Gaspare's Pizza House & Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in San Francisco

I've walked past this place many times. Today, I decided to finally enter and try the food.

I was met with a retro diner looking restaurant, with booths, a gumball machine, and music machine things. It was dimly lit. A man gave me a menu, bread, butter, a plate, and flatware. I got the spaghetti al pesto, iced tea for my drink, and spumone for dessert.

The pasta came out quick and was warm. The pesto was really good. It was creamy, flavorful, and was really smooth and emulsified. It was an ample portion of spaghetti. I wasn't super hungry and couldn't finish it so I got a to-go box. I struggled for a bit with it and googled how to eat pasta in an Italian restaurant. Excluding pizzerias, this was the first proper Italian restaurant I've ever been in. Turns out, you put the spaghetti on your plate and use the spoon to cover it with sauce, then eat it with the fork alone. The bread is used to soak up leftover sauce.

Speaking of the bread, it wasn't super fresh. Bread is usually baked in the morning though so that's fine. I would've preferred softened butter instead of hard butter.

The iced tea was just fine. It's what you'd expect in a diner or restaurant or some other place that doesn't focus on tea. The spumone was very creamy and a satisfying end to a good meal. I didn't know spumone existed before today so it was the best spumone I've ever had.

My total came out to be around $26 and just under $31 with the tip. I'll probably come again to try more...

I've lived near this place for a long time, now that i think of it, its a privilege to live near this restaurant thats dear to my heart, Number #1 place to go for really good pizza! Trust me! you probably have heard that phrase before but i have got to say this place is hands down the original sf pizza place to go to if your craving a really good slice of the good old italian pizza, dare i say this is the closest it gets to NY pizza in SF, oh! the owner! don't get me started its like you've known him for years! staff is super friendly, one last thing get ready to experience something you probably have never done before with a pizza, eating it with a fork, why you ask? because the pizzas at Gaspares are super thin! (you wont be able to eat it with your hands, trust me i've tried it a bunch of times) if your craving good old italian pasta try the original, spaghetti w/ meatballs or the lasagna! bottom line if you want to go to a family friendly restaurant that serves the best pizza in town & italian dishes this is the place! Gaspares! Oh one last thing! thry got the original jukeboxes at every table, that still work! A quarter plays 3 songs! How...

I think we might have screwed up by coming here and not ordering pizza.

That being said, this place is okay. We ordered chicken parmesan, lasagna, salads, and bread. The food ranged from unimpressive to quite good - the garlic bread was a hunk of french bread with minced garlic and olive oil under a broiler, and I can do better at home, and I'm pretty sure I know what the box for those croutons looks like on a Safeway shelf. But the chicken parmesan used quality chicken breaded in-house, good marinara, and good pasta. The mozzarella they use is quite fresh, and you can tell by the way it melts. The lasagna was great.

The problem with this place is the price. It's not very much cheaper than some of the finer Italian places in the city, or even on this same street. For two people with salads, drinks, and dinner, we ended up paying over $80. That's too much for a place with fake grapes hanging from the ceiling.

It's charming and featured in the new Woody Allen movie, but I don't think that makes up for the price. I'll go up the street to Bella Trattoria if I...