The Corner

I am starting to miss this place. it was a great restaurant bar to come have pre-​drink drinks at or as a rendezvous point to meet friends before actually starting the night.
They have an intimate little space on the second floor, perfect for washing that light conversation with a flute of smooth brut champagne. With outdoor (heated) seating that was perfect for people watching.
AND, not to mention a clean bathroom!
Which seems to be such a rarity at most bars located in the grimy Mission.

I speak only for the LATE night Chicken and waffle sandwich that they just started offering at 11PM. This was the best thing I have put in my mouth while drunk in a long time.
This sandwich is made with Boneless fried chicken breast, Fresh maple waffles for bread and a Maple BBQ sauce. There are other choices for Add-​ons, like the spicy Coleslaw. I got this added to mine and it took me back to Bake Sale Betty’s Chic sandwich. Both are Delicious
All-​N-​All: go here late night (start serving at 11PM) and request the Coleslaw, on the side if you must, you will not regret it!

Cat’s Head BBQ in the middle of the mission on a Friday night? Yes please. The Corner is a cool spot that has a rotating restaurant list and we were lucky enough to stop by when the Cat’s Head crew had taken over. As I consider myself somewhat of a BBQ aficionado given that I grew up eating and loving it, it was great to find a spot in SF doing it right. One of the chefs is a native Tennessean (as am I) so I have to give a little love for that, not to mention that is a very good sign of the BBQ to come. That being said, the food was delicious. Wonderful pulled pork and roast beef sliders. Stuffed potato skins. Sweet potato salad. Yes!
The menu is different every time they show up I believe, so it’s a no brainer I’ll have to come back and try the rest.

You never know what you’ll find in the Mission district. I hadn’t heard of The Corner but a friend recommended it and a small group of us met up, literally, at the corner. The space is small but makes an ideal location for a first date. You’re sitting quite close by to your table mates as well as neighboring diners but it’s casual enough where you feel comfortable ordering a couple glasses of wine and kicking back.
We came on a friday and found ourselves with a $ 5 menu that may have been exclusively written by Cat Heads BBQ for this friday! My table ordered one of everything on the menu and found it to be the perfect amount.
The stuffed potato skins kicked off a great meal including a memorable roast beef and horseradish slider with a sweet potato salad that i wish i had a recipe for! They had a decent beer selection (although they were out of Asahi when i first asked) and unless you’re ordering by the bottle, you may have limited wine by the glass choices.
A friendly staff and quick service topped it off.

What an interesting idea. The Corner is basically a venue that turns into a different restaurant each night. They call these «pop-​up» restaurants and they rotate here at The Corner on a weekly basis. It’s not that the same staff goes with a different theme each night; it’s that the entire staff changes, and with them, the cuisine in which they specialize. The venue itself is somewhat small and dimly lit. It can get stuffy and loud depending on the season and the crowd. There is a small loft area upstairs with four tables.
On Sundays and Thursdays this month, The Corner turns into Ken Ken Ramen, which was the restaurant I got to experience. I’ll reserve my comments about that particular restaurant for my review of Ken Ken Ramen.

An awesome restaurant that is easily passed up when walking through the Mission. This dark building with gold characters on the outside is where you want to be. They feature rotating menus and chefs from all over SF creating food from all over the world. No night is a bad night but if you want drinks I’d check them out on a Friday night which is there «EAT» night. Some of the proceeds from happy hour tabs go towards a local non-​profit in the area. Great restaurant and good people.

Starting in 2011, kitchen service was discontinued. So, prior reviews about food are no longer applicable (or useful). The space now serves as a venue for a rotating cast of different food vendors (Cathead’s BBQ, Ken Ken Ramen, Soul Groove, Sushi Somewhere, etc.). Some really good, some just okay.
I’ll post my reviews for each vendor separately (already did a few). My rating for the venue is 3 stars, because it’s a very small, dark (black walls) and cozy location. It could be a romantic place when half empty, but can also be very boisterous, rowdy and noisy when full of half drunk people.
See the schedule of food vendors here:

I LOVE the rotating chef idea. I went on Sunday when the menu was sort of nouveau American. We decided to go with a six dish tasting menu. We had plantain wrapped game hen with, tarragon and mint crusted lamb, ravioli, slow cooked southern pork, and a banner brulee dessert. All of the dishes were delicious and I would definitely like to taste more of this chef’s dishes. I think my favorites were the waffle that accompanied the game hen, the lamb, and the dessert.
However there were a few bumps… Our waitress kept getting confused about what we ordered which was weird since at the time that we started we were only the second party there. Runners kept wanting to give us dishes we had already tried or the one dish we didn’t order. Then when the check came, she charged us for one glass of wine ($ 7) and one bottle of wine ($ 25) when we ordered two glasses of wine. I also strongly suspect that she mixed up our wine order (with my friend getting my pinot and me getting her South African blend). Granted they are both red wines, HOWEVER if you can’t keep them straight, bring one to the table then go back to get the other. In her defense, I overheard her saying to another diner that she is not normally a waitstaff person and that she had woken up early to help staff a table at the farmer’s market for a friend when she had been asked to help a friend by working at the restaurant that night. I felt bad for her but the series of mistakes put her in the top three worst service experiences I’ve had in San Francisco.
Let’s tally up the stars…
Five stars for the food.
Two stars for service.
(One star added for it not being her regular job and because towards the end of my meal, they did seem to be ironing out the process of figuring out which dish was supposed to go to which table.)

NOT CLOSED. (Thank goodness.)
I really, really like this place and was heartbroken when I heard that it lost its chef and was going to close.
But low and behold, they got creative and introduced the brilliant concept of having rotating ‘guest chefs’ who prepare a wide range of different cuisines from all over the globe. Southern BBQ, Japanese Ramen, Indian Curries, etc. Everything is very reasonably priced and and quite tasty. The service is friendly and no-​nonsense — totally hipster but totally affable.
I was sorta surprised when one waiter actually sat down at our table — which would be totally out of place at Commonwealth across the street where pretense should be listed on the menu. However, the vibe at the Corner seems to say ‘anything is fair game’ as soon as you walk in so it actually came off as charming.
Check out the calendar so you know what you are going to walk into — or do it like I do and just expect to be surprised.
I only gave it 4 stars because I tire of calling every time I want to go there to make sure it isn’t a wasted trip and that they actually are open. It has the makings of a great destination restaurant, but they need to set some hours, put them on the website and stick with them.

3-​course lunch for $ 15 was a tremendous value. The quality of the food is top notch, and artfully prepared with distinctive, full flavors and a wonderful mixture of textures as well. Great service and staff.

I am nuts about this place. I was wandering down the street around 1:00 on a Saturday starting to get a little hungry, paused to peek in the door but moved on resolving to get a few more things done before I stopped to eat. The brilliant surprise of two of my best buddies snatching me off of the street and dragging me in probably sets the stage for my enthusiasm about the place.
We are really talking about bang for the buck here. At the time (I see it’s been slightly modified since the first visit) one could snag 2 courses for $ 13, but the current 3 for $ 15 ain’t too shabby either. This is for lunch, but dinner is also incredibly reasonable for the quality & composition of the limited offerings. I do agree with other reviewers that it is not an ideal spot for limited diets of any sort.
My favorite after two visits is their variation on root vegetable soups with fresh figs and brioche croutons. In a very nicely calculated portion for the weight, both the parsnip version and the rutabaga make me sit up straight and clap a little. They’re both just plain delicious, and I think about them at somewhat inappropriate times.
For the lunch session I then chose the smoked pork leg on a thick hunk of cheesy hashbrowns, topped with sauteed spinach, a perfecty poached egg, and a very well-​balanced maple sauce. My eyes rolled as I burst the yolk, and my friends almost had to get the smelling salts before I even tried it. And lo and behold, it was good– as my father used to say. See the picture taken seconds after I burst the yolk…
I had a very pleasant glass or two of rose, and walked out on cloud nine for a very modest price. The service is fantastic and accessible without getting in your backswing, but I generally tip 20% and up. Unless you’re a really unaccommodating asshole.
The second visit was for dinner, and I took a lovely man out for his birthday. We had the entire upstairs to ourselves and discussed several times the possibilities of canoodling in the far corner; you get the feeling there if anyone caught you it would be of no matter, they’re terribly polite. But we were actually quite focused on our Barbera and meal: we ordered an entrée, the soup (!), and another appetizer and were quite satisfied. The beef cheek poutine (basically french fries, beef cheek, a lil gravy and a cheese I can’t quite recall) was a lovely take on a French Canadian comfort food (so I hear), and the roasted chicken thighs over mushrooms and a fancy slaw of some sort also hit the fatty love nerve. I LOVE the fatty love nerve.
In summary it’s a nice, tight selection of items that make me, for one, coo. Everything is good, thus far. I met the GM, Jonathan, at the nearby Uptown bar and he recognized me and warmly invited me back. There’s a great neighborhood camaraderie in the Mission, my new hood and region of current focus. Stay tuned for more gab on more spots in that area…

We had a ridiculous night here last night. Somehow, 4 bottles of wine were consumed by 4 people… and that was at The Corner. Once back to our friend’s pad, sake and shots, and oh gawd…
Memorable things: super cute, friendly, knowledgable femme server; splendid sunchoke soup; tasty gnocchi; beautiful monochromatic chocolate colors decorating the walls. In short, I quite liked The Corner.
4 stars b/​c the gnocchi was good, but not the best, and i was a little surprised by that, given gnocchi doesn’t seem terribly difficult to master…

Cool spot for drinks and dinner. We were originally going to check out Mission Street Food that night, but ended up staying here for dinner. Cute, small, chill place right on the corner of 18^th & Mission. They have a small, but interesting menu with app’s and a couple of entrees, beer & wine. Service was great!
— Fried Rabbit: crispy, tasted like chicken
— Halibut: delicious, flaky, sausage was good
— Beef Tongue & Scallop: crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, eaten with the seared scallop = yummy!
— House Red: very light (in color & taste), they get it in barrels from some winery in the North, tasted like juice

So Thursday evening I get a text message from a friend inviting me to Mission Street Food for dinner, now this was around 7 p.m. and I had not done anything all day but eat pizza sitting in the living room while watching True Blood with my roommate so I say «of course» because I was really craving something else besides cheese, tomato sauce and pepperoni.
I met with her and her friends, and off we go. We put our name on the list and the lovely lady tells us that it will take an hour for our table. Well, sometime between that «one hour» and the two drinks we had at Beauty Bar the restaurant runs out of food. My friend says «oh uh» because she knows that I’m hungry (even after all that pizza) and because she knows that when I don’t eat I become a little cranky, so she quickly explained to her friends that if we don’t find a place to eat soon they might well become my dinner.
After a few minutes of deliberation we decided to go to «The Corner» and, let me tell you, that was the best decision we’ve made that night. We show up and noticed that the place closes at 11 p.m. and guess what time it is? 11 p. m!!! But since they still had food and the staff is very friendly, we were able to sit down and order food. The waiter was tall and super cute with shaggy blond hair and a beautiful smile. The food selection was limited because they were pretty much closed by the time we showed up and we were ok with that.
I ordered the Chicken Thigh stuffed with Herbed Cheese and a bowl of soup, the rest of the table ordered the Mac n’ Cheese with Truffle Oil and the Local Vegetables Roasted in Skillet with Crème Fraiche. Our drinks were a glass of red Shiraz, a white Sauvignon Blanc and Earl Grey tea.
The food came out almost immediately. The aroma of the chicken was mouth watering. I took the first bite and the flavor was so delicious! The meat was so tender and well cooked, the cheese was not overpowering, it actually complimented the chicken very well. I tried my friends Mac n’ Cheese and it was creamy and flavorful. My soup arrived right after and I got into it right away. It was creamy with potatoes and what I think was kale, I can’t remember anymore. I am not a huge fan of soups, but I would eat this soup anytime without a doubt!!! I did not try the skillet because it literally disappeared before my eyes; which makes me guess that the dish was delicious as well.
Now, the food in this place is supposed to be in small plates, but they are not as small as other places, I think they are actually a good size. The prices of the dishes are actually really cheap. Good local food that is not overpriced, now that is hard to find in San Francisco!
One star because they sat us even though they were closed, one star because they food was great, one star because everything (food, drinks, etc.) came out quickly and one star because above all they gave us a service with a big smile!!!
I’m definitely going back for more and I’m taking more friends with me.

The flatbread meat pizza, and the peaches and cream were my favorite. The lamb and prosciutto were both really nice as well, I wish the lamb were larger, but the kumquats were such a nice touch.
This place is very cool, very cramped and very loud. Emphasis on cool, however, and the other two can be easily overlooked because of that damn good flatbread pizza!

This place was great. Citrus salad was SO good and refreshing. Pesto, sweet corn and cheddar pizza was also so good i practically licked the plate.
Even the staff was nice! Can’t wait to go back for dinner and try the cheese plate.

A meat-​centric Italian wine bar and café, The Corner, along with Weird Fish, is making 18^th and Mission a SF foodie destination.
The menu is solid, offering selections for even the finickiest eaters. It features the ubiquitous «small plates,» including duck leg with Turkish dates and star anise (yum), roasted pork with spring herbs and fennel seeds (a little dry), and flatbread «pizza.» We didn’t have room for the cheese plate that featured aged cheddar, Point Reyes Blue, and an Italian cheese from Treviso with Prosecco-​washed rind.
Service is super-​friendly and attentive. All the servers seem glad that you are there and do their utmost to make you feel at home.
With copious selections by the glass and by the bottle, the wine list is _​excellently_​priced. A glass that will set you back more than $ 17 at the egregiously priced Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant was only $ 7 at The Corner.
Corner-​ites, keep up the good work, we’ll be back in no time.

What do you do for food when you roll out of bed after 3PM on a Thursday?
It feels like the afternoon, not quite early evening, but definitely way past breakfast time.
The dr. and I slowly made our way out into the waking world in search of food. We arrived at the Corner just in time. Keep in mind that their kitchen closes at 4:00PM to prep for dinner (not sure when dinner starts, check out their website).
The host was friendly and helpful. When I couldn’t decide between the frittata of the day or the grilled cheese, he keyed me in on the awesomeness of the grilled cheese & tomato. The dr. got the vegan panini.
The sandwiches arrived and all I could think of was how pretty they looked. I don’t need pretty food as sometimes the pretty factor deters me from devouring, but I guess that could be a good thing.
This ain’t your melted cheddar and gigantic slimy hothouse tomato sammich.
See pictures. See the pretty. Taste the rainbow.
The dr.‘s side of potatoes were crispy and tossed with fresh herbs and and some ancho chile peppers for spice.
My side of fruit was a nice combo of berries, pear, orange and pineapple.
A++ for atmosphere, décor and having at least one vegan sandwich on the menu for my sweetie.

Décor is reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven — I like.
Entrée was an interesting mixture of textures and flavors (kumquat and dates over mixed spring salad served with tender juicy duck)…YUM! [note: I am partial to most anything with kumquat as an ingredient.]
Dessert, pear tart, was just the right amount of sweetness. It’s a bit more like a pie than a tart because the crust is so thick but hey! I like crust, so I’m not complaining.
The manatee carved into our table — adorable and priceless. I uploaded a picture (sorry my phone has a crappy camera and lighting was rather dim — thus the perfect romantic «date place» atmosphere but also great place for just hanging out with a good friend).

I’d go with 3.5 here. I think the space is 5, minus the door at the front that kept blowing open and blowing me, my napkin, and everything away repeatedly on a cold night (after several «we’ll need to lock that» comments from several staff members and knowing chuckles from our nearby diners). Think this is just one of those kinks a new place has to work out. But yeah, the space is adorable, and very tastefully decorated for a hip mission locale.
Food was pretty good… A GREAT idea before your headed out somewhere. Well priced, and well portioned (small plates). Was a little surprised our order arrived all at once. Would have preferred the salad and pizza as it was ready first.
The pizza was probably the least fav since it was basically a slice of bread with two pieces of cheese on it. Had potential but wasn’t awesome. Really liked the asparagus and I really enjoyed the duck as well though my husband wasn’t too excited about it. I’m thinking you need to look at this more like a wine bar with food, than a place for a meal, but I adore wines so this works for me!
Very friendly staff and a great wine list. Will for sure be back because they’ve got 4 star potential!
Note: they are cash only for now, but will eventually take cards.