Toast Eatery — Restaurant in San Francisco

I visited Toast for a lunch outing with my mom. She’s at an age where she doesn’t eat much, so we usually share a main dish and order an extra side. The restaurant wasn’t particularly busy—just a few tables with small groups—so I was surprised that it took about 17 minutes for our food to arrive. I was keeping an eye on the time because we had another appointment right after lunch.

We ordered the Eggs Benedict with hash browns. It was fine, nothing memorable but it did the job. I’d rate it a 4 out of 5.

We also added a short stack of pancakes, which unfortunately was disappointing. The pancakes were dry and had a bitter flavor. When I flipped them over, I saw they were burned on the bottom. We didn’t have time to send them back, so we just let it go, but it was a clear miss—2 out of 4 for that.

Service also left something to be desired. Our waiter wasn’t very attentive and it took a while to get our water refilled. I’d give the service a 3 out of 5.

Overall, I’d rate Toast a 3 out of 5. It wasn’t a bad experience, but it wasn’t great either. I’m not in a hurry to return, though I wouldn’t completely write it off...

This place used to be a Polk St mainstay … now it’s a fledgling generic breakfast place. We arrived a bit before 9 on a Saturday, and there were lots of open tables but every one was dirty. There was one server, 3 guys in the kitchen, and LOTS of people either waiting to have their orders taken or to be seated. The server was definitely in the weeds so I’ll give her a pass on that (though 30 min for coffee? Yikes). A few people came in after us and left because they weren’t being helped.

What’s more bothersome than shoddy staffing and bad teamwork, the quality of Toast seems to have nosedived. The orange juice used to be fresh squeezed, now it’s from a jug. Everything is sort of flung together. The second server (who came in around 915) walked in from the street and started helping (yay!) but didn’t wash her hands. The server put a stack of shoddy plastic cups down with a jug of water - and I couldn’t help but wonder where the bottoms of those cups had been that were now inside the other cups. The food was bland and boring. Toast used to have a special je ne sais quoi but now … just meh. Passable...

I have eaten at Toast, located at the corner of Polk and Sacramento, perhaps 30 times. Every meal has been excellent and the service outstanding.

This is a standard diner coffee shop experience but interestingly my friends order meals like eggs florentine and everyone says that food is good. I'm not that exotic, I order the hash brown and eggs or a patty melt for lunch.

So if you want an experienced similar to Mel's Diner I highly recommend Toast if you're in the area. Now that I think about it, that's the only coffee shop located around Polk and California area. Check it out, you can't go wrong.

Oh, the prices are fine. Not low not high. For example, today we had breakfast. My friend had eggs florentine and I had the hash brown eggs and toast. We both had coffees. The total was $30 plus a 20% tip on top of that. In the old days I would call those prices outrageous but minimum wage no longer 1.25 an hr.

PS place is really clean too. I judge cleanliness by looking at the water glass. Toast water glasses are...