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The only reason I am giving this joke of a business 1 star (and not zero) is because some of the food was half-decent. However, given the high prices of said food, the food should have been MORE than decent. The real tragedy was the service, and, unfortunately, restaurants are in the SERVICE industry. I had made a reservation for 4 and was really excited to try this restaurant. The reception was sloppy and disorganized, and although we were seated within 2 minutes, that was 2 minutes too long considering I had reservations and the place was half empty (and on a Saturday night)! The place was larger than I had expected, and it seemed that there were only 2 waiters in the whole restaurant with myriad useless hosts, administrative employees, and bus boys roaming about the place. The word "inefficiency" comes to mind, since there were a lot of people making a lot of noise but nothing was getting done. After we were seated, nobody filled our water glasses, nobody introduced themselves to us, nobody told us someone would be there, nobody said, "I'll be right back." We had to flag down a random bus boy TWICE to get a waiter to finally greet us. The server was nice enough, but we hardly saw him. One of the diners at my table ordered a beverage which was never brought. Then when we flagged down another random bus boy to ask about the beverage, he practically slammed it on the table with no apology. This is some of the worst service I've had outside of McDonald's in a bad neighborhood. As for the food, I really liked the bread, butter, and soup ($9). The french fries that accompanied the meat were soggy and tasteless. The fish entree was disappointingly plain. For $25, the scallops were quite small - and I mean each individual scallop (of which there were 4) was small. I cannot recommend this place. Too bad, but luckily there are a ton of fantastic restaurants in the SF Bay area to go to instead.

While initially I was frustrated with this resturaunt shortly after it opened, even turned off by the service, their fantastic Pan Bagne kept me coming in the face of rude service. Since then the service has greatly improved and I find my self eating there on a weekly basis. While The frites, soup, and sandwiches are amazing (and I am not using hyperbole, this is an acurate description) the service could still be taken up a notch. If i'm spending over $15 for a sandwich I wantr someone at my beckon with a smile for ages at my every request. The atmosphere is very nice. Their publication selection is very nice, and includes several international journals. Thay have a full bar, and I am often tempted to leave work to have a liquid lunch of Venitian spritz. While the entrance to the place is far too small, and the plaement for the host at the entrance is highly problimatic in making a confined enterance, the spaceious outdoor seating is one of the only places in SF to have a glass of wine on the street. All in all, if you can drop a roll of cash on a sandwich this is a good place to do it.