Restaurant Review : Tony Baloney's, San Francisco CA

Tony Baloney's
1098 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA
415-863-1514

* Cash, credit, debit
* Limited eat-in, take-out, no delivery
* Some metered parking available on the street
* Not too convenient to public transportation

Tony Baloney's is a cool little deli / Italian / Mexican place on the corner of 7th and Harrison in San Francisco. The deli and the Italian are maybe a bit better than the Mexican, but the breakfast tacos (egg, spinach, avocado, cheese, meat if you want it) are actually pretty good. So are the ginormous sandwiches and the homemade soups, which make for a pretty good lunch. Apparently Tony is the proprietor and his mom makes a lot of the food ... the place has that cool little family-owned neighborhood restaurant vibe.

It's like pretty much all the stuff you can get in the deli cases at Safeway, just made properly and very tasty - various pasta dishes and salads, lasagna, ravioli, burritos, tacos, quesadillas. Prices are reasonable - around $5 to $6 for your food, which is generally more than filling. They've got the usual bevy of bottled drinks (hey, both sizes of Orangina!) as well as coffee in the mornings. Despite the sign outside saying "Food To Go", there's actually some seating in there and it's a nice place to sit down and eat (usually not too crowded either, most people seem to obey the dictates of the sign).

I've only been in twice and I don't know for certain who Tony is, but all the staff seemed to be pretty friendly. It's in kind of a low-traffic area - a few blocks down from Market and Mission streets, the closest MUNI stop being the Civic Center (it's easily walkable if you're not a baby, no more than three blocks). This seems to keep the wait times reasonable and the area is markedly less crazy and dirty than other parts of downtown. Good hearty homestyle food at good prices - they charge towards the low end of what other similar places in this area charge for these things, but the huge and filling portions make it a much better value than many restaurants in the area.

Add in friendly and pleasant service and a very clean environs and you've got quite the little lunchtime stop here, and quick enough to hit up on a lunch break from work. Definitely worth a little extra legworth to check out (and there's usually some metered parking available on the street if you have one of those new fangled motorized vehicle things).