Souvla — Restaurant in San Francisco

Very generous servings and fantastic service at Souvla!

Food/Price: I ordered a pork gyro and the baklava greek froyo. My total with tip was ~$22. The gyro was very filling with flavorful meat and fresh veggies— the tomatoes gave the perfect amount of sweetness and the sauce added the right amounts of acidity. The froyo was really big and the baklava provided a good texture to the dessert. With this amount of food, I recommend sharing with a friend.

Wait: I visited on a Monday around 12:30 in the afternoon—there were a couple people in line but the wait didn’t take too long. With 3 people in my party, we easily found seats indoors and there were more options outdoors as well. Our food was ready within 15 minutes.

! As tempting as it is to enjoy the food at Dolores Park, the park does not allow takeout orders to be eaten there. The Souvla manager kindly let us know this beforehand.

⭐️: what would have made this 5 stars is if there were any sides that came with the gyro considering the price. It would also be nice if there were smaller serving options for the froyo as well. But nonetheless, I will be returning to souvla for lunch...

I absolutely LOVE Souvla. The mission location is my local but all the locations I've been to have been great.

The staff is so friendly and fun. I feel San Francisco waitstaff are famous for being snooty, curt, or just unfriendly (often because of horrible bosses, coworkers, job conditions, etc...I've done it and been that server before and it sucks). Everytime I go to Souvla I think that the owners must really care for the employees and work to help them do their jobs at their best, allowing for happy and helpful staff!

I nearly always get the roasted veg bowl...soooo good. I can eat that everyday! The pickled onions and olives give a great tangy flavor, along with the dressing. My husband's standard is the pork sandwich, but with chicken instead of pork. He recently discovered the Greek style upgrade where fries are added to the sandwich so I'm sure that will be his new go to.

I've also recently ordered the soup. I won't butcher it by trying to spell it from memory. Holy smoke, is that delicious!...big chunks of tender chicken in a lemony broth. Again, I think I could eat that every meal.

Souvla...

Don't get me wrong I really love this place and I've been coming here for many years.

So when my current experience I was with my parents and kid nieces and nephews around 1st to 3rd grade. We ordered our food and proceeded to sit down by the open window. All of a sudden we had a very strong with of cigarette smell and noticed that a dozen couriers were close by on the sidewalk (less thank 50ft) in front of the restaurant huffing and puffing. Now I understand that they're on the street but still there needs to be some sort of ordinance about smoking in public next to restaurants in a highly dense populated area. It's not good for elderly it's not good for children and it's really not good for anyone inhaling that second hand smoke especially while they're trying to enjoy their food.

We tried to enjoy the food as much as we could but we left on a shower now. Next time we'll probably just order to go and find a place that doesn't have a constant billowing of cigarette smoke from people nearby.

And my past experiences the food is really amazing so definitely come and give it a try but...