Dinner reservations needed for Sat night in North Beach?

I%26#39;ll be in San Francisco next Saturday and right now my tentative plans are to have dinner in North Beach at an Italian restaurant. I have reservations at North Beach Restaurant, but frankly their prices seem awfully high for pasta! Would I be safe just winging it and finding a restaurant that looks good while I walk by, or are reservations necessary? I don%26#39;t mind a wait, I just want to make sure we get to eat!

PS: Anyone been to North Beach Restaurant? Is it worth the price?

Dinner reservations needed for Sat night in North Beach?

There are many, many restaurants in North Beach at all price ranges, so if prices seem too high for you at the North Beach Restaurant, then leaving it to serendipty might be more palatable.

Saturday night is a busy night for restaurants, but if you don%26#39;t mind an hour wait, or you will eat at any place that looks inviting and decent, then I don%26#39;t see a strong reason why you need to reserve at the North Beach if you don%26#39;t like their prices.

If you start looking for a restaurant on the early side of the evening, you have a better chance of being seated as a walk-in. Some places that have reservations only won%26#39;t take you until much later (9 p.m. or so) as a walk-in. You can also try walking through North Beach and trying to figure out what places you might like to try based on their posted menus, then make reservations on the day of.

Maybe somone else who feels strongly about the North Beach will weigh in.

Dinner reservations needed for Sat night in North Beach?

I agree with BetterthanBings and say you should just go earlyish, and see what strikes your fancy. I would personally avoid the following two restaurants and I only mention them because they are very appealing to the eye, but can trap the unsuspecting. They are the Stinking Rose and Calzones. Some places I would definitely recommend are Tommaso%26#39;s, Steps of Rome Trattoria, Capp%26#39;s Corner, and any number of small establishments along columbus.

I have to chime in and agree with Drummerliz --avoid the Stinking Rose should you stumble upon it. It is not worth it at all!

If you don%26#39;t wish to pay that much, do just walk around and see what%26#39;s out there. As long as you don%26#39;t mind waiting, you%26#39;ll be able to find something in a lower price range that you should enjoy.

I enjoy North Beach Restaurant and enjoy it, but given how many other restaurants there are, I would recommend looking at others just b/c you don%26#39;t want to ruin your meal with anxiety over the bill. : )

drummerliz recommended ';Steps of Rome Trattoria';

Because of seeing recommendations in this forum (and the fact that it was Cassandra%26#39;s during the Beatnik era), we ate there Monday night to find it to be extremely ordinary, worthy neither of being recommended nor avoided.

We were pleased with the friendly service and the price was OK.

While we were there, there were twenty single women and three accompanied men!

Swingcha,

were you at the trattoria or the cafe? 2 different spots next to each other. With your description of twenty single women, it sounds like it was the cafe.

I don%26#39;t know much about restaurants in North Beach, but you can make reservations at LOTS of SF restaurants really easily on opentable.com . You%26#39;ll have to check out other sources for ratings on these restaurants, but the website has a really great list of many popular places in SF and gives you a general sense of how expensive the places are (links to restaurant websites too).

We ate at Albona when we were there. A little pricey, but well worth it. It%26#39;s on the edge of North Beach, so we got to walk past MANY adorable lilttle places. I suggest Albona, but I%26#39;d bet you%26#39;d find lots of yummy places along the way, so enjoy your meal wherever you end up.

drummerliz asked «Swingcha, were you at the trattoria or the cafe? 2 different spots next to each other. With your description of twenty single women, it sounds like it was the cafe.';

Dunno. The one that was Cassandra%26#39;s, opposite Fresno. Paid cash so haven%26#39;t a receipt.