Fine & Rare

Location is a little bit sketchy but convenient for those at UC Hastings School of Law. Cookies were not fresh and were even left in the cabinet on days that they weren’t open. Coffee was mediocre and definitely not «fine and rare». Two stars only for friendly service.

This place is fantastic. I avoided going here for a while because I thought it was expensive, but actually you can get an awesome mushroom sandwich here (I ordered it to go and it came with a small side salad) for $ 11 out the door. Considering the quality of the food is so high it is not expensive at all. Never ate in the restaurant but the ambiance is nice and they have a $ 4 beer on the menu so I’m looking forward to dining in next time.

This place is a gem. They have enormously talented chefs throw dinners and serve the finest, rarest most sustainable foods and beverages. Must visit if you appreciate great food, prepared simply with fantastic ingredients and a cozy décor

One of my favorite food trucks at Off the Grid at the Presidio.
I got the crab roll ($ 16) which was on a toasted brioche with romaine lettuce and tomatoes. It was packed with fresh crab on top. Great option for a less heavy meal. I would recommend trying it!

Amazing, seasonal, delicious. Fine & Rare is one of my go-​to lunch choices around the Civic Center/​TL area. Not only is the food fresh and creative, the atmosphere is comfortable, casual, and actually quite beautiful. Bright sunshine, high ceilings, and cute bowls and cups make my meals there feel more like a charming ritual than a rushed work lunch. Everything I’ve ever eaten there is so delicious (especially their cookies!), but don’t get too set on any one menu item, as they change based on seasonality. This is definitely a bit of a «hidden gem». So happy to have Fine & Rare so close to work!

Glasses of wine available too pricy for a lunch option. Food quite good and a nice new option for the neighborhood. Had the crab sandwich on a brioche nice little side salad came with it.

Went back and less enthusiastic than before. This time more shocked by high prices because food quality and flavor didn’t match. Had the chicken sandwich again. The preparation was less impressive (seemed maybe it was re-​heated — although perhaps because it was quiet afternoon — and a little sloppy) and flavor/​seasoning seemed like someone maybe tried to execute a recipe but didn’t get proportions right (also heavy — with too much dressing, etc…). Also, the food didn’t taste as fresh. Perhaps leftover food because business is slow? Probably won’t go back, as second experience literally left a bad taste in my mouth (and stomach). Wanted it to be a new regular place, but oh well.

Locally sourced delicious food! Had the trout salad for affordable price. Fries were good too. Menu goes through seasonal changes so I will be back there in a month once they release a new menu. Lastly, I typically do not like brussel sprouts but these were phenomenal! Yum

This space has gone through many changes over the years. I hope Fine & Rare sticks around.
I ordered their rotisserie turkey salad. And for $ 12 it can feed 2 people. It is a huge portion of greens, moist turkey, and fresh avocado. I also ordered a side of caramelized brussels sprouts. The brussels sprouts was plenty of food already as I finished that and couldn’t finish the rest of my salad. The sprouts were roasted perfectly and had a good balance of sweet and savory.
The space is very clean and small. The turnaround time is pretty quick though. The menu isn’t extensive so it won’t take long for you to order. I also like that each item has a sandwich or salad option. Even if you do get the sandwich, it comes with a generous side salad.
I’m so happy for this new, healthy addition at Civic Center.

Fine and Rare is a great lunch choice! Lots of optional healthy choices (as well as less than healthy choices too). Good place for groups, lots of space. A very simple menu — 3 meats and one vegetarian and all can be served as salads or sandwiches, the menu changes seasonally. I am grateful they have some gluten free choices. Wonderful service!
Quality food, it tastes homemade. The rosemary fries are really good and the watermelon, tomato and cucumber salad is light and worth ordering too.
They have seasonal food events which are really cool too, like the annual Crab event, pasta event, etc.

The fried chicken sandwich was pretty good, but cutting the patty up into pieces really just makes it all harder to keep together. I don’t really see the point to it? Maybe to make it more bite-​sizeable? To hide that the amount of chicken would not run the length of the sandwich? My friend’s smoked trout sandwich was also tasty but suffered from the same issue. On a random note, I like that all their prices come out to even numbers once you add tax.

What a great addition to the lunch scene in the nabe!
I came here on a lunch date and it was the perfect place to catch up with a colleague over yummy food.
Space is bright and airy with cute accents. You order at the register right when you walk in and the food is brought to your table.
Menu has 3 meat options and a veggie option which all come in either salad or sandwich form. I ordered the fried chicken salad and my eating companion got the wild mushroom sandwich. Both were excellent! We also got the Rosemary fries to share.
I thought the price point was a little high (also, the tablet automatically has 15% tip which I thought was presumptuous given the casual setting) but the portions are generous. The salad I had was HUGE and my colleague also enjoyed her sandwich but couldn’t finish it all.
Only suggestion is that fries be a bit crisper but that was a minor miss. Everything was great and the entire dining experience was great. They have beer and wine on the menu as well as ice cream and some interesting sides (kale salad, Brussels sprouts). All of my favorite healthy foods plus some treats like French fries and cookies – perfect balance!

It’s nice to have a new sit-​down place in the Civic Center /​Tenderloin area. I had an excellent turkey (REAL roast turkey!) sandwich with a side of garlic-​rosemary fries (MUCH too salty!) and lemonade. At $ 22.50 for those three items, it was a bit pricey. I will go again for a sandwich or salad, but I won’t order fries!

Fried Chicken Sandwich w/​side of fries was excellent. Washed it down with a tasty Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale. I will definitely stop back by on my next trip to the beautiful city of SF!

Went to an event here where we rented out the entire space and had beer & wine and appetizers.
The red wine selected was definitely strange, the bartender explained it to me, but ultimately it just tasted sour. It was bottled as you’d expect a hipster to package wine. For my next two drinks, I selected the white wine (much better), and a beer that I can’t recall, but it was a premium selection.
The appetizers were substantial and were enough to make a dinner out of. There were several types of bruschetta, which were just ok. A little hard, and hard to eat as well — the toppings came tumbling off. Normally, that’s okay. But when you’re standing and eating, it needs to be easier to eat. The sliders were very good. I loved the vegetarian one, spinach and mushroom and cheese. The BBQ chicken one was also quite good.
I’d recommend this place for a small event. The staff were friendly, and keep the food coming out until the very end!

A great addition to the neighborhood. Good quality food, good flavors, nice ambiance, nice owner and employees. Chicken sandwich was delicious (on perfectly toasted crunchy bread). Will come back to try trout salad and everything else. Owner said they get the whole local trout and cut it down themselves.

I had a fantastic wild mushroom sandwich on a delicious bun, with a side salad. While it is not the cheapest place to get a sandwich, I found it well worth it. Service was friendly and quick enough that I was able to eat lunch there and visit the library during a 90-​minute lunch break from Jury Duty.

This is a very nice clean restaurant on the edge of the Tenderloin in San Francisco. They staff was friendly and very good.
The food was good, I had the chicken sandwich. Not great but the options in this area are limited, so it was that much better. Ice tea with refills which are right up my alley.
I will go back. But mainly because of staff and cleanliness. Not the food.

The food at fine and rare is top notch, great ingredients, perfectly executed equals perfection. Definitely should be on everyone’s list of places to eat in SF. They also did a fabulous job with the décor.

The Rosemary Chicken Salad was fantastic. Portions are huge, chicken is fresh and super tender! Definitely coming back here!

Awful!!! I went to their booth at Off the Grid in the Presidio just now! $ 12 for an oyster poyboy. It was so tiny!!! Only 2 oysters!!! The bread fell apart!!! It was the worst sandwich i ever had. And like a previous reviewer, they put 18% tip automatically! Wtf…
The bread broke apart like crumbs. Why charge $ 12 for 2 oysters on low quality bread?
There was no one in line… Should have been a sign. They also had a dog behind the register where they were preparing food! Im pissed

Doesn’t matter what you think you want to have to eat, go right now to Fine & Rare and get their Brussel sprouts, they are crispy and caramelized and salty and delicious. The Rosemary Chicken sandwich is also very, very tasty but my fork kept drifting back to the sprouts. Really good food, iced tea and service at lunch, can’t wait to try them for dinner.

Albacore loin sandwich with hard boiled egg and arugula. It’s a great sandwich, very affordable and extremely delicious. Also, they have delightful cake in a jar which varies every few weeks but never strays from PERFECTION!

I went to Fine and Rare’s booth at Off the Grid in the presidio this weekend. I got a Dungeness crab roll for $ 15. When it came out I was pretty disappointed with the size. It’s like a mini sandwich about 3“x4″. It tasted average– not bad but not great for $ 15. Seemed very overpriced and not a good value for your money.
I also didn’t like that their payment system defaulted to a 18% tip when I paid. You can change it, but they don’t mention that it’s on the final total. It seemed a little dishonest to default to such a high tip rate for take out food and try to get the customer to sign as quickly as possible so they don’t notice.

Ah yes, Jeremiah Tower’s classic Stars restaurant used to be in this space, the category-​defying starting point for the whole California cuisine movement back in the Eighties. Fine & Rare has taken up only a sliver of the space, but if you ask where the restroom is, you’ll go next door and sense some of the zeitgeist of Stars once you enter the refurbished Empire Room. Otherwise it’s a fairly minimalist operation in here except for one decoratively dimensional wall of rustic planks that struck me as wasted placed as it is above the front door. The menu is equally minimalist with five entrée options, each prepared as either a sandwich or a salad.
The big five are Grilled Skirt Steak, House Smoked Albacore Tuna, Rotisserie Rosemary Chicken, Cold Smoked Salmon Pastrami, and Fried Eggplant. I decided to go for the $ 11.04 Chicken Salad which came with not only shards of the rotisserie chicken but also hefty chunks of Applewood smoked bacon, avocado slices, buttermilk blue cheese and blistered tomatoes, all of it in a large bowl filled with romaine and mixed with a creamy tarragon dressing (photo:
). It was hearty, fresh and quite delicious. Less satisfying were the $ 4.14 Garlic Rosemary Fries, which was a large portion but overdone and dry (photo:
). Luckily I had a $ 4 Mason jar of an Arnold Palmer to wet my whistle (photo:
).
Service was almost nonexistent on my virginal visit, but I was impressed enough by the chicken salad to come back with Jamie W. who has been looking more diligently than I have for healthier dining options. Even though he ordered the salad, he got the sandwich instead. Once the order was corrected, he enjoyed the salad as much as I did. We also shared the $ 3.22 Watermelon, Tomato and Cucumber Salad, which we found a refreshing side dish and a relative bargain compared to the entrees (photo:
). For the misstep on Jamie’s order, the owner gave us complimentary Chocolate Chip Cookies, a nice gesture and quite tasty (photo:
). The regular price would have been $ 4.14 which struck us as a bit pricey. Oh well, the satisfying salads are still worth seeking out here.
FOOD — 4 stars… worth a visit for the hefty bowl of chicken salad and also the watermelon side salad
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… simple décor, tables could be laid out better
SERVICE — 3 stars… a blank slate on the first visit, much more present on the second probably due to Jamie’s scintillating personality
TOTAL — 4 stars… one of the few non-​ethnic Civic Center eateries worth a try

Decent crab sandwich but automatic 20% tip at the food truck w/​o warning. They make it look like more crab than it really is b/​c it lays on a hidden bed of shredded lettuce and a sad cherry tomato. feels deceptive give the high price tag for a few bites.

Great add to the hood for a nice clean eating lunch option and alternative to phở. So far I’ve had the chicken salad — very good, and the tuna salad — okay. The tuna description on the website menu claims a tuna loin which made me think it was a seared tuna salad, but it’s more like a tuna fish salad (see photo). Otherwise I’ve heard that the steak sandwich is great as is the eggplant. Only bummer is you’re paying $ 12 for a Sammie and you have to pay extra for fries. I think it should be included for that price…

Had the Salmon Pastrami sandwich! Super interesting and delicious — and the bread was clearly made from scratch with a lot of care. Honestly it was the first time I’ve had a raw fig as a side, and it was a delicious compliment to the meal.
Would love to eat there again!

Delicious salads and sandwiches! Especially love the tuna and salmon. Kale chips are out of this world. Comfortable, airy seating and great service. Go!

I’ve tried the tuna and the chicken so far and both have been outstanding. The space is very comfortable and I ended up having a couple beers with Scott and Ted (the owners) towards the end of my meal. Was really interesting to hear about the space and their journey in building it up. The food is high quality and pretty good value given their ingredients. Friendly staff. Airy, bright space. Definitely recommend.

So went to this place today for lunch because my BFF wanted to try it out for the first time. You walk in and you have to order first and then get your number. Seating was kind of limited. It’s a cute place and the gal who took our order was very pleasant and nice.
BFF ordered the Salmon pastrami and I ordered the skirt steak salad. When BFF’s Salmon pastrami arrived, we looked at each other and said that’s all you get for $ 15, only side that came with the sandwich was a little piece of pickle that was a size of one French fries and half a fig. If you want fries, it’s extra $ 4. It was a slider size sandwich that was smaller than my hand. It looked like something from a kids menu. Then my salad arrived and it was decent for $ 14.00. But, I’ve had skirt steak salad from other places and got lot more than what I paid for at Fine and Rare. Two stars for their presentation of food but 3.5 stars for their services. I really don’t think it’s worth the price for what you get. I guess we will stick with either Max’s or Soluna.

Went here when it first opened and also their old location on market st. Always have super fresh seafood. Amazing sandwiches! Seems like every flavor added in each dish is expertly measured for optimal compliment to the other flavors. Fine and rare is definitely a must if you’re in the area:)