Perry’s Downtown

I came here only once to Perry’s for dinner which was a few years back. The reason why, I came here to Perry’s was. I got lucky on winning a restaurant certificate at the Columbus Day Bazaar games at St Peters & Paul Church which was a long time ago!!! All, I could remember is that the food at Perry’s was really good and I had a grand olé time!!! Only thing is that, I have not gone to Perry’s in a very very long time!!! I did past by Perry’s a few times, but never when back again. Maybe someday I will be back!!!
Update
After passing by Perry’s Of Downtown. I had no idea that Perry’s was gonna move to the Embarcadero Area at 155 Steuart Street. I have posted a picture of the notice of the move on the Unilocal review of Perry’s…

My tooth broke recently. Like, so recently that I am still in excruciating pain as well as a state of total shock.
If I could eat right now, the first thing I’d want is a cobb salad from Perry’s. They are big enough for three normal people or just one of me. They are covered in bacon, eggs, chickens, tomatoes, avocados, and cheeses. Many cheeses. The dressing is the lightest I’ve ever had and there are no chunks of blue cheese floating around in there.
This is a very good lunch option if you happen to work right nearby. I do. And when I get this mothereffing tooth fixed, the first thing I will do is go to Perry’s. Actually, the first thing I will do is eat a big, bloody steak (but probably at Harris’ and not at Perry’s). And then after I eat that big, bloody steak, I’ll have a cobb salad at Perry’s. For now I will have to be content with broth and warm salt water, damn you dentist.
Service is good but lunch can take a while, so give yourself 40 minutes to an hour. Make the person you go with order a burger so you can have a bite and grab some of their fries while you’re at it. The fries here are divine!

If you eat merely to sustain yourself, eat here. If you eat for the love of food, go elsewhere. Also, those bread sticks on the table can’t possibly be sanitary.

Perrys has been my home base as far as a cool place to have white soul food.
I moved to SF and immediately felt at home at Perrys and anyone that doesn’t see that in Perrys is just to picky for words !
The only reason for the four stars is that is it has a clientele that can be a bit obnoxious !

I give Perry’s Downtown three stars because of the following reasons:
1) When my friend called in the morning to make a lunch reservation for us, she said that she had someone on the phone who didn’t really speak English. This in turn caused for our reservation to be messed up and we had to wait for a table for a few minutes. Not a good first impression
2) My friend and I went near the end of the lunch rush, so service was a litlte… slow? Our waiter didn’t really come by our table too often.
3) Location of the bathroom is all the way on the 2^nd/​3^rd floor, something like that. I didn’t use the bathroom there, but my friend said that it’d really suck for someone who had bladder issues to go to Perry’s.
4) Food was in generous portions – a good thing in some aspects. I ordered the fried chicken entrée at lunch, and I was expecting something like KFC. But I was pleasantly surprised with the chicken when it came out – seemed pretty gourmet to me. Mashed potatoes were great as well. I definitely left Perry’s with a full stomach and a doggie bag.
I will probably go back to Perry’s again sometime, but I am hoping service will be better next time.

Perry’s on Sutter has lots of good things to offer, but just hope your server is in a good mood.
The salmon sandwich is impossibly good. The chipotle marinated New York steak sandwich is pretty damn tasty. We had a swordfish special that tasted incredibly fresh. We had nice glasses of wine, and the chocolate cake of the day (ours was cinnamon-​y) was very very good, especially when accompanied by the vanilla bean ice cream.
There’s a nice balcony upstairs — see if you can get one of the tables that overlooks the bar downstairs — it’s a really unique view that you can’t find much in SF.
But our server. Ugh, our server. Maybe it was because we were doing a lunch between Christmas and New Year’s and he was just «over» the holidays, but I’ve never encountered someone in so much of a hurry to do anything, have to return to the table to confirm or re-​ask our selections, or be annoyed when you took a nanosecond to make a decision. Cheer up, guy!

This place is another one that has tainted memories… reminds me of the good old song…
«I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to keep me down
Pissing the night away
Pissing the night away
He drinks a whiskey drink
He drinks a vodka drink
He drinks a lager drink
He drinks a cider drink
He sings the songs that remind him
Of the good times
He sings the songs that remind him
Of the better times»
Yeah… well… I have had a few drinks here with various friends. The food is pretty heavy… I always feel about 10 years older when I go here… don’t know why… something about the place is very hofbrau like to me… but this is not a negative thing… I enjoy the stiff drinks and the food compliment my meals… a good place to drown my sorrows away… cheers!
Oh… I have yet to visit the ladies room here… when I do… I will update… nothing worse than a bad ladies room… where oh were would I go powder my nose?! ;-)

We considered popping in here for a late night drink, opted instead to go inside and get warm. We DID pop in for brunch. There was approx 3 minutes of an awkward, «do we wait for a seemingly non-​existent employee to emerge and seat us or do we just sit down?». Eventually a young lady appeared from the depths of the bar, grabbed two menus and gave us our choice of tables. We strategically picked a table that had a view of the football game from both sides.
The bacon, cheese and tomato omelette was really good. If you prefer a greasy breakfast, this isn’t the place for you. Because it took awhile for us to be seated we were concerned about the service but our fears quickly faded. They were on top of everything.
Happy hour looks fun and they have an extensive list of appetizers. Their blue plate specials were intriguing enough to make us want to come back.
As we exited a couple was standing out front lingering over the menu — obviously trying to decide if they should eat there. We smiled at them in passing and gave them the thumbs up. Mr. Couple smiled back and said, «sold».

I went here a month or so ago, and the food was decent. My grilled chicken BLT was pretty good, no complaints.
Come back today for lunch with a coworker, I order the Perry’s burger, cooked medium. My coworker has the meatloaf.
We enjoy our food, but 2 hours later I feel like I’m going to yack and my coworker is also feeling sick. Not sure what happened, but I’m definitely not coming back here…

I work a block away from Perry’s, and I have lunch there a couple of times a month.
The place gets really packed by noon, so you might want to beat the crowds and show up by 11:45 or so. If you get a table downstairs, be prepared to be bumped by eager middle-​aged businessmen wishing for those good ol’ two-​martini lunch days.
Food at Perry’s is. .. well. .. decent. Everything I had at Perry’s was pretty good, but nothing was particularly great. The meatloaf, the steak sandwich, the lasagna were all pretty good, but not great. It’s good, hearty American food, but it lacks that certain ‘je né sais quoi.‘
I really like the service there, though. They’re friendly, attentive, polite and always ready to refill your drink. If you ask them to change the channel on one of their several 19″ screen TVs, they are always happy to help. Sit close, though, as those 1998 relics are not exactly high definition plasma.
Oh, and if you want to watch Italian soccer matches in the middle of the day, you probably won’t even have to ask them to change the channel. Goooooooooooal!
In conclusion, good place, a little overpriced, but I still go there during the baseball season to catch a few innings of an afternoon game. Enjoy!

Free food at happy hour! Free food at happy hour! Need I say more?
There’s definitely a lack of seating, but the drinks are strong and the bartenders are nice.
Plus, who can turn down chicken wings when you’re drinking beer after work?

always tough reviewing a place after ed u. he says it all and usually better than i can. so, i agree. i’ll add one thing. i was told that they don’t turn on the beer taps at lunch. this was bad because first, i couldn’t get an anchor steam and second, it made me feel like an alcoholic and i already have esteem issues.
so ed’s 3 stars minus one for the beer issue.

1) There is always a game on one of the tv’s, and usually they are different games so you can pan back and forth.
2) Daily specials are lovely!
3) Good beers on tap
4) Just around the corner from my office! Great downtown location
5) Attached to the Galleria Park Hotel, which is adorable and has 5 pm wine tastings next to the fireplace so it’s just a nice place to end your day
6) steak/​spinach salad is super yum
7) Daily for happy hour there is a big dish of free buffalo wings. How can you say no to that? Sometimes they do hot dogs: P
8) Seasonal lobster special…
Anyway, most of the time the food is pretty good. The crowd is generally business travelers and regulars. It’s a great place to stop for lunch or for ten minutes to get caught up on a game.

Dear Perry’s,
Thanks for saving me from another gloomy lunch at the Crocker Galleria! I especially appreciate your delicious Chipotle marinated New York Steak Sandwich with roasted garlic aioli and onion rings. When the rigors of working for the man get me down, you are there to remind me that all is not lost.
My lunch of fish and chips this past Friday will likely be my last with you as I’m moving soon. Thanks again for the good memories.
Best,
MiRIAM w.

It’s a common dilemma for the conformist FiDi worker bee. You are a «live-to-eat”-type who must harness your inner-​Paul Prudhomme to fit in with your «eat-​to-​live», gym-​4x-​a-​week colleagues. They are averse to any food they think they saw on a National Geographic special, so that pretty much rules out third-​world-​derived eateries. They also wince at the idea of hot-​and-​spicy, so that leaves out the second world as well. Where do you go?
Perry’s, of course, as this is the white-​collar, white man’s pig trough disguised for the business lunch crowd. There isn’t anything remotely controversial on the menu, so you can be assured of a blissfully bland meal without interruptions requiring 911 attention. I had the $ 11.95 Chinese Chicken Salad — completely decent, diced almost too perfectly in machine-​like fashion and entirely unmemorable. Consequently I could hold a business-​oriented conversation without swooning over the dish… not that I would do that ;-)
The interior hasn’t changed in the years that I have come here — the dark wood, the elevated bar tables on the bottom floor, and the checkered-​tableclothed tables on the second floor. Y’know…the whole Boston-​based testosterone-​sports vibe. The service was a bit meh, but that may have been the lunch hour traffic in action.
FOOD — 3 stars… land of the bland
AMBIANCE — 3 stars… What about ‘dem Red Sox?
SERVICE — 3 stars… where’d he go?
TOTAL — 3 stars… for «eat-​to-​live» types, not «live-​to-​eat» people like me!

Heh, ditto to what Mimi said about Perry’s being accomodating for a big group of rowdy kids… I was in the same group. Between Mimi slinging her arm over me and being all «no, nooooo… but, but, do you know what? I reallllly love you guys!» and me screeching about my hatred of the faux yellow Livestrong bracelets being worn as a fashion statement by dude-​bra douchebags, the waitress could have gotten tired of us really, really quickly. Instead she was sweet and laughed at our asinine antics, kept us well fed and watered, and easily substituted a side dish for me.
Oh, and two words for you, my friends: fried chicken. My fourth star is for the fact that fried chicken, my favorite crunchy delight, is on the menu. Perry’s version, while not the best, is actually pretty serviceable. Their combination appetizer platter, with calimari, potato skins, and hot wings, was rather decent as well. It’s good drunkies food for sure.
I don’t know that I would make any special trips to Perry’s for the food, but it’s good if you’re in the hood and want something that you know is going to be solid… especially if you need to soak up some alcohol.

Three stars for them being able to seat 10 of us right away w/​o a reservation. One more star for our waitress who was able to put up with us rowdy kids.
The food is pretty mediocre… comprable to Mel’s…just a bit more dressed up…

When the best thing about your entire experience was the cornbread, that’s not a good sign…
It’s basically an old hotel pub/​diner. You can probably picture it in your head. They’ve got an average selection of beer on tap, but the guiness tasted like the lines hadn’t been cleaned recently, and it was over nitrogenated. Kinda flat & bitter, and just a hint sour. The manhattan I followed it up with wasn’t terribly well made, either — too little vermouth relative to the bourbon, and not enough bitters. Standard Maraschino cherry.
As for the food, the potato skins, fairly well smothered in cheddar, were ok but nothing spectacular. The seared ahi was bland and not terribly fresh (lets just say the wasabi and soy definately improved it). The ½ rack of baby back ribs was pleasantly meaty, but a bit tough and over-​cooked, and would have been pretty dry without the slathering of BBQ sauce (which at least was reasonably tasty). The cole slaw beneath it was basically bad; too much mayo and no spice.
The 2 bright points? The cornbread — sweet and delicious, with just enough crispy to the upper crust. Could have been slightly more moist, but that’s a nitpick. And the French Onion soup looked pretty good.
Also, contrary to many of the other reviews, we had no complaints with the service. We were there from around 7−9pm.
Also, be aware that finding the restrooms can be something of an adventure, as they’re in the basement of the hotel.

Ahi sandwich was absolutely fantastic. Highly recommend. This will be my second time there in a week, and I am excited.
A great place in the area to take people to, sit down and fast.

Terrible Service; very good eats.
The Good:
The pork chop dinner was delicious and reasonably priced ($ 16).
The glass of red Zinfandel was very tasty.
The Terrible:
Tried this place on a Wed. evening for dinner around 8pm. The dinner section was empty (only three other tables dining). We ordered a glass of wine and beer and said we would be ready to order dinner momentarily. Took the waitress over 10 minutes to get back to us to take our dinner order. Took an additional 10 minutes (20 total) to get our wine & beer. Took another 5 minutes to get *my* dinner salad (15 minutes after we ordered it) — -and, for some unexplained reason, my girlfriend didn’t get hers until her meal came. We both asked for «dressing» on the side, yet both of our salads came with dressing on it… mine, unfortunately, was drenched in dressing. Then, when I get my porkchop, my waitress leaves immediately without bringing me a steak-​knife (does she really expect me to eat a porkchop with my dull salad knife.
EXTREMELY dissatisfied with the service. Don’t know if it was just our waitress, or if it is always like that. We will have to try it one more time though, since the food and drink was good.