Garden Club Restaurant Review

Call it hole-in-the-wall, vintage, out-of-date or stepping into twilight zone, Garden Club Restaurant and Bar is pretty much all that and more. When we arrived at the Garden Club Restaurant and Bar located in South San Francisco on Mission Rd, the electricity had just gone out five minutes ago. The first impression from the parking lot was not impressive at all. The restaurant seems to be couple of century old with no windows. Since the whole plaza experienced a blackout, the only light cascading into the restaurant was from the entrance. Once you go into the restaurant there’s a door to your immediate left which connects to the restaurant; not allowed to enter by patrons. To your right is the bar which had a long counter with bar stools. There was an older bartender behind the counter and couple of older patrons sitting on the stool who took notice to our entrance. It seriously felt like we stepped into an old western movie where all heads turn and stare at the new kids in town who’ve accidentally stepped into a wrong place. Since our table was immediately through the door to our left, my friend guided us to the door and the older bartender did not hesitate to bark at us telling us we must walk around to the back to enter the restaurant. He then muttered something under his breath to the other older patrons sitting at the bar. Any hospitality was immediately seized at the bar. I did not get to absorb the ambiance of the bar due to the dark. The not so divine design of the restaurant greatly due to Christmas lights hanging on the wall along with plastic plants; can you spell tacky?

The menu is small and came in two sheets. The base menu is laminated with their regular with steaks from $10 - $12 a plate; sandwiches at $9 and seafood dishes from $10 - $12; all entrée comes with steam veggie and soup. The top page is a xerox copy of hand written special of the day menu. The drink menu was very limited to fountain drinks, ice tea and coffee. Everyone on our table skipped the xerox copy and ordered off the regular menu. Everyone ordered the NY steak except two; who ordered the chicken sandwich. We were served soup first which came in a big bowl like family style along with bread (sourdough). It was a good portion where everyone was able to enjoy two servings. The vegetable soup reminded me a little of minestrone minus the beans and less tomato flavor and herbs. The entrée came not too long after we finished our soup so the speed of serving the food was not bad. My medium cooked NY steak was served with steam string beans and mash potato. The steak was a little dry and flavor a little mediocre. The string beans were light in flavor which I enjoyed but the mash potato was not impressive at all. It was not soft nor fluffy enough and needed a little more salt and butter.

The light came back on as we were finishing up our soup and went out again after we finished our entrée. The yummiest part of the restaurant is probably the waiter who took our order. He’s lean, tall and looks metrosexual; wouldn’t mind taking him to-go. One of our topics of conversation became which team he plays on; to which everyone wished it was theirs. Don’t care much about the food or the décor but if I do go back it will definitely be for the waiter. I give it 3 out of 5 with high influence of the cute waiter.

Garden Club
1144 Mission RdSouth San Francisco, CA 94080
(650) 873-4910