Where to eat with your family in San Francisco

By Virginia Miller

Whether you’re going out with your own kids, friends with kids or taking out local niece and nephews as I do, you don’t want to compromise what you eat. And you shouldn’t ever have to in San Francisco.

There is no end to the wealth of food education one can casually participate in with children while eating heartwarming, fun meals. Covering a range of cuisines from Korean to Cajun — across neighborhoods — here are eight places you may not initially think of as kid-friendly.

This casual restaurant sets the groundwork with order-at-the-counter service, but it’s a win especially because of crowd-pleasing gourmet, fast casual Chinese-American dishes, nodding to chef Brandon Jew’s heritage and SF roots. Think sweet and sour chicken (or cauliflower), mapo tofu, egg rolls or a gratifying crunchy cabbage salad.

And teach the kids Mahjong. I participated in Mahjong Mondays, learning just how complex and fun a game it is, and want to check out Mamahuhu’s monthly Chinese-American Literature Club highlighting AAPI authors. Mamahuhu has been a family-friendly destination ever since Anmao Sun, Ben Moore and James Beard Award-winning chef Brandon Jew opened the first Mamahuhu on Clement Street in January 2020. Now it’s grown to three locations.

// www.eatmamahuhu.com, locations include:
Inner Richmond at 517 Clement St.
Noe Valley at 3991 24th St.
Mill Valley at 173 Throckmorton Ave.

Inner Sunset’s The Game Parlour is an all-day cafe with hundreds of board and card games they add to regularly.

They’ve got a $7 “stay and play as long as you want” policy, and if you’re just eating in, there’s no charge to do that except on Friday and Saturday nights. And they have surprisingly good waffles and espresso drinks.

The Game Parlour has grown over the years to have a Dungeons and Dragons club, after school clubs and a series of gaming events. Make a reservation if there are more than seven of you, otherwise you get added to a waiting list if tables are full.

While you sip your matcha latte, the kids can down drinks like Rising Sun (Dole Whip ice cream, strawberry pureé, lemonade, sparkling water). You both can fill up on sweet mochi waffles (like the nutella-chocolate-coconut-banana “banangrams”) or savory waffle sandwiches like the pastrami, coleslaw, Swiss cheese, Thousand Island-packed King of New York waffle sando. No worries: gluten-free options are also on the menu.

And again: There are tons of games to choose from.

// www.thegameparlour.com, 1342 Irving St.

Admittedly, I’m quite picky about my Louisiana cuisine, and traditional Cajun this isn’t. But soulful and comforting it is — and with build-your-own gumbo options and hefty po’boy sandwiches, it’s happy family fare, too.

Growing up in Bayview eating his Southern grandmother’s gumbo, chef-owner Dontaye Ball’s recipe is inspired by hers but with California touches and impeccable ingredients, including vegan and vegetarian options, like jackfruit po boys or bowls of okra, tomatoes and seasonal veggies.

He also uses historic neighborhood sources, like andouille sausage from Evergood Sausage Company. It’s all made with care and robust flavor instead of the often bland gumbos, red beans and rice and po boys I often find outside Louisiana. Hot sauces rightly line the tables, but the food is generally not too spicy for kids not ready for the heat.

Opened June 2023 in Bayview from chef-owner Dontaye Ball (aka Mr. Gumbo), Gumbo Social was a beloved farmers market pop-up that, via a successful Kickstarter campaign, is now a Black-owned, family-run brick-and-mortar on 3rd Street.

// www.gumbosocial.com, 5176 3rd St.

This family-owned joint expanded to San Rafael in 2007, but it’s the OG SF restaurant that remains a blast to take my niece and nephews to for value-to-portion-size of kid-pleasing spaghetti, garlic bread and heaping baked lasagna.

The pizza is okay, but it’s cheese-and-red-sauce-loaded eggplant Parmigiana, lasagna and the like — paired with jukebox tunes we take turns choosing — that makes me feel as if I was whisked back to North Jersey a couple decades ago. But Gaspare’s is blissfully old-school San Francisco.

An SF “red sauce” American Italian stalwart since 1985, Gaspare’s fab neon signage, individual booth jukeboxes, fake plastic grapes, straw-covered wine bottles hanging from the ceiling and Italian flag colors transport me back to my Jersey teen years and youthful NYC memories with my half Sicilian roots.

// www.gasparespizza.com, locations include:
Inner Richmond at 5546 Geary Blvd.
San Rafael at 200 Merrydale Rd.

Let’s be clear: Yeo’s office weekday-only hours and minimal seating don’t exactly make it an ideal eat-in with kids. But they do robust delivery and takeout with bright yellow and black boxes enclosing a range of fried, poached or braised chicken meals with fun dipping sauces.

It’s good times for kids and big kids alike. Even better, chef Chris Yeo cooks the rarity of Singaporean chicken and rice with Taiwan and Hong Kong variations, plus Singaporean and Malaysian chicken laksa (coconut curry noodle soup). The playful packaging even offers a little education inside the box, describing sauces and the hawker roots of this beloved street food.

With its sunny yellows and whites, fast-casual Yeo’s Electric Chicken and Rice opened January 2023 in the Financial District.

// www.yeoselectricchicken.com, 564 Market St.

Peacock Pansy is a new daytime-only, daily breakfast and lunch spot that first draws kids and the rest of us in with its neon palm leaf wallpaper, butterfly art and silk flowers lining the ceiling and wall.

Amid bursts of color and lots of light from floor-to-ceiling windows, there are pricey brunch items like lobster tail benedict or spicy tom yum crab omelet in Thai makrut lime-lemongrass sauce. There are also burgers, fried chicken sandos, a fancy oatmeal bowl, savory Parmesan French toast with bacon, vegan French toast, gluten-free buttermilk pancakes, a berry-loaded croffle — croissant waffle — or fried chicken and croffle mashup.

There are more humble, affordable breakfast spots across the city, but this vibrant newcomer mixes up the brunch experience with a little colorful decadence.

// www.peacockpansy.com, 392 Fulton St.

SF’s Richmond District holds many Korean restaurants and Sonamu is one of the newest. Daily lunch and dinner hours and the humble, casual space make it easy with kids. Jimmy Kim and his mother Kilsoon Choe provide us generous portions of traditional Korean dishes and eight different lunch bento boxes, ideal with children.

While us Korea lovers may want to try “real deal” rarities like thinly-sliced, jokbal braised pigs feet, the kids can dig into popular Korean favorites like sweet-savory bulgogi pork or beef, or a range of noodles, including clear japchae yam noodles. Savory leek, kimchi or seafood-scallion pancakes are another possible kid crowd-pleaser.

// www.sonamusf.com, 5716 Geary Blvd.

San Francisco kids are weaned on dim sum. In a city nearly 35 percent Asian and heavily Chinese, our 1800s Chinese roots popularized Chinese food in the Western world with famed SF dim sum houses like Yang Sing since 1958, dim sum with a view at Palette Tea House or Michelin-recommends like HK Lounge Bistro (the recently reborn Hong Kong Lounge II). With hundreds of dim sum restaurants and takeout shops in SF, only some items are standout on typically dense menus.

In addition to Chinatown, half the city (Richmond, Sunset and Parkside districts) is heavily packed with dim sum restaurants, but SoMa is less so. Village Tea House opened in SoMa December 2022 with a more succinct menu and modern space than the majority. If your kids can handle spicy, Village’s dan dan noodles are on-point, while honey walnut shrimp and dry fried chicken wings are non-spicy kid pleasers. There are dim sum favorites, including siu long bao soup dumplings, but thicker sheng jian bao (pan-fried soup dumplings) are easier for children to handle and just as delicious.

// 62 2nd Street, www.villageteahousesf.com

Virginia Miller is a San Francisco-based food & drink writer.

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