Kid-friendly restaurants in San Francisco

Emmy's Spaghetti Shack

Bernal Heights

Emmy's is loud, a little chaotic and pretty much perfect for it. The spaghetti and meatballs come in portions big enough that a small kid can happily eat off your plate, and between the pinball machines in the back, the rainbow disco lights, some very strange chandeliers and a wall of framed Dolly Parton photos, nobody's bored while you wait.

They've run a kids-eat-free night for years, too. Go early though. After about eight the music goes up and it turns into a date spot (you'll feel the exact moment it happens).

Street parking only, on the Mission Street edge of Bernal.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Arcade games, Crayons

Noise

Loud is fine

Reservations

Yes

Fiorella (Clement St)

Outer Richmond

Wood-fired pizza and handmade pasta, in a room that's honestly roomy for the Richmond. Kids get buttered noodles or a plain pizza plus a pack of crayons. You get the seasonal pastas, which are the real reason you came.

There are four Fiorellas now, and the original on Clement is the one for kids. There's a kids-eat-free night midweek, you can book online, and Lincoln Park and the Legion of Honor are a short walk away if somebody needs to burn off steam first.

Clement only does dinner. Coming off the beach at lunchtime? The Inner Sunset branch on 9th Avenue is open for lunch.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Crayons

Reservations

Yes

Goat Hill Pizza

Potrero Hill

Sourdough-crust pizza at the top of Potrero Hill since 1975, started by five friends in what used to be a burnt-out barbecue joint. This is where the neighborhood throws its school fundraisers and kids' birthdays, so a table of six-year-olds won't get a second look.

Go on a Monday. It's all-you-can-eat, the pizza comes around to your table, and kids under six eat free (possibly the single most useful fact on this whole page). Which is exactly why it's packed.

The view of downtown from the sidewalk is great. The walk up with a stroller is really steep.

The West Portal branch has a slice counter, handy after the library there or Stern Grove.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

Reservations

Yes

Flour + Water Pizzeria

North Beach

The pasta place's pizzeria moved into the old Rose Pistola space on Columbus, a big room full of leather booths and big tables. Want the best seat for a toddler? Grab the bar facing the glassed-in dough room, where they spin the dough right in front of you. Toddlers go weirdly quiet watching it.

Kids order the mozzarella sticks and a pizza, and dessert is soft serve with sprinkles. It's been packed since it opened in 2023 and gets loud on weekends, so book on Resy or show up right when the doors open. Washington Square's lawn is a block away for after.

High chairs

Yes

For the kids

Crayons

Reservations

Yes

Burma Superstar

Inner Richmond

On Clement since 1992, and your answer when the grown-ups want something adventurous and the kid wants rice and bread. The tea leaf salad, tossed right at the table, is your order. Kids do great with the coconut rice, the platha with curry for dipping, and mango.

The wait can hit an hour at peak times, which is forever when you're five. Go early on a weeknight. And if you're stuck waiting anyway, spend it in the bakeries and bookstores along Clement.

High chairs

Yes

Changing table

Yes

Reservations

Yes

Mel's Drive-In (Geary)

Inner Richmond

A 1950s diner with working jukeboxes in the booths, and the kids get to pick the song. The shakes are thick and old-school. The Penguin piles on marshmallow and chocolate syrup, if it's that kind of night.

Let's be real: this is diner food, not a destination. It's here because it's easy. Mel's opens for breakfast and stays open late, so it covers that awkward four o'clock meal nobody else serves, and the room is full of other kids being a little loud too.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

Noise

Lively

Yank Sing

SoMa

Heads up: the Rincon Center room closed in September 2026, so if an older list sends you to Spear Street, ignore it. Yank Sing carries on at 49 Stevenson Street, where it's been since 1974.

This is dim sum in its fancy clothes, and priced to match. For kids, the carts are everything: more than a hundred dishes roll past and they just point at what they want. BBQ pork buns, siu mai, chow fun and custard tarts are the usual haul.

Stevenson is lunch only and closed Mondays. The room is smaller and tighter than Rincon was, so fold the stroller if you can, and book on OpenTable for weekends.

High chairs

Yes

Noise

Lively

Reservations

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

Dragon Beaux

Outer Richmond

From the family behind Koi Palace, and the glitzier dim sum in the Richmond (purple booths, gold pillars, a big back room). You order off a menu here instead of from carts, so color does the heavy lifting. Think rainbow soup dumplings, golden lava buns that ooze egg yolk and charcoal sponge rolls.

Dim sum is a lunch thing. At dinner it switches to hot pot, which is better for school-age kids than toddlers who can reach a boiling pot. During peak dim sum hours only groups of seven or more can book, so if you're four, get there at opening and beat the line.

High chairs

Yes

Noise

Lively

Reservations

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

Zazie

Cole Valley

A French bistro doing brunch in Cole Valley since 1992. Gingerbread pancakes for the kid, smoked salmon benedict for you.

Brunch is always first come, first served, and an hour-long wait on a weekend is totally normal. Get there when it opens or go on a weekday. Ask for the heated back patio, since that's where the high chairs and strollers fit. Dogs are welcome back there too (for some kids, easily the best part).

The N Judah stop in Cole Valley is two blocks away, and the Kezar end of Golden Gate Park is close enough to walk off the pancakes.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Crayons, Outdoor space

Noise

Moderate

Reservations

Yes

Foreign Cinema

Mission

At night this is a date restaurant with movies projected on the courtyard wall. At weekend brunch that same courtyard is heated, covered and full of daylight, and that's your family meal.

The kids' menu is a real three courses: fruit or yogurt, then eggs or French toast, then ice cream, with coloring pages and crayons on the side. You get the Persian omelette or the fried chicken, and there's an oyster bar. They take bookings, which hardly any brunch spots here do.

Is it cheap? Nope. Save it for visiting grandparents or a birthday, and it pulls off both beautifully.

Kids who want to see the movie need the dinner seating, and that's not a kid scene.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

Changing table

Yes

For the kids

Crayons

Reservations

Yes

Gott's Roadside (Ferry Building)

Embarcadero

The Napa burger stand at the north end of the Ferry Building, with a big open patio on the bay where kids can watch the ferries come and go. Kids' meals are a plain burger or cheeseburger, a hot dog or fried chicken, with small fries and a drink, and milkshakes for everybody. The aisles inside are wide enough for a stroller.

On Saturdays the farmers market turns the patio into a scrum by noon, so come early or go on a weekday. It pairs nicely with the ferry to Sausalito or Alameda. And that wind off the water is colder than it looks, so bring a layer.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Outdoor space

Reservations

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

La Taqueria

Mission

The Mission burrito landmark, here since 1973, and famously the one with no rice in the burritos (cue the argument everyone has). Get the carnitas burrito dorado, griddled until the outside goes crispy. Kids eat a cheese quesadilla or a side of beans.

The line out the door moves faster than it looks. You order at the counter and grab a table in a plain room with hard seats, fine for twenty minutes and not much longer. Cash only, with an ATM inside.

Garfield Square's pool and playground are a short walk away, and so is 24th Street BART.

High chairs

Yes

Reservations

Yes

Il Parco

Presidio

A counter café in the Presidio Transit Center, right next to Presidio Tunnel Tops and its Outpost play area (hands down the best playground view in the city). Why come here? Because the kids can play the whole time you eat.

Focaccia-style pizza, paninis and soup at lunch, pastries and coffee in the morning. The tables look right at the Golden Gate Bridge, and in summer the fog rolls in over it by afternoon, so go earlier and bring jackets. Weekends at Tunnel Tops get crowded.

The free PresidiGo shuttle and Muni both stop at the door, which beats paying to park.

For the kids

Outdoor space

Noise

Moderate

Reservations

Yes

Park Chalet

Golden Gate Park

Tucked on the ground floor behind the old Beach Chalet, right where Golden Gate Park meets Ocean Beach. Glass walls open onto a lawn with Adirondack chairs, and on weekend afternoons that lawn fills up with kids running around while their grown-ups drink the house beer. Everybody wins.

The food is pub food. The kids' menu covers tenders, grilled cheese, fish and chips and mac and cheese, and there's a fireplace inside for foggy days.

Peek at the WPA murals in the Beach Chalet upstairs on your way in, and put the Dutch Windmill or the bison paddock on either side of lunch.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Outdoor space

Noise

Lively

Reservations

Yes

Wheelchair access

Yes

Hook Fish Co.

Outer Sunset

A seafood shack on Irving at 47th, two blocks from Ocean Beach, doing SoCal fish tacos, poke, crab cakes and a ceviche that changes daily. Kids go for the plain fish tacos and the fries.

There's no indoor seating. You eat outside on a wooden parklet in the foggiest corner of San Francisco, so yes, fleeces even in August. In exchange you get a small playground to keep them busy and a bookstore across the street with a train table. Add a walk on the beach and that's a really good Saturday.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Outdoor space, Play area

Noise

Moderate

Reservations

Yes

Bi-Rite Creamery

Mission

On 18th Street a block from Dolores Park, which is exactly where you eat it, next to the playground. There's nowhere to sit inside, so the park is your seating.

Salted caramel is the famous one, with about two dozen more flavors that rotate, plus soft serve made from Jersey cows' milk. They're serious about ingredients (Straus dairy and Guittard chocolate, among others), though your four-year-old will judge it on the sprinkles.

On a sunny weekend the line wraps around the block. On a weekday afternoon? Barely a line at all.

Golden Gate Bakery

Chinatown

The egg custard tarts on Grant Avenue: flaky shell, warm wobbly middle, gone in two bites, which is pretty much the perfect size for a kid.

This bakery is as famous for its unpredictable hours as for its tarts. It takes random days off early in the week and has been known to close for weeks at a stretch, and the only sure sign it's open is a line outside. That line can run half an hour. Cash only, to go only.

Grab a box and carry it two blocks to the playground in Portsmouth Square.

Waterbar

Embarcadero

A seafood restaurant on the Embarcadero right under the Bay Bridge, with floor-to-ceiling cylinder aquariums full of Pacific fish in the middle of the dining room. Ask for a table by the tanks.

The kids' menu is short and smart: cheese ravioli, a quesadilla, chicken tenders, a three-shrimp cocktail for the brave, and a sundae. You get oysters and a proper fish dinner. It's pricey for grown-ups, and the room gets dressier as the night goes on, so book an early table.

At dusk the lights on the Bay Bridge flick on right outside the window. Kind of a perfect way to end a birthday.

High chairs

Yes

Kids' menu

Yes

For the kids

Crayons

Reservations

Yes

Original Joe's (North Beach)

North Beach

Italian-American since the 1930s, across from Washington Square, with red leather booths, waiters in jackets and a sense of occasion that never gets stuffy. The booths are roomy and the staff bring high chairs.

There's no kids' menu, and you really won't miss it. Portions are huge, so your kid shares the spaghetti and meatballs or the hamburger on sourdough. The house dish is Joe's Special, a scramble of ground beef, spinach, onion and egg.

They take bookings. Let the kids run around the Washington Square lawn first.

High chairs

Yes

Reservations

Yes

Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar

Nob Hill

A tiki bar in the basement of the Fairmont, built around an old swimming pool, with a band that plays from a boat in the lagoon. Every so often an indoor storm rolls across the pool, rain, thunder, lightning, the works. That's the whole reason to bring a kid, and honestly it's plenty.

Kids get mocktails in tiki mugs. The food is pupu platters, pork belly bites and sliders, and nobody's here for it. It's all ages early in the evening and adults only late, and a cover charge kicks in when the band starts, so show up right as it opens and enjoy the storms without the cover.

Ride the California Street cable car up Nob Hill to get there. Suddenly it's an outing.

Reservations

Yes