Last updated . Source: SnagRes availability record, 61,530,416 checks across 284 restaurants through 19 October 2026. How we measure. Open dataset.
Kokkari Estiatorio is the strongest default: minutes from the Financial District, it has hosted the city's business dinners for years, and it showed a bookable two-top on 30 of the 30 dates we checked, with 37% of its open slots between 7:00 and 8:30 PM. Niku Steakhouse read 83% of dates open with 47% prime, Boulevard 87% with 34% prime, and Akiko's in the Financial District 77% with the highest prime-time share of the group at 38%.
Much less than in New York. Of the 62 San Francisco restaurants in our study, 46 were bookable on at least half of the dates in the window, against 32 of 80 in New York. The times are better too: the median San Francisco room leaves 41% of its open slots inside 7:00 to 8:30 PM, against 16% for the median New York room.
Verjus read 10% of dates, Quince and Cotogna 20% each, Maria Isabel 0%, Fu Hui Hua 0% and Four Kings 20%. House of Prime Rib read 17% for two but 17% for four, and Z & Y 0% for two and 77% for four. State Bird Provisions books on OpenTable at noon Pacific, 30 days ahead, and keeps seats for walk-ins.
For most rooms a week or two is comfortable and often unnecessary. At 44 of the 59 rooms where we have logged release events, new dates appear in the 8 PM hour local time, which is a calendar edge rolling forward rather than a drop to race. For the Jackson Square cluster, plan on the release and run an alert alongside it, and note that Verjus only opens its calendar about 8 days out.
A 0% reading means we never observed a bookable table for two on the platform we watch. House of Prime Rib holds seating back for walk-ins and phone bookings, so the online measurement understates what is reachable if you are prepared to call or queue. It read 7% for a party of four, and 98% of the slots we have seen there are 9 PM or later. The figure describes the online channel, not the restaurant.
Usually, yes, which is not true of New York. At 21 of the 59 San Francisco rooms with enough seating-time data, the single most frequently open slot falls between 7:00 and 8:30 PM. Delfina and Hinodeya peak at 7:15 PM, Nopa and Niku Steakhouse at 7:30, Boulevard at 7:45 and Zuni Cafe at 8:00. Only two San Francisco rooms we track have never shown a prime-time table.
Of the 62 San Francisco restaurants in our study, 46 were bookable on at least half of the dates in the current window. In New York, 32 of 80 were. Anyone who has fought for a Manhattan table arrives here braced for the same fight, and the measurement says it is largely unnecessary.
That has a direct consequence for how you plan. In New York the question is which impressive room you can realistically get. In San Francisco you can mostly have the room you want, and the question becomes which one suits the evening. It is worth resisting the imported anxiety, because it pushes people into booking early at a safe choice when the better table was available the whole time.
The two cities also do not use the same platforms, which matters if you are checking by hand. Resy carries 56 of the 84 New York rooms we track and only 10 of the 60 in San Francisco, where OpenTable carries 27, Tock 15 and SevenRooms 8. If you learned this city on Resy you are looking at a small slice of it.
The release pattern differs too. At 44 of the 59 San Francisco rooms where we have logged release events, the modal hour that new dates appear is 8 PM local. That is a calendar edge rolling quietly forward in the evening rather than a 10 AM drop to race, and it is the single biggest reason this city feels different to book.
Bookable on at least half of the dates: 46 of 62 in San Francisco, 32 of 80 in New York.
Platform split, San Francisco: OpenTable 25, Tock 16, Resy 13, SevenRooms 8.
Platform split, New York: Resy 54, SevenRooms 11, OpenTable 9, Tock 6.
Modal release hour at 44 of 59 San Francisco rooms: 8 PM local.
This is the part that matters most for a client dinner and the part nobody measures. A room being open is not the same as a room being open at an hour you can put a guest in, and the two cities diverge sharply on it.
The median San Francisco restaurant leaves 41% of its open slots inside the 7:00 to 8:30 PM window. The median New York restaurant leaves 16%. At 21 of the 59 San Francisco rooms with enough seating-time data, prime time is the single most frequently open slot; in New York that is true of 7 of 73, while 39 of them peak at 9 PM or later.
So in New York the available-and-impressive rooms tend to be available at 10:30 PM. Le Bernardin and Minetta Tavern are both open on most dates and both peak at 10:30. In San Francisco, Delfina and Hinodeya peak at 7:15 PM, Nopa and Niku Steakhouse at 7:30, Boulevard at 7:45, Zuni Cafe at 8:00. You are being offered dinner, at dinner time, on most nights.
That single difference is why a New York playbook misfires here. There is no need to trade the hour for the room.
Kokkari Estiatorio is the closest thing San Francisco has to a default. It is in Jackson Square, minutes from the Financial District, it has hosted this city's deal dinners for years, and it showed a bookable two-top on 30 of the 30 dates we checked, 100%, with 90% for a party of four. Of the 2,874,208 open slots we have recorded there, 37% fall in prime time and the range on offer runs from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM, so nothing here is a consolation-prize midnight table.
Kokkari also reads as quiet in the data, which is the opposite of a contested room. We logged 21 release events across 18 observed days, roughly one a day, which is a calendar edge rolling forward with almost nothing fighting over it. Compare Carbone in New York at 300 events in 22 days.
For a steakhouse that is also a serious restaurant, Niku Steakhouse in SoMa read 83% of dates open with 46% of its slots in prime time and a 7:30 PM peak. Boulevard on the Embarcadero read 87% with 50% prime and a 7:45 PM peak, with the waterfront doing a lot of work for a guest who has flown in. Angler, a few minutes away, read 87% with 55% prime.
If the guest is staying downtown, Akiko's in the Financial District is the strongest prime-time reading on this list: 87% of dates open with 38% of its open slots between 7:00 and 8:30 PM. Zuni Cafe in Hayes Valley read 83% open, 23% prime, peaking at 8:00 PM, and Nopa 100% open with 29% prime.
Two more worth knowing, with a caveat attached to each. Nari in Japantown read 100% of dates open for two and for four, but peaks at 9:00 PM, so check the hour before you commit a guest to it. Rich Table in Hayes Valley read 73% open and is an easy recommendation on merit, but only 23% of its openings are prime time and its most frequent slot is 9:15 PM.
Kokkari Estiatorio, Jackson Square, OpenTable: 100% of dates open, 100% for four, 37% of slots prime time.
Niku Steakhouse, SoMa, OpenTable: 83% open, 46% prime, peak 7:30 PM.
Boulevard, Embarcadero, OpenTable: 87% open, 50% prime, peak 7:45 PM.
Akiko's, Financial District, OpenTable: 87% open, 60% prime, peak 7:30 PM.
Zuni Cafe, Hayes Valley: 83% open, 57% prime, peak 8:00 PM. Angler, Embarcadero: 87% open, 25% prime.
Nari, Japantown: 100% open for two and four, but peaks at 9:00 PM.
Rich Table, Hayes Valley: 90% open, and only 23% prime, peaking at 9:15 PM.
There is a short list of San Francisco rooms that behave like New York, and there is something almost funny about where they are. Quince sits at 40% of dates bookable, Cotogna at 20% and Verjus at 10%. All three are in Jackson Square, the same few blocks the Financial District treats as its own dining room, and all three are on SevenRooms. The one neighbourhood most likely to be chosen for a business dinner holds the city's tightest tables, and Kokkari, at 100%, sits in the same few blocks.
Each of the three fails in a different way, which is worth knowing before you pick one. Cotogna is the early-seating problem: 95% of its open slots are before 6 PM and its most frequent opening is 3:15 PM, so what you can get is barely lunch. Quince is the opposite: it opens rarely, but 43% of what it offers is prime time and its most frequent slot is 8:00 PM, so the chances are few and the slot is good. Verjus barely has a window to plan into, opening the calendar about 8 days ahead, with a 9:30 PM peak.
Cotogna is also the most contested calendar in the cluster by a wide margin, with 373 logged release events across 21 observed days against 42 at Quince. And its weekday swing is extreme even by our standards: 56% of the Wednesdays we checked were bookable against 4% of the Saturdays, a fourteenfold difference inside one restaurant.
Beyond that cluster, Benu in SoMa opened on only 30% of dates but leaves 61% of its slots in prime time, the highest prime-time share of any room we track. Lazy Bear read 33%. Both have long reputations for being impossible, and both are more reachable than that suggests.
Quince, Jackson Square: 17% of dates open, 43% of slots prime time, peak 8:00 PM.
Cotogna, Jackson Square: 17% open, 1% prime, 95% early, peak 3:15 PM, 373 release events in 21 days.
Verjus, Jackson Square: 7% open, and a calendar that only runs about 8 days ahead.
Benu, SoMa: 33% open but 61% prime, the highest prime-time share we measure.
Lazy Bear, Mission: 47% open. Kokkari, in the same neighbourhood as the first three: 100%.
A 0% reading means we never observed a bookable table on the platform we watch, for the party size we asked for. That single number covers three genuinely different situations, and collapsing them is how a page ends up misleading someone.
House of Prime Rib read 0% for a party of two and 17% for a party of four across 168,311 checks, and 98% of the few slots we have seen there are 9 PM or later. It also holds seating back for walk-ins and phone bookings, so the online figure understates what is reachable if you are prepared to call or queue. The figure describes the online channel, not the restaurant.
Z & Y in Chinatown is a pure party-size effect: 0% of dates for two and 77% for four. Nothing about that room is hard to book. It is hard to book for two, which is a completely different sentence and only visible because we check both party sizes on every pass.
Fu Hui Hua reads 0% for two and 0% for four, but its Tock figures were reset on 17 October 2026 after a measurement fix and are still rebuilding, so treat that as provisional. Alongside it, Four Kings read 20% and Maria Isabel 0%. State Bird Provisions, the name many people expect here, we describe by its own rule for now: tables on OpenTable at noon Pacific, 30 days ahead, with some seats kept for walk-ins. We began measuring that OpenTable calendar in October 2026.
House of Prime Rib: 0% for two, 17% for four, 98% of slots at 9 PM or later, and seats held for walk-ins.
Z & Y: 0% for two, 77% for four. A party-size problem, not a hard room.
Fu Hui Hua: 0% for two, 0% for four. Four Kings 20%, Maria Isabel 0%.
State Bird Provisions: OpenTable at noon Pacific, 30 days ahead, plus walk-in seats. Measured figures are being collected.
Because most of the city is available, the sensible order is reversed from New York. Choose the restaurant on merit, check the two numbers that matter, and book it. Only if it lands in the Jackson Square cluster, or at House of Prime Rib or State Bird Provisions, does the process need to become a campaign.
The two numbers are the share of dates with a table and the share of open slots inside 7:00 to 8:30 PM. Rich Table at 73% and 11% and Nari at 100% and 45% are both easy bookings that will hand you a 9:15 or a 9:00, and Akiko's at 87% and 60% will hand you a 7:30. Which of those is right depends entirely on your guest, and it is not a distinction any coverage-first service can make for you.
Where a room is genuinely difficult, the mechanics are the same everywhere. The release is the one predictable moment, and cancellations are how most tables are actually caught, arriving at arbitrary hours. Confirm the platform before the release rather than during it, because this city leans on Tock and SevenRooms far more than New York does.
SnagRes watches the restaurants you pick across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms and texts you the moment a table appears. It never books, holds or resells a reservation, and there is no per-table fee: you complete the booking yourself, in your own account, at the restaurant's own price. TableSwap charges $75 for a successful reservation, which is the practice New York's 2024 reservation law was written to stop, and it is not a line we are interested in crossing in either city.
In San Francisco most people will not need an alert for a client dinner, and it is more honest to say so than to pretend otherwise. It earns its place on the Jackson Square rooms, on House of Prime Rib and State Bird Provisions, and on any night where one specific restaurant is genuinely non-negotiable.
Pick on merit first. In San Francisco the odds are usually with you.
Screen on availability and on prime-time share together, not on availability alone.
Treat Jackson Square as the exception, not the rule.
Check a four-top as well as a two-top. At Z & Y that is the whole difference.
Confirm the platform in advance. OpenTable carries 25 of the 62 rooms here, Resy only 13.
Keep reading: The same question in New York · Which rooms actually sell 7 PM · Picking the night for the dinner · The Jackson Square cluster · How to get SF reservations · Live SF difficulty ranking
Browse all restaurant reservation guides
SnagRes checks 284 hard-to-book restaurants across four cities and alerts you when one opens. Watching one is free and no card is needed: watch a table free in San Francisco, or last-minute tables in SF tonight.