Benu, Boulevard, Jules, Rich Table, and State Bird Provisions are the hardest American restaurant reservations in San Francisco. Each showed a bookable table on 0% of the dates we checked, which ties them for the hardest in the city. Benu and State Bird Provisions sell prepaid Tock tickets, while Boulevard, Jules, and Rich Table take standard reservations that empty within seconds.
Benu sells prepaid tickets on Tock, released at 10 AM, so getting in means being ready with your date and party size the instant the batch opens. The batch sells out fast, so the second path is a returned ticket or a cancellation, which surfaces at random hours. An alert catches those openings while manual refreshing almost never does.
Elena's, The Progress, and Gary Danko are the most bookable American restaurants in SF among those we track. Elena's showed a table on 93% of checked dates, The Progress on 90%, and Gary Danko on 71%. Saison at 43% and The Big Four at 33% are reachable with some planning. All of them book on standard reservation platforms.
State Bird Provisions sells prepaid tickets on Tock, released at noon, and it showed a bookable table on 0% of the dates we checked. Being ready when the batch opens is the main path, and catching a returned ticket or a cancellation is the second. Because those openings appear at random hours, an alert is the most reliable way to catch one.
They split across four platforms. Benu and State Bird Provisions use prepaid Tock tickets, Boulevard and Rich Table use OpenTable, Jules uses Resy, and The Big Four uses SevenRooms. The more bookable rooms use OpenTable and Resy as well. SnagRes tracks reservations across Resy, OpenTable, Tock, and SevenRooms, so one watch covers whichever platform a restaurant uses.
A 0% score means no bookable table appeared on any checked date inside the window we watched. For Benu and State Bird Provisions, a fixed batch of Tock tickets sells out in one rush. For Boulevard, Jules, and Rich Table, demand at release far outstrips the seats, so the calendar fills within seconds. It does not mean the restaurant never seats anyone.
SnagRes does not book tables for you. It watches restaurants across Resy, OpenTable, Tock, and SevenRooms and emails or texts you the moment a watched table opens, so you can book it yourself while the seat is still there. For a 0% room like Benu or State Bird Provisions, that alert is the reliable way to catch a released ticket or a cancellation.
Five American restaurants in San Francisco showed a bookable table on 0% of the dates we checked, which ties them for the hardest in the city. Benu, Boulevard, Jules, Rich Table, and State Bird Provisions each sit at the bottom of the availability scale, where the percentage is the share of checked dates that had a table you could actually book. A lower number means a harder reservation, and 0% is as low as it goes.
The full ranking runs from these locked-out rooms down to places you can still book a table at tonight. Benu and State Bird Provisions both sell prepaid tickets on Tock rather than free reservations, while Boulevard, Jules, and Rich Table take standard reservations that empty the moment tables appear. The list below is ordered hardest first, with each restaurant's neighborhood and booking platform, so you can see at a glance which fights are worth picking.
Benu, 0%. SoMa, three Michelin stars, prepaid tickets on Tock released at 10 AM.
Boulevard, 0%. Embarcadero, booked on OpenTable.
Jules, 0%. Presidio, booked on Resy.
Rich Table, 0%. Hayes Valley, booked on OpenTable.
State Bird Provisions, 0%. Fillmore, prepaid tickets on Tock released at 12 PM.
The Big Four, 33%. Nob Hill, booked on SevenRooms with a midnight release.
Saison, 43%. SoMa, tasting menu booked on OpenTable.
Gary Danko, 71%. Fisherman's Wharf, booked on Resy.
The Progress, 90%. Fillmore, booked on OpenTable with a 9 AM release.
Elena's, 93%. Nob Hill, booked on OpenTable.
The five 0% rooms are hard for two different reasons. Benu and State Bird Provisions run on prepaid Tock tickets, which means a fixed batch of seats goes on sale at a set time and sells out in one rush. Benu releases its batch at 10 AM and State Bird Provisions at noon, and once that batch is gone the calendar is simply empty until the next release opens.
Boulevard, Jules, and Rich Table work differently, because they take ordinary reservations rather than tickets. Their tables still vanish because demand at the release moment far outstrips the number of seats, so the calendar reads full within seconds. In both cases a 0% score does not mean the restaurant never seats anyone. It means a table almost never sits open long enough for a normal person to find it and book it before someone else does.
For the ticketed rooms, the reliable path is being ready at the exact release time. Benu opens its Tock batch at 10 AM and State Bird Provisions opens at noon, so having Tock loaded with your date and party size before the clock turns is the difference between a seat and an empty screen. Missing the drop by a minute usually means missing the whole batch.
For every 0% restaurant, the second and often larger path is a cancellation. People who booked weeks ago change plans, and a freed table becomes bookable by whoever sees it first. These openings do not arrive on a schedule. They surface at random hours, which is why refreshing manually almost never catches them and why an alert does.
For Benu and State Bird Provisions, set an alarm for the ticket release, 10 AM and noon respectively, with Tock ready to go.
For Boulevard, Jules, and Rich Table, treat the release as a long shot and plan to catch a cancellation instead.
Watch the final days before your target date, when guests who booked early tend to drop their reservations.
Let a tracker watch each restaurant for you, since cancellations and returned tickets surface at hours no person can predict.
If you want an American dinner in San Francisco without the fight, the bottom of the ranking is where to look. Elena's on Nob Hill showed a table on 93% of checked dates, The Progress in Fillmore on 90%, and Gary Danko near Fisherman's Wharf on 71%. Elena's and The Progress both book on OpenTable, while Gary Danko books on Resy, so a table at any of them is usually a matter of picking a night.
In the middle sit Saison at 43% and The Big Four at 33%, both reachable with some planning rather than pure luck. SnagRes tracks all of these restaurants across Resy, OpenTable, Tock, and SevenRooms, and emails or texts you the moment a watched table opens. For a 0% room, that alert is the reliable way in, because it reaches you while a released ticket or a fresh cancellation is still there to grab.
Benu, Boulevard, Jules, Rich Table, and State Bird Provisions each showed a bookable table on 0% of the dates we checked, so getting into SF's hardest American restaurants almost always means catching a released ticket or cancellation through an alert.
Keep reading: The hardest reservations in SF · Restaurants you can actually book · How to get a Benu reservation