The Pork Store Cafe

(415)864-6981
1451 Haight St.
(bet. Masonic & Ashbury)
San Francisco, CA
(Upper Haight district)

Price: $
Rating: 9 (Rating & price key)
Last visit: 04/22/07

Tasty breakfast food in big portions at reasonable prices. Lines are pretty much inevitable on a weekend mid-morning, but queue up with the other groggy denizens of Haight St. and enjoy the people-watching while you wait. There's no wait list - seating is on a first-come, first-served basis, but the line moves pretty quickly.

I've had the vegetarian scramble, with spinach, eggs and cheese, Linguicia special, corned beef hash, "eggs in a tasty nest" and Nadia's veggie scramble, all very good. One of my favorites, though is the humble egg and sausage, with flavorful home-made meat patties and not too much grease. Also very good is a new special, Chili Piquin, a very spicy patty with eggs and hash brown.

The Pork Store is one of few local places that gets hash browns right most of the time (sitting at the breakfast bar, you get to see exactly how much butter/oil gets ladled over everything - a scary sight to be sure, but it explains why the griddle items taste so good!). The chicken fried steak is also decent, in its own guilty, deep-fried way.

The only two dishes I've had that were sub-par were the 49'er special (2 eggs, potatoes, biscuits and sausage gravy), which had a very over-gooey gravy, and the corned beef hash, which reminded me of the hashes I had a child - mushy and textureless.

The atmosphere is greasy-spoon, with cramped seating, sometimes loud music, and posters from prior years' Haight St. Fair on the walls, but the servers are always, prompt and courteous, in a gruff sort of way. It's amazing to sit at the bar and watch just how hard the cooks and servers are working nonstop. I eat here probably 2-3 times a month on average, and love it.