What It's Like at Zuni Café in Hayes Valley

This is part of a series called "What It's Like" where we at The Bold Italic tell you what a place in San Francisco is actually like. Based on our own experiences and those of our readers.

Zuni Café: 1658 Market Street, between Franklin and Gough. Dinner Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 9:30 p.m. Lunch Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed Mondays. (415) 552-2522.
Order the roast chicken for two, the Caesar, and the shoestring fries. Don't skip the oysters.

Zuni opened on February 15, 1979, in one narrow storefront of a triangular 1913 building on Market at Rose. The dramatic corner everyone pictures now was a cactus shop called the Red Desert; Zuni didn't take it over until around 1987. Billy West named the place for the Zuni people of the Southwest, and it was a gay gathering spot from the start.

In 1987 West and his partner Vince Calcagno asked Judy Rodgers to come in as chef and partner. She said yes on one condition: build me a wood-fired brick oven. Everything Zuni is known for came out of it. Rodgers did the opposite of what the eighties wanted, no fusion and no tweezers, just a bird salted for days and roasted in brick, carved onto a bread salad that soaks up the drippings. Gilbert Pilgram, a fellow Chez Panisse alum and longtime friend who became a partner in 2006, runs it now with Anne Alvero as chef de cuisine.

How to get there

The F-line stops at Market and Gough in both directions, about 300 feet from the door, which is the stop you want. Van Ness is the closest underground Muni station, two Market blocks east. Civic Center is the nearest BART, a twelve-minute walk. Davies Symphony Hall, the Opera House, SFJAZZ and the Orpheum are all within walking distance, which is why the room empties around curtain and fills back up after.

What it's like

A copper bar, windows on two sides because the building is a wedge, art on every surface, and a mezzanine above. The bar is standing room, no stools, with a rail to put a foot on. It takes walk-ins, which is the move if you haven't booked, because reservations open 60 days out and dinner fills.

The chicken takes about 75 minutes and the menu says so. That isn't a wait for a table, it's the bird going in when you order, so build the evening around it. It's $75 and it feeds two.

Service is the thing people disagree about most, and there's a reason it's uneven. In 2021 Zuni scrapped tipping for a 25% service charge, 20% fair wage plus a 5% city benefits surcharge, which pays the kitchen too. Most of the front-of-house left over it and the room was rebuilt with new hires. Whether that trade is worth it depends on whether you'd rather have a polished server or a dishwasher with a retirement plan.

What people say

The chicken is not in dispute. From our Facebook comments, Murrey Nelson said, "it's the only place I will order roast chicken. Simply the BEST." Eva Monroe has the whole order down: "Always the roast chicken for 2, the Caesar split and the shoestring fries. And a bottle of Sancerre!" Debra Lampen and her husband are there most Wednesdays for date night.

But almost everything else is in dispute. On timing, Katie Russell "once had to leave that restaurant before the chicken got to the table in order not to miss the start of the opera," while Nelson swears "the chicken never takes the full hour." On service, Robert Laufer remembers "some of the most arrogant hosts, hostesses, and servers there that I've ever met in any San Francisco restaurants," and Heather Hal says "the team there is just top-notch." On the Caesar, Barbara Johnson: "First time I was ever served a $7 salad with 6 pieces of romaine lettuce. Never went back."

Matt Talbot had the worst night, a 70th birthday: "They stuffed the 4 of us in a tight booth upstairs in that loft, crammed in with some other tables. Drinks were small, weak and sloppy."

Neil McNamara watched through the open kitchen when a bathroom flooded. Rather than send a staff member, Judy Rodgers "rolled up her sleeves, put on gloves, grabbed a mop and cleaned it up."

Vince Calcagno turned up in the thread himself: "I was co owner with Billy, then Judy, when we won Outstanding restaurant in America. So many myths here." He's right that he gets left out of the telling, and we've fixed that above. On the myth he objects to most, that early Zuni served mostly Mexican food, Zuni's own published history says it did, right up until Rodgers arrived.

A dollar a chicken

Zuni gives a dollar from every chicken sold to a different local organization each month, recently San Francisco Rising, La Casa de las Madres and Creativity Explored. The current month's cause is on their Instagram, and the art on the walls is sometimes part of it and for sale.

Zuni Café · 1658 Market St., San Francisco · Dinner Tue–Sun 5–9:30 p.m., lunch Fri–Sun 11 a.m.–3 p.m. · zunicafe.com

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