Last updated . Source: SnagRes availability record, 66,314,725 checks across 285 restaurants through October 22, 2026. How we measure. Open dataset.
On our October 22, 2026 reading, Cotogna (30%) and Quince (50%), the share of dates in the current window with a bookable two-top. Both book on SevenRooms in Jackson Square. Everything else we track is more open: Flour + Water at 57%, Cafe Zoetrope at 100%, Penny Roma at 70% and Delfina at 100%.
Take a midweek afternoon or put an alert on the evenings. Cotogna returned an open table on 62% of our Wednesday checks and 7% of our Saturday checks. More importantly, 95% of the 453,952 open slots we have logged there are before 6 PM, with 3:00 PM the most common, so an evening table means waiting for a cancellation rather than a release.
Cotogna's SevenRooms calendar opens 30 days ahead, so a new date joins the far edge daily, but across 388 logged release events on 65 observation days we have not established an announced hour we would be willing to print. Given that its openings cluster midweek and in the afternoon, the window matters more than the clock.
Book the release, 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM, through SevenRooms, check a four-top as well as a two-top, and aim midweek. A four-top reads 67% of dates open against 50% for a two-top. Wednesday returned something open on 58% of checks, against Friday's 15% and Saturday's 9%.
Opposite ends of the evening, which is the most useful difference on this page. Across 501,588 logged openings at Quince, 5:00 PM is the most common and 39% fall between 7:00 and 8:30 PM. At Cotogna, 95% of 453,952 openings are before 6 PM and 1% are in that prime band. Quince releases dinner. Cotogna releases the afternoon.
The most open, from the top: Cafe Zoetrope (100%), Delfina (100%), Penny Roma (70%) and Flour + Water (57%). Delfina puts 59% of its openings in prime time. Flour + Water skews late, with 53% of its openings at 9 PM or later, so an early Friday there still takes some planning.
All four appear in a list of six. Cotogna and Quince book on SevenRooms, reached through their own websites, Flour + Water and Penny Roma on Resy, Delfina on OpenTable and Cafe Zoetrope on Tock. The two hardest rooms are the two missing from the biggest app, which is why their openings go unnoticed. We watch all four platforms on the same cycle.
Much easier. The median Italian room in San Francisco showed a table on 64% of its window, against 3% across the thirteen Italian rooms we track in New York, five of which read 0%. The kind of table differs too: Delfina puts 59% of its openings in the 7:00 to 8:30 PM band, while Carbone in New York puts 0% of 19,464 there.
It depends on the room. Quince reads 67% for four against 50% for two, Cotogna 33% against 30%, Flour + Water 73% against 57%, and Penny Roma 73% against 70%. Checking both sizes costs one extra search.
It watches these calendars around the clock across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms, including the SevenRooms pages that live only on a restaurant's own site, and alerts you the moment a watched table opens. It never books for you. You take the seat yourself in your own account at the restaurant's own price, which is the whole difference between an alert and a resale service.
On our October 22, 2026 reading, the hardest Italian tables in San Francisco are Cotogna (30%) and Quince (50%): the share of dates in the current booking window with a bookable two-top. Cotogna and Quince sit side by side in Jackson Square, they are the casual sister and the three-Michelin-star flagship from Michael and Lindsay Tusk, and they both book on SevenRooms rather than on a platform most diners keep open.
Below those two the category is wide open. Flour + Water read 57%, Cafe Zoetrope 100%, Penny Roma 70% and Delfina 100%. The median of the six Italian rooms we track in the city is 64%, and zero of them read 0%.
Which means the useful version of this page is not a ranking of difficulty. It is a warning that the two hard rooms are hard in completely different ways. One of them opens almost nothing you would call dinner. The other opens prime time, and more of it for four.
Cotogna, Jackson Square, SevenRooms. 30% for two and 33% for four. 74,352 open readings out of 292,405 checks.
Quince, Jackson Square, SevenRooms. 50% for two and 67% for four, released 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM. 82,593 open readings out of 301,836 checks.
Penny Roma, Mission, Resy. 70% for two and 73% for four.
Flour + Water, Mission, Resy. 57% for two and 73% for four.
Cafe Zoetrope, North Beach, Tock. 100% for two and 100% for four, and open on 5,931 of the 5,970 times we have checked it.
Delfina, Mission, OpenTable. 100% for two and 100% for four, open on 30 of 30 dates and on 215,199 of 215,684 checks.
This is the single most useful thing we know about Cotogna. We have logged 453,952 open slots there. The most frequently open time is 3:00 PM, and 95% of everything that comes free is before 6 PM. 1% of it falls in the 7:00 to 8:30 PM band, and 3% at 9 PM or later.
So when our data says a Cotogna date is bookable, the table on offer is usually mid-afternoon. That reframes the percentage honestly in both directions. It is not a locked door, and it is also not a string of chances at a Friday dinner. If you want an eight o'clock table at Cotogna, you are chasing the thinnest slice of a calendar that is already one of the tightest Italian rooms in the city.
The weekday pattern is just as sharp. Wednesday returned an open table on 25,842 of 41,748 checks, 62%, while Saturday returned one on 2,943 of 41,916, 7%. Its Sunday record is 0 openings in 41,732 checks. A midweek afternoon is far more likely to produce something than a Saturday, which is a bigger effect than any tactic involving speed.
Practically, that gives you two honest plans. Take the midweek afternoon table, which our record says exists, or put an alert on the evenings and accept that you are waiting for a cancellation rather than a release.
453,952 logged open slots, with 3:00 PM the most common.
95% of Cotogna's openings are before 6 PM. 1% are between 7:00 and 8:30 PM.
Wednesday: open on 62% of checks. Saturday: 7%. Sunday: 0 openings.
A four-top reads 33% against the two-top's 30%.
Quince behaves nothing like Cotogna. A party of two reads 50% and a party of four 67%, which is 20 of 30 dates against 15. If you are two people willing to book a four-top, you have widened the dates available to you at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
What opens there is also the part of the evening everybody wants. Across 501,588 logged open slots at Quince, the most common single time is 5:00 PM, 39% of everything that comes free sits in the 7:00 to 8:30 PM band, and 0% opens at 9 PM or later. Where Cotogna releases afternoons, Quince releases dinner.
The calendar is short on nights rather than tight on tables. Quince's Sunday and Monday record is 0 and 0 openings. Wednesday ran at 58% of checks returning something open, against Friday at 15% and Saturday at 9%. A midweek night at eight is a realistic goal here; a Saturday at eight is the fight.
Quince releases its reservations 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM, through SevenRooms. That is a batch rather than a rolling window, so a single day carries the widest choice of dates you will ever see. Check early and keep checking. Miss it and you are working cancellations for the rest of the month.
501,588 logged open slots, 5:00 PM the most common, 39% of them in the 7:00 to 8:30 PM band.
Wednesday 58% of checks returning something open, against Friday 15% and Saturday 9%.
Release: 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM, in one batch, on SevenRooms.
The two hardest Italian rooms in San Francisco are also the two that do not live where people look. Cotogna and Quince both book on SevenRooms, which is usually reached through a restaurant's own website rather than a marketplace app with your card already saved. A table can appear there and be claimed without ever surfacing in the app a diner checks out of habit.
That is why these two feel harder than their percentages sound. The percentage measures whether a table existed. The platform determines whether you had any chance of seeing it. We watch SevenRooms on the same cycle as everything else, which is the only reason this page can tell you what time Cotogna most often opens at all.
The six Italian restaurants here span all four platforms, which is unusual for such a small group. Cotogna and Quince are SevenRooms, Flour + Water and Penny Roma are Resy, Delfina is OpenTable and Cafe Zoetrope is Tock. There is no single app that covers Italian in San Francisco, and the two rooms missing from the biggest one are precisely the two worth watching.
SevenRooms: Cotogna and Quince, both reached through their own sites.
Resy: Flour + Water and Penny Roma.
One watch across all four platforms removes the question of which app a given restaurant happens to use.
Quince is the only one with a release you should organise a day around: 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM, in a single batch, on SevenRooms. Everything else here either rolls forward quietly or is open often enough that the hour does not decide whether you eat.
Cotogna's SevenRooms calendar opens 30 days ahead, with no daily hour we are willing to print; we have logged 388 release events across 65 observation days. Given that its openings concentrate in the afternoon and midweek, the window matters more than the clock anyway.
Flour + Water opens 28 days ahead at midnight and Penny Roma 28 days ahead at midnight, both on Resy, across 118 and 110 logged release events. At 57% and 70% open, neither one requires you to be awake for it.
Delfina and Cafe Zoetrope are open often enough that their release hour is a detail rather than a strategy. Delfina came back open on 215,199 of 215,684 checks. That is a restaurant you book, not one you chase.
Quince: 1st of the month, the month prior at 9 AM, one batch, SevenRooms.
Cotogna: 30 days ahead, with no daily release hour we are willing to confirm.
Flour + Water: 28 days ahead at midnight. Penny Roma: 28 days ahead at midnight. Both on Resy.
Delfina and Cafe Zoetrope: open on most dates at any time of day, so no alarm is needed.
The same cuisine in the two cities produces opposite advice, and the gap is not subtle. The median Italian room in San Francisco showed a table on 64% of its window. In New York the median across thirteen Italian rooms is 3%, with five of them at 0%. San Francisco has zero Italian restaurants at zero.
The difference shows up most clearly in what opens. Delfina puts 59% of its openings in the 7:00 to 8:30 PM band and Penny Roma 30%. In New York, Carbone has produced 19,464 open slots with 0% in that band, and 97% of I Sodi's 12,116 openings were before 6 PM. San Francisco releases dinner. New York releases lunch and late.
Cotogna is the San Francisco room that behaves most like a New York one, which is why it gets its own section above. Its 95%-before-6-PM signature is the same shape as Via Carota's 96%, three thousand miles away. If you have learned to book Italian in New York, Cotogna is the room where those instincts transfer and Delfina is the room where they are simply unnecessary.
Median Italian availability: 64% across 6 rooms in San Francisco, 3% across 13 in New York.
Rooms at 0% for a two-top: 0 in San Francisco, 5 in New York.
Prime-time share of openings: 59% at Delfina and 39% at Quince, against 0% at Carbone.
The exception: Cotogna, where 95% of openings are before 6 PM, the same shape as Via Carota's 96% in the West Village.
The most open, from the top: Cafe Zoetrope (100%), Delfina (100%), Penny Roma (70%) and Flour + Water (57%). Delfina in the Mission has come back open on 215,199 of the 215,684 times we have checked it. Its most frequently open slot is 7:15 PM and 59% of what it opens is prime time, which makes it the rare room where the table you want is the table that is free.
Penny Roma reads 70% for two and 73% for four, with 30% of its openings in the prime band. Cafe Zoetrope in North Beach reads 100% and has been open on 99% of all checks we have ever run against it. Flour + Water reads 57%, though its openings skew late: 53% of them are at 9 PM or later, with 9:00 PM the most common single time, so a 7:30 PM Friday there still takes planning.
The sensible split is to book these four for dinner and save the watching for Jackson Square. An alert on Cotogna's evenings or a Quince Saturday is worth having. An alert on Delfina is not.
We track 285 restaurants across New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. That is the entire list, and the small number is the point. Table Alert advertises 62,198 restaurants. Nobody watching 62,198 rooms can tell you what time Cotogna most often opens, that Quince's four-top calendar runs at 67% against its two-top's 50%, or how rarely Cotogna opens on a Sunday. We traded coverage for knowing the rooms we cover.
The figures come from re-checking the same calendars around the clock: 66,314,725 availability checks so far across the tracked list, of which 2,062,457 belong to these six Italian restaurants. The percentages are a point-in-time reading of the current booking window, dated October 22, 2026, and the slot and weekday counts are cumulative, because the raw snapshots are pruned after a few days while the counters keep going.
We also never book a table. SnagRes watches these calendars, including the SevenRooms pages that only exist on a restaurant's own site, and alerts you the moment a table opens. You book it yourself, in your own account, at the restaurant's own price. TableSwap charges $75 per successful reservation, which is the paid resale practice New York's 2024 reservation law was written to address, and we are not in that business in any city.
So the reservation is in your name from the first second, the restaurant keeps its own cancellation policy intact, and nothing happens to the table without you tapping to confirm it.
Keep reading: Italian in NYC, where five rooms read 0% · The hardest American reservations in SF · Italian restaurants, live availability · How to get a Cotogna reservation · How SevenRooms works, and why it hides tables · The hardest reservations in SF
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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, or see the hardest tables right now.