Ten in the morning is the most common stated release hour in San Francisco, and ten of the rooms we track do not use an hourly rhythm at all: they open on a fixed date each month. These twelve are the ones where the release moment decides the outcome, either because the calendar opens once a month or because what we measure afterwards is close to nothing. Each row gives the stated drop and, where we have it, what our own checks found.
The full confirmed schedule for every city we cover is on the release times page, the San Francisco rooms ranked by measured availability are on the hardest SF tables, the live tracker is at our San Francisco page, and the measurement is written up in our methodology.
Ten in the morning is the most common stated release time in San Francisco, and it is only the most common by a little. We hold availability data for 62 San Francisco restaurants, have confirmed a release schedule for 50 of them, and 34 of those name an hour: ten open at 10 AM, nine at midnight, eight at noon, four at 9 AM, and the rest are one-offs at 7 AM, 11 AM and even 10 PM.
San Francisco is harder to generalise about than New York for a structural reason. New York runs mostly on Resy, 56 of the 84 rooms we track there. San Francisco splits four ways: 27 of our 60 are on OpenTable, 15 on Tock, 10 on Resy and 8 on SevenRooms. Four platforms means four sets of defaults, and the restaurant still overrides them.
Platform assignments also move, so they are worth re-checking rather than assuming. Benu books through SevenRooms, Angler and Saison both sit on OpenTable, State Bird Provisions and Sons & Daughters now book on OpenTable, and Mister Jiu's on Tock, each verified against the restaurant's own reservation page rather than a directory listing.
10:00 AM, 10 restaurants, including Lazy Bear, Ju-ni, Benu, Sorrel, True Laurel and Izakaya Rintaro.
12:00 AM, 9 restaurants, including Sons & Daughters, Wolfsbane, 7 Adams, Penny Roma, Flour + Water and Prik Hom.
12:00 PM, 8 restaurants, including Kiln, Enclos, State Bird Provisions, Four Kings, Showa and The Anchovy Bar.
9:00 AM, 4 restaurants: Frances, Nopa, Copra and The Progress.
The outliers: 11:00 AM at Naides, 7:00 AM at Maria Isabel, 10:00 PM at Liholiho Yacht Club.
Ten of the 50 San Francisco schedules we have confirmed open on a fixed calendar date rather than adding a day at a time, against six of 70 in New York. On a smaller tracked set, that makes the monthly drop roughly twice as common here, and many of the ten are Tock rooms.
This is the single most useful thing to know about booking San Francisco fine dining. At a rolling restaurant, checking tomorrow is a fresh chance. At Lazy Bear, which opens on the 15th at 10 AM, tomorrow is the same calendar you already saw. Our own event counts show it plainly: we recorded 10 openings at Lazy Bear across 10 separate days, 15 at Ju-ni across 15 days, and 1 at Enclos across 1. That is about one change a day at most, which is what a monthly calendar looks like from the outside.
Compare that with Cotogna, a rolling SevenRooms room, where we logged 135 openings across 21 days. Same city, same difficulty of reputation, completely different rhythm, and therefore a completely different strategy.
Lazy Bear, Mission. The 15th of the month at 10:00 AM, on Tock. Open on 23% of the days we checked.
Ju-ni, NoPa. The 1st of the previous month at 10:00 AM, on Tock. Open on 73% of days, and 53% of its open slots are prime time.
Sons & Daughters, Mission, now at 2875 18th Street. The 1st of each month at midnight, for the following month, on OpenTable, per its own FAQ.
Kiln, Mission. The 1st of each month for the following month, at noon, on Tock. Open on 10% of days, easiest on Thursday at 49%.
Enclos, SoMa. The last Friday of the month, two months out, at noon, on Tock. Open on 0% of days, on Tock figures reset on October 17, 2026 after a measurement fix and still rebuilding.
Naides, Nob Hill, the 15th of the previous month at 11:00 AM. Sorrel, Presidio Heights, the 15th of the previous month at 10:00 AM.
Quince, Jackson Square, on SevenRooms, opens on the 1st of the month a month ahead. Saison, SoMa, the 1st of the previous month, on OpenTable. Wolfsbane, Dogpatch, the 15th for the following two months.
Unlike New York, the folklore is roughly right here. Of the 31 San Francisco restaurants whose window we have confirmed as a rolling number of days, 16 open exactly 30 days ahead. New York's most common window is 14 days; San Francisco's is a month.
The exceptions run long rather than short, which is the opposite of New York. Verjus opens 7 days out and The Big Four 14, but Gary Danko, Akiko's, Zuni Cafe and Foreign Cinema all book 60 days ahead, Delfina and Z & Y 90, Elena's three months, and House of Prime Rib a full year. A one-year window is a different problem from a one-week window: you are not waiting for a drop, you are competing with people who planned in a different season.
The practical version: in San Francisco, a month out is usually the right place to look, and when a room is not bookable a month out the answer is almost always that it is on a calendar release or that it books much further ahead, not that it sold out in seconds.
Only five of the 60 San Francisco restaurants we measure showed no bookable two-top on any date in the current window. In New York that figure is 18 of 84. San Francisco is simply an easier city to get into, and pretending otherwise on this page would be the easiest way to lose a reader who checks.
The rooms with nothing open are specific and worth naming. House of Prime Rib showed none for two and 3% for four, and the time it most often leaves open is 10:00 PM. Z & Y showed 0% for two and 77% for four, which is a room built for groups rather than a room that is hard.
Meanwhile the names that get called impossible are not. Nopa was open on 100% of 272,850 checks. Rich Table was open on 83% of 273,723. Frances was open on 60% of 271,435 and 50% of its open slots are between 7 and 8:30 PM, which is a genuinely good prime-time ratio for a room this well known.
What is actually scarce in San Francisco is the hour, not the date. Cotogna is open on 30% of days, but 95% of the slots it leaves open are before 6 PM and the single most common one is 3:15 PM. Rich Table's most commonly open slot is 9:15 PM, with 49% of its open slots at 9 PM or later. Benu, by contrast, puts 61% of its open slots in the 7 to 8:30 PM window, so when Benu opens, it opens at a time you actually want.
House of Prime Rib, Nob Hill: 2% for two, 3% for four, books up to a year ahead, and most often leaves 10:00 PM open.
Z & Y, Chinatown: 0% for two but 77% for four, on a 90-day window.
Cotogna, Jackson Square: open on 30% of days, 95% of open slots before 6 PM, 135 openings recorded across 21 days.
Quince, Jackson Square: open on 50% of days for two and 67% for four, on a monthly calendar release.
Nopa, NoPa: open on 100% of 272,850 checks, with 52% of open slots at prime time. Bookable, and not because it is less good.
Party size is close to a coin flip here. Across the 60 San Francisco restaurants we measure, the four-top open rate beats the two-top rate at 18 of them, loses at 12, and ties at most of the rest. Anyone telling you that availability doubles when you add two seats has not measured it.
The wins are large when they land. Z & Y goes from 0% of days open for two to 77% for four. San Ho Won goes 33% to 70%, Quince 50% to 43%, Angler 83% to 83%, Benu 37% to 43%.
The losses are just as real. The Progress drops from 83% to 53%, Niku Steakhouse from 73% to 80%, Four Kings from 13% to 3%, Elena's from 100% to 93%, Kokkari Estiatorio from 100% to 90%. Counter seating and small dining rooms are the usual reason: a room of two-tops cannot always make a four.
Both numbers sit on every restaurant page, so check the room rather than the rule before you decide which party size to chase.
Release times on this page come from what the restaurant itself publishes, quoted and linked. Open rates, slot shapes and opening counts come from our own checks, which is a different kind of claim and is worth separating from the first.
The weak point is specific to San Francisco. We can also measure the hour a drop happens, and on Resy that measurement mostly holds up: it matches the restaurant's published hour at 33 of the 47 Resy rooms where we have both. On OpenTable it matches 1 of 18 and on Tock 1 of 14, because on those platforms we cannot check often enough for the timestamp to be about the restaurant rather than about our own schedule. San Francisco is 27 OpenTable rooms and 15 Tock rooms against 10 on Resy, so this page leans on stated times and says so, rather than publishing a measured hour we do not trust.
Coverage is the other limit. We watch 285 restaurants across four cities. Table Alert advertises 62,198. If your room is not one of ours we have nothing for you, and that is a genuine gap rather than something to talk around. What we get in exchange is the ability to say that Z & Y opens for four but not for two, or that Cotogna opens at 3:15 PM. Nobody watching 62,198 restaurants can say that about any of them.
And we never book. SnagRes tells you a table is there and you book it yourself, in the restaurant's own app, under your own name. Services that book for you or resell a booking made under someone else's name charge per reservation, which is the practice New York's 2024 reservation law was written to stop, and TableSwap publishes a price of $75 per successful reservation. We have no booking to charge for.
When Do SF Restaurants Release Reservations? 50 Confirmed Drop Times (2026)
Confirmed release times for 50 San Francisco restaurants across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms, measured against 3 million availability checks. 10 AM is the most common hour, and a fixed monthly calendar date is twice as common as in New York.
The confirmed release hour and booking window for 50 San Francisco restaurants across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms, plus what our own availability checks show about what actually opens.
Ten in the morning, more often than any other hour, but San Francisco spreads across four booking platforms and ten of its rooms open on a fixed calendar date instead. We have confirmed the schedule for 50 of the 62 restaurants we track here, and measured what each one actually leaves open.
Keep reading: Every confirmed release time we hold · When NYC restaurants release tables · What the Resy and Tock merger changes · Booking a hard table on Resy · How to get a reservation at any SF restaurant · Full SnagRes FAQ
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SnagRes tracks 60 of the hardest tables in San Francisco. Across them, an average of 61% of the bookable window is open at any given check. Even the hardest give tables back: Showa had a table open up on 34% of its dates at some point. Availability is rechecked throughout the day.
Of the 36 San Francisco restaurants with a confirmed drop time, 10 release at 10:00 AM, and the typical booking window is 30 days ahead. Drop times are set per restaurant, not per platform, so two places on the same platform can open hours apart.
Of the 60 tracked in San Francisco, 27 book on OpenTable, 15 on Tock, 10 on Resy, 8 on SevenRooms. SnagRes covers each platform represented in this city list.
No. SnagRes tells you the moment a table opens and links you straight to the restaurant's own booking page, where you complete the reservation yourself. It does not hold, auto-book or resell tables.
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: last-minute tables in SF tonight.