Restaurant Review: The Mayflower Restaurant in San Francisco, CA

The Mayflower Restaurant
1422 Ocean Avenue
San Francisco, CA
# 415-586-6061

* Cash only
* Eat-in
* Some limited parking on the street
* Very close to a K MUNI line stop
Online Menu

The Mayflower Restaurant is on Ocean Avenue in the Ingleside neighborhood of San Francisco, just steps away from the K MUNI light rail line. The interior and menu are basically that of a typical old-school American diner, but it's run by a Vietnamese family so in addition to the American diner breakfasts and lunches there is a full menu of Vietnamese fare such as pho and banh bao.

As far as the standard American diner food goes, you can expect pancakes and eggs and bacon and french toast for breakfast, burgers and pork chops and fried chicken and potatoes for dinner. Everything is pretty reasonably good, and more important the prices are highly reasonable.

The Vietnamese menu is fairly big. I tried what was basically the chicken noodle soup, Vietnamese style. It was almost like pho - they bring you a plate of bean sprouts, jalapeno peppers and lemon wedges on the side to add at your leisure, but I found the soup bowl was so crammed full of noodles and chicken that it really wasn't necessary.

The interior was clean and quiet, with a TV over the counter tuned quietly to the local news. The decor is basically Americana and the seating is adequate and comfortable. The place is kind of a neighborhood favorite and does steady business with the locals, but doesn't really ever seem to get swamped to where you have to wait for a seat. The food was served up impressively fast, and the service was friendly and considerate.