Hayes Street Grill

12/14/08

Great location, decent food, high prices, & poor dining experience.

by decaruby at Citysearch

My fiance and I, along with another couple, were attending the Nutcracker one Sunday evening. I did my homework ahead of time and found that the Hayes Street Grill was well reviewed and made reservations well in advance.

From the beginning our dinning experience started out very well. One of my complaints are that the tables are too small and are crowded together too closely. Each time a waiter / server / busboy would zip by our table each of our chairs were getting kicked or rubbed over by the help. Definitely not a place for a romantic dinner as the comfort level is limited. Be ready for a dizzying menu & bring your glasses to read it. The waiter seemed nice, but failed at delivering a "personal" recommendation on wines or entrees. The bread crust was extremely tough and not well cut through. You may need hands of the Governator to tear the bread apart as you are not given a knife to finish the slicing operation. Beware of the Green Salad if you think of a salad as anything beyond a pile of lettuce with dressing. I almost forgot, you'll need to cut the leaves to fit them into your mouth too....and keep that fork because there are no salad forks. The entrees did have good flavor and were cooked very well. Don't expect large shellfish or portions. I guess the waiter knew the food was well prepared as he never returned to ask how the meal was (a major complaint of mine of most waiters / servers today and a big determinant of the tip). Our waiter also failed to bring us two wine refills, yet he didn't bill us for them either, go figure. A separate person came to take our desert order and I don't know who left the check. I understand the restaurant was most likely busy, but why overfill the place to only have the service under perform? It is half the equation in my opinion to a fine dining experience and if you are going to the show, I recommend looking elsewhere- especially for the price and portions.

• Pros: Well cooked foods
• Cons: Not much to the Salads, high price, crampy, poor service.

08/19/08

Pretentious and not accomodating of dietary restrictions

by bbesenfelder at Citysearch

I am diabetic and can not eat carbs. When I ordered grilled fish for dinner I asked to substitute the french fries for a vegetable. The waiter said "no" that I could not and the french fries were their signature item. I was dumb-founded. He informed me I could buy a vegetable side dish, but the only choice was swiss chard, which I hate! He was very condesending to me. I ended up buying a salad I didn't want and was served my $28.00 fish, alone on the plate. The waiter brought the french fries, which I declined, anyway. I eat out a lot and have never been so dis-respected and dissatisfied as a customer. I will never eat there again.

07/15/08

Pricey But Pretty Good

by bluejett at Citysearch

Three of us dined - the pork was excellent. The mahi mahi was very nicely grilled, light and flaky, and the soft shell crab was also good. We enjoyed dessert which was probably the best - a nice blueberry tart of sorts. The service was very good and the food very good, but if you want ambiance and value, you really would be better suited elsewhere. We found that there was much good food in the area, but value was harder to find.

• Pros: good food
• Cons: pricey

12/01/07

$$$ Mistake

by pete1959 at Citysearch

I heard Gene Burns on KGO rave about this place so we went on that recommendation. I should have checked the reveiews first. Boring food and boring presentation. Minimilist doesn't, shouldn't mean, bland. Cold bread served with butter straight from the refrigerator (cold pats of butter hard as a rock). Bland lukewarm celery soup. Swordfish nicely grilled but lacking in presenation...white fish served on a white plate witha piece of white lettuce. Offered a choice of sauces, but I want the chef to decide...after all it's his food. French fries...please...! I know the fries are suppossed to be special there, but they are just oily french fries. So what! Wait staff was decent, but I also got a cold attitude when I didn't order desert. After throwing away $100 on very boring average food I was reluctant to toss another $20.00 away.

• Pros: Ambiance.
• Cons: Uninspiring expensive food.

12/02/06

Tasteless Food

by sfmoored at Citysearch

I'm confused at how this restaurant is getting good reviews. The seared scallops I ordered at $24.95 last night were absolutely tasteless. They were cooked through, but barely seared. Just terrible. Six of them were sitting on a pile of butterbeans the same color as the un-seared scallops. So not only was the dish tasteless, it looked drab as well. The green salad at $7.95 was just that -- a pile of green lettuce leaves in a bowl --- to help carry the boring and tasteless theme even further.

• Pros: We got in right away
• Cons: Food was tastelss and boring