing!
Good food and service. Good vibe. Sense of history in menu, drinks and food, is nice. Beautiful bar.
Wonderful staff, wonderful brunch. SF suffers from pretentious eating - you will not find that here!
Warm, casual and delicious.
At this point Hazel is our go to for dinner
Great for drinks and live music, but would not recommend for dinner. The sauce for the calamari appetizer was way too salty and not enough calamari. The main dishes were ok, but did not have any accompanying sides for the prices. The live music was surburb and looking forward to returning for that with cocktails.
Wonderful vibe
Great place
Found myself desperate to hear some live music on Saturday, and the jazz men of Comstock Saloon always reliably deliver. Very high level of musicianship and an awesome location in which to appreciate it. The cocktails are truly exceptional. I won’t judge the menu by the really bad $9 tater tots I ordered, but you may just want to enjoy the jazz and cocktails.
My favorite burger in town with the best service and staff.
Jason Raffin's creative menu and delicious food never fail to disappoint along with outstanding saloon service.
Overall we enjoyed the food and ambiance. The service was great too. I am deducting a star because I asked if my egg yolk would be runny since the eggs dish I ordered was baked and the waitress assured me the egg yolk would be runny but the egg whites would not be; however the egg yolk was hard. The dish itself was delicious but it would have been even tastier to me if the egg yolks would have been runny. I would have ordered a different dish had the waitress given me accurate information.
Fantastic piece of San Franciscan history. I have always loved this place and I think it’s even nicer now after the remodel. Upgraded the seating but left this historical bar and everything else that should have been left.
Great place for weekend brunch. Drinks were great.
This was our first time at Comstock but it definitely will not be our last. The food was absolutely delicious and their chef, Jason Raffin, is the best. The family meal - Hangtown Fry - was out of this world. The band that played was energetic but not overwhelming so that conversation was still manageable. The ambience is great and next time, I hope to make it for their happy hour between 4 and 6pm. If you love good food, great music and a comfortable yet lively environment - Comstock is the place for you!
Great coffee, great polenta, delicious churros, but the best of the best... tres leches French toast!!
Wonderful old-San Francisco saloon in the Barbary Coast part of the city. Fun spot with the best burgers around.
The Comstock Saloon food and drinks were delicious. We dined on the braised rabbit meal on my birthday end of September. The food and ambiance were wonderful!
Great atmosphere, and our table was ready as we walked in the door! Live jazz was great in the loft above - high noise level but our party of 6 in the booth below had no problem with conversations. We shared 6-7 plates but it didn't seem like much food once that was all split up/shared among us. The Burger was great, but we each needed one! The Lo Mein was DEEEElicious but we were disappointed that they were out of Calamari so ordered a tasty second burger which came right away. All in all, a great evening, but I guess we should have sprung for more food. We were just too busy having a fun night out!
The food and ambiance is very unique and special. However, the service is incredibly obnoxious. All the servers assist with all the tables so they come up to the table asking you the same questions three or sometimes four times. The service is not personalized and quite frustrating when you’re bombarded by three different people continuously. A simple solution would be to have one server per table.
I had been wanting to try Comstock Saloon for some time now and finally got around to it. I had the tres leches french toast, the burger, and the breakfast poutine. All we absolutely amazing, especially the burger. I recommend this place.
Our favorite place in North Beach. Music is the best part. Decor and atmosphere are excellent. Drinks are great. I just wish food were equally good. It's just pure salt. We've tried different dishes over many visits and every food is so salty here lately. Even fries, sometimes is rock hard and not edible. I really like Comstock Saloon otherwise. I'll keep coming back, but just for music and drinks, until food gets better.
Truly fantastic food happening here. Ordered the burger and poutine which were both outstanding. Can’t wait to go back and try more items!
Honestly, this might be my favorite burger in the city now
Vacation; great drinks, will come back.
Old bar with bad food. That’s about it.
Birthday party and it was amazing!!
Brunch with a party of 3 at 11:30AM opening. Pretty empty, so no need for reservation. Atmosphere and vibe is great, service is excellent, nice, attentive staff.
Cocktails are well-respected but seem a little unimaginative to me, and average at best taste-wise. I hate to say that, I know it's got a good rep, but it didn't wow me.
Food is where things really get a little frustrating though. The dishes are almost wildly imaginative and fantastically presented. Beginning with the "Eggs on Eggs", a delicately presented but rich and hearty take on deviled eggs (and probably my favorite dish), the thick filling was nicely offset by a shower of puffed seeds, though I found the caviar topping largely extraneous. The "French Toast" was more like an artful cake dessert (and in fact a nearly identical item is on the Dinner dessert menu, hmm), while the Char Siu "Benedict" was unlike anything I've had, a towering dome of light, brioche-like bun, with a center of Chinese-style BBQ pork. But at $19 it was far too skimpy with the meat, too bready, and the holandaise that covered it while rich and plentiful, lacked much "zip" in my view. Especially for a Chinese-influenced dish. The Breakfast Poutine was probably my second favorite thing, a generous helping of crispy fries, scrambled eggs, and gravy, with some surprisingly unexciting "whole hog" sausages hiding below. Again it lacked stand-out flavor in the gravy though.
Don't misunderstand me, all the food was "good", it was just conceptually way beyond its actual flavor, promising more than it delivered. Which is unfortunate given that prices were all a bit high, no doubt due to the fancy plating and execution. I love a unique and well-presented dish, but the flavor has to match the level set by the concept and it sadly didn't most of the time.
Despite that, it was a good experience, with ambitious food, great atmosphere, and good people. I'm curious to come back for dinner, but won't be rushing back for the pricey brunch.