Celia's by the Beach — Restaurant in San Francisco

I really want to love this place but can’t quite. The bartender was charmless and curt, but she was kind of set up for failure. They must’ve been understaffed in the restaurant because even though there was barely anyone seated we were told by the two women at the front that there was either a 15-20 minute wait for a table for two or we could sit at the bar area and order with the bartender. We didn’t mind, it’s a cute little bar area, so we did that. The poor bartender was taking care of drink and food orders for about 10-15 people at a time while the rest of the restaurant appeared fairly empty. I could sympathize with her frustration but she was pretty rude initially to both me and my boyfriend so that left a bad taste in my mouth.

At least the margaritas are tasty. And so is the food, even though it really reminds me of the Americanized Mexican food of my youth- really simple industrial kitchen looking rice and beans (but tasty!) and the mole didn’t have any of the complexity of real mole. But once again, it tasted good, just not like mole. Ha. The chips and salsa and the hot sauce (which came out upon request) were super good and homemade tasting.

I don’t know…we’re within walking distance so maybe we’ll come back. Maybe during happy hour or on a Tuesday when there’s a Margarita special. Because despite everything, the prices are pretty high. It’s a cute old neighborhood place though so…maybe. Maybe we’ll come back.

Going to edit this to say (because they won’t let me reply to the restaurant’s response): thanks for the reply! I guess I don’t particularly like brown mole; you’re right, I’ve never come across it in all the mole I’ve ever had. It seemed thin and lacking the complexity that I just love in moles, and what I’m looking for when I’m craving it. Also, had no idea there was a downstairs. That makes sense that you guys were actually busy then, it doesn’t look like it at all to folks who are new to the place (me) and my bf who used to go there all the time with his friends about 5-6 years ago didn’t know that at all. Lol. Anyway, maybe we’ll see ya...

I have been in the past years in around 50 different Mexican restaurants, taqueria and food trucks. There were great experiences and OK ones. Never disappointed. Now we found the bottom of the list. The most disappointing food. We had the Combo Appetizer for $15.50. Every pre school kid gets this cheese quesadilla, nachitos better done. The guacamole and soure cream were ok but just both together in one of the small small plastic sauce cups. The French fries had not seen any salt or other seasonings and could have been fried a little been longer. I have to say I had much worse fries in my life. With the rest of the other appetizers I am not sure. The chimichanguitas were dry. It felt like those were fried now for the third time after being frozen or being from a few days ago. The Expresso Burrito $18.50 was not good. The bottom of the list burrito. Nothing was right. I thought the Expresso sauce had something with Espresso. Could not been more wrong. It was a watered-down hot sauce. Not sure where the peanuts mentioned on the menu could have been. The filing of the burrito not great. The Carne Asada was okay. Nothing to complain on the meat, just nothing around it made sense or was made by anyone who has cooked before. I am OK, if the restaurant informs us that they have some apprentice preparing the food.

The enchiladas en Molé. $21 the enchiladas were more like soft taco. The beef inside was ok. The Molé sauce was in a different league compared to the Expresso sauce. Still not great. Rice and beans you can buy better at Safeway counter.

The Agua Fresca and the non sweeted Ice tea were good. Nothing to complain there.

We got huge bag of chips which we have not opened yet. I hope the best.

I might have watched too much Kitchen Nightmares, but I guess this was really not good or mediocre food. Not even close. I would say something positive about the service but there was no out door service. Outdoor seating managed as take out. The person who took our order was very nice and did...

Used to be pretty good before the pandemic, but our last experience at this establishment was terrible. We went to eat there because we were meeting up there with a family that used to live next to ours, there was 4 adults and 3 children in our party. They sat us quite quickly which was nice, when we got our food, we literally had not taken a bite yet and our server with the manager comes to our table and asked if we would move to another table because the table we were at was reserved for another party, then they offered to give us a discount if we moved. We agreed to move only to discover that they moved us to two separate booths that were right next to each other, so we had to speak rather loudly to have a conversation with the family that we came to have dinner with, also they seated us near an open door that went out to the street and it was a foggy day so it was as cold as the service we received. They pretty much neglected our table for the rest of our visit, after they finally took our empty plates from our mediocre meal they brought us a plate with a scoop of ice cream and greasy tortilla chips sprinkled on top of it without any silverware so once the chips were gone we couldn’t eat the ice cream. When we got our bill I could see there was no discount applied and when I inquired about it the server said “we gave you free ice cream”. I won’t be going to there ever again for lousy service and mediocre food, thanks...