Cafe Venue (Montogmery) in San Francisco, Californa: A Review

The food is roundly pretty good, but a big part of the appeal is a spacious and clean interior with lots of seating (as compared to the usual hole-in-the-wall joints in the Financial District, anyway.) They've even got a downstairs area. The one odd bit is that they play R. Kelly-type R&B on the house stereo system, not sure if they're trying to get the bank worker crowd in the mood for a nooner or something? Oh well.

On the breakfast end of things, if you just want a quick perk, you can grab a fairly big cookie or muffin and a small coffee for 3 bucks even. They do have a small menu of more warm and hearty fare however - eggs with potatoes, toast, bacon and/or ham, breakfast burritos, or bagel sandwiches. They also have "not instant" oatmeal, an assortment of bagels, croissants, danishes, biscotti, brownies, fruit salad, yogurt and cottage cheese.

On the lunch end, there's an assortment of about seven or eight types of salad, various pastas, cheese or chicken ravioli, and a range of "artisan" deli sandwiches - melted tomato mozzarella, turkey cranberry, ham & Swiss, Monterey chicken, California club, chicken pesto, steak fajita, French dip, tuna salad, "Super Veggie", along with several rotating side soups of the day.

The coffees are from PANACHE, a decent Oregon roaster who seem to specialize in dark and heavy stuff - Sumatran Velvet and Double French roast are the only things I've seen available here. They're fine if you like dark and oily, but if you want something lighter, it's either gonna be decaf or go somewhere else.

From several late lunch stops here now I've determined that most of the menu is a cut above average. I particularly like their breakfast burrito with ham, and the tomato mozzarella and Monterey chicken sandwiches. Have not tried the salads personally, but according to dining companions they are pretty big for the money. The food isn't quite good enough to go out of your way for, but if you're in the area already anyway, it's one of the better choices in the vicinity. Beats McDonalds by a mile anyway, and the line is usually substantially less long to boot. Most of the traffic is "to go" as well, so it's a nice place to sit and have some space around you if you want to relax for a bit.

The one major drawback is that this place entirely caters to the Financial District workaday world, so it's only open from Monday to Friday. They get going before most businesses around here at 5:30 a.m., but they also pack it in pretty early at 3:30 in the afternoon.