Metro Crepes
One Sansome St
San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 217-7060
- Price Range: $
- Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
- Parking: Street
- Attire: Casual
- Good for Groups: No
- Good for Kids: Yes
- Takes Reservations: No
- Delivers: Yes
- Take-out: Yes
- Waiter Service: No
- Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
- Outdoor Seating: Yes
- Good for: Breakfast, Lunch
- Alcohol: None
212 reviews
Neighborhood: Cole Valley
"Sorry, Gil, but I love this place. It's got your San Francisco-crepery essentials: chalkboard menus, savory and sweet crepes, woodsy…" read more »
39 Reviews for Metro Crepes
A solid lunch spot. It's somewhat off the street in the citibank building and there is rarely ever a line more than two people long. I don't go for the crepes but their salads are pretty good and a cheaper alternative to Mixt Greens. The Capri salad is awesome - it's mixed (not Mixt) greens with chicken, apples, walnuts, and gorgonzola in a raspberry vinagrette, yum!!!
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I was desperate, hungry, and cold in the Financial District, so I stopped and got a crepe. Didn't want anything fancy since it was early in the morning, so I just got a butter and sugar, which I think is always a great test for a good creperie.
Anyway, the crepes were pre-made, and then re-heated. The result was this soggy, oily mess that was lukewarm. I had two bites and tossed it. It was THAT gross.
I'm sure you don't head here expecting a stellar meal. That'd be a long shot in the Financial District. However, I think you at least have the right to go into a creperie expecting a hot soggy crepe with oil saturated greasy fillings that make you feel great and horrible (well maybe later) all at the same time. Today I was willing to deal with the horrible element of that ordeal, but as it turned out I got neither at Metro (part of me is thankful for that, and the other part is now more than excited to eat bad food at the Giants game).
Metro is right across from my office, and I have always wanted to try it. I went there today and ordered the Milan with mushrooms and Jarlsberg cheese. I had them add on spinach to make the crepe more exciting. I considered changing the cheese as well and asked the cashier what would be good.
"Do you have goat cheese," I asked.
"Yea."
"Do you think that would taste better?"
"Um I don't know."
"What is Jarlsberg, I forget?"
"It's a blue cheese."
So I had forgotten what Jarlsberg was, but I knew it wasn't a blue cheese. I then asked what seemed like the manager and he advised me that it was swiss cheese. I think my crepe was already put together by this point.
"Actually I don't think we have goat cheese," added the cashier.
I sat down with a cup of Potato and Roasted Garlic soup (the daily soup special) expecting that it would take at least 5 minutes for my crepe to be cooked. When I looked over I realized that it was already done. 'That was fast', I thought.
The crepe was not hot, nor was it very greasy. It was thick but paper like and looked as if it would crack if it were bent a certain way. It lacked the small circular indentations that come from the rising bubbles when you cook a crepe on a skillet. These crepes were obviously cooked in batches long ago and simply reheated. The lack of the bubble marks also indicated that they had never been cooked for long enough in the first place.
A thin layer of cheese coated the crepe bottom topped by some partially sauteed mushrooms and a salad grade (rather than a sauteed) batch of spinach whose texture did not match the rest of the crepe's contents. Though I was happy later on that the spinach was not sauteed (if you're going to eat something bland, it's best that it doesn't have too many calories) I was quite disappointed at the first bite. If I had wanted a salad I would have gone to a salad bar! Likewise, the dry crepe and its underwhelming portion of cheese made it all the more tasteless and in need of salt. Fortunately the mushrooms did have a taste and didn't look like they came out of a can (surprising), but they alone couldn't make the crepe.
Most wrong was the use of Jarlsberg cheese in the crepe. The mixtures of cheese and mushrooms is always a favorite, but those who seek it are probably looking for something more savory, more hearty - try the mushroom cheese sandwich at Sal's in Berkeley. Jarlsberg just isn't potent enough to work with the mushrooms, and downplays rather than enhances their flavor.
Bad pairing and bad crepes, then, is this place's real problem. Stiff crepes just aren't gonna cut it, even in the FIDi. They also need to work on creating a menu that showcases ingredients that favor each other. Until they do that, which I assume they won't, you can bet your ass I won't be comin' back here no matter how guiltless my lunch was.
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As much as I love crepes, I'm not sure I'll be venturing back here for another crepe during lunch. Maybe for a dessert crepe when I'm running low on sugar and craving nutella. I tried their Athens savory crepe (grilled chicken breast, sauteed mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, feta, and artichoke lemon pesto) and it was not good at all. The crepe was slightly undercooked--hence, doughy--and the filling was flavorless. The chicken was dry and the entire thing was lacking probably one spoonful of that artichoke lemon pesto.
I found the service to be very slow too. The cashier left me hanging for a good 3 mins at the register after asking me "what would you like to order?", when he had to resolve a problem with his crepe chef who was having a very hard time understanding a lady's substitution in her order (due to language barrier, I think). After ordering, I went to Walgreen's across the street to buy some gift wrap, and my crepe was still not ready when I got back.
My favorite thing about Metro Crepes is that you can order a 'Athens' or 'Santorini' crepe or salad complete with chicken, feta, kalamata olives, etc. and eat it on an outdoor marble terrace bordered by corinthian columns. I don't know why more people don't wear togas here, but I attribute it to a general lack of imagination among FiDi office workers.
Just be advised that the crepes aren't fresh hot sweet crepes; they're premade and warmed (at least for the lunch crepes) Think of it more as a wrap than a savory crepe. Still works fine for a quick lunch though.
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Metro Crepes meets quite a few of my "decent lunch spot" creteria:
1. Friendly proprietors- these guys are SOOO HAPPY to be taking your order, making your food, and handing it to you over the counter.
2. Convenient location. Metro is literally UNDER my gym and around the corner from my office building. While it's not food that will motivate me to go to the gym just so I can grab lunch on the way out, it does make opting for lunch IN LIEU OF the gym pretty difficult.
3. Reasonable prices. $9 for a small soup, a small sald, and an added sprinkling of pretty believable chicken is a pretty good deal for an area where $20 for a salad OR a sandwich is not unheard of.
4. Variety. They have crepes (dessert and savory), salads (about 5 kinds), tofu, chicken, soup, and other snacks and beverages.
5. Ambiance/Seating. If you call sitting in an office building's open-air atrium-sort-of-thing ambiance, then they've got it. More importantly, there's seating, which is a hot commodity in these parts, and something that one is often forced to wait for during the 12-1:30 bracket. Not here. Just bundle up. It ain't warm out there.
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Quick and Friendly service (+1 Star)
Good lunch crepe but terrible dessert crepes. I had the New York which had salmon, cream cheese, tomatoes and capers. (+1 Star)
Great location with outdoor seating (+1 Star)
Someone needs to teach the cook how to make a dessert crepe. I went to this place on two different occasions. The first time I had the "Provence" which is Grand Marnier, butter, and brown sugar. The cook did not heat the crepe long enough to let the alcohol cook out so when I took a bite, it tasted like I was EATING a shot of liquor!
So I decided to give them one more chance and I got two dessert crepes that I thought would be safe: The "Marielle" (butter and brown sugar) and the Munich (lemon and sugar). Both were AWFUL!! The first one had about a 1/4 of an inch of brown sugar caked on and the cook did not let it sit long enough for the butter to melt into the sugar. It was like eating sand. The lemon crepe was ok but the sugar was also not dissolved and it was globbed up in the middle so that I had to go back to work and fix both crepes.
Seriously its a nice place but the cook needs to be re-trained or fired. Its not that hard to melt sugar into butter.
Eat here occasionally when I feel like crepes for lunch... always like the Brussels dessert even it's on the smaller side... Lunch ones such as Florence and Athens are good but I really like the New York crepe... the daily soup is usually pretty good too...
Also like the covered but bright outside seating even it's always a bit windy...
Today I decided to break out of my normal "lunch in the fidi" box and have some crepes.. yes two. . I like to eat unlike that dumb twig of a woman in front of me who ordered her salad "with the dressing on the side". Who the hell goes to a crepe place and orders a freakin salad?! Come on lady! My friend and I swam over to the next block. I'm surprised the storm didn't carry us away.. must have been the unusually LARGE umbrella I was carrying that saved us. Seriously though, you could fit a small family under this thing. You can only imagine the looks I get when I carry around a patio umbrella.
You can stand under my umbrella ella ella hey hey hey
Ok sorry.. got off in a tangent
I can't believe that people have bad things to say about this place. They obviously didn't try the nutella and banana crepe. Absolute heaven... if you believe in that sort of thing.
The warm savory breakfast crepes, which I've had many encounters with, bring a wonderful start to my long, pathetic, grueling, boring work day.
The lunch crepes aren't quite as amazing.. but for $5?? Come on you pay more than that for warmed up crap at McDonalds. I had the Athens (chicken, pesto, feta, and roma tomatoes) and it was yum. I admit the chicken was a little on the dry side.. but COME ON people it's $5!!! What the hell do you expect from the place with a little window you order out of.. don't expect a sommelier to pop out and suggest a pairing.. that's all I've got to say.
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I'm an unabashed crepe lover, not in a Biblical sense, rather in a culinary one. I wouldn't say Metro Crepes makes the best crepe I've had in SF, I love the location. Located right at Citigroup Plaza, you order right at the "stand" and are served up in under five minutes, from my experience.
There is seating indoors, but the outdoor marble patio is one of my favorite al fresco areas to lunch at, and it somehow elevates the simple crepe into an experience. Ok, slight exaggeration, but this is definitely a find.
Lunch crepes are pretty good, but the breakfast ones are better, and ordering a nutella and banana one as a snack or decadent lunchtime dessert is a good way to beat the worker drone blues.
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Metro Crepes has a nice little seating area outside Citicorp Center. Unfortunately it's exposed to the sun... and the wind... and the pigeons (a.k.a. flying rats).
My lunch crepe was good but not good enough to overcome the hurdles of eating outdoors for me to come back.
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Nutella on a Monday.
That is all...
OK not really....I have a little bit more to add.
Metro Crepes do not dole out the best crepes that I have ever had. In fact I found the crepes to be slightly rubbery, and it was evident that they had probably been re-heated.
But the turkey inside my San Francisco crepe was fresh and flavorful. The outside area of the 1Sansome building in which Metro Crepes is located, is lovely on a nice day, and the hot melted nutella which oozed out of my dessert crepe - was pretty spectacular and well worth a visit to Metro Crepes.
Now...that is all.
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I love their santa cruz and mill valley crepes. Salad is fine too. During breakfast time, you can order a small crepe with smaller portion and lower price. And, it's perfect to me so that I can still have some space for a cup of coffee or juice. It would only be available before 10:30am everyday.
Talk about "hit the spot".
I rarely eat breakfast, but on those chance occasions I always find myself coming here. The Palo Alto(smoked salmon, scrambled eggs, capers, creme cheese & tomatoes) is sooo yummy.
If you are not a crepe snob, then I suggest you stop by this place for a quick breakfast. Like i said, it really hit's the spot & doesn't sacrifice on flavor!
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Lunch places that serve food through a tiny window on the ground floor of a tall building rarely turn out to be 5-star restaurants. So, lower your expectations, and then lower them some more, and then head on over to Metro Crepes.
The only reason I even went to Metro is because it was close by and I didn't want to eat too much for lunch. I opted for the Thai crepe and a cup of chicken tortilla soup. Big mistake.
First of all, the gentleman taking my order at the window was not particularly friendly. He seemed annoyed that I decided to order soup, or didn't dress up, or didn't speak his language. Maybe he just had a really, really bad day. Who knows?
Anyway, I brought my soup and my crepe to my office. The soup was served in a Styrofoam cup, and the crepe was wrapped in foil, which make it look like a slice of pizza.
It was a cold day, so I was excited about the soup. As soon as I started pulling off that flimsy plastic lid off the Styrofoam container, at least 1/2 ounce of soup spilled all over my hands, desk and my polo shirt. You know that fine line between trying to fill your cup with soup and making sure it doesn't spill once you open it? Metro Crepes clearly doesn't!
Furthermore, I failed to understand what precisely made it a 'chicken tortilla' soup. Tortilla was nowhere to be found, and chicken (at least I'd like to believe it was chicken) was grated into the oblivion. If anything, they should call it 'chicken dust' soup, because that's what it looked and tasted like. Soup had no flavor and chicken tasted like sediment. Disgusting!
Now, on to the crepe. The Thai crepe was filled with chicken, cilantro, carrots, bean sprouts and peanut sauce. Sounds Thai, right? Wrong. Clearly, carrots must have been on sale that day, because I got a LOT of grated carrots in my crepe. Peanut sauce was hard to find, although chicken cubes were actually passable. The crepe itself tasted like vulcanized rubber with just a hint of brown sugar.
Yan G. says "Caveat Emptor!" You've been warned.
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I love these guys because they deliver to my office. They appeal to my laziness & my gluttony at the very same time.
Their selection is very good & they pack it very well...stays hot for a while.
Make sure you order some of the plain crepes with syrup for dessert.
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free coffee on monday mornings.
nutella and banana crepe, amazing.
despite the name, i love the L.A. crepe.
good salads too.
give it a try.
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I prefer their savory crepes to the sweet, and the salad's not bad either. pretty quick and friendly. unfortunately a long enough walk from the office that if i take it to go it's basically cold by the time i get to eat it. i recommend the plymouth rock.
Every Friday my company caters breakfast for us. From fatty goodies at Specialties to bagels and lox at Noahs. Today we had Metro crepes. My favorite is the Santa Cruz (scrambled eggs, cheese and sauteed mushrooms). While I still prefer yogurt and granola in the morning, I don't mind picking out the eggs and mushrooms from the crepe and having a hot breakfast.
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Lunch crepe was shockingly bad, and more then a little nauseating.
Crepe tasted ever so slightly rancid, while fillings were barely warmed.
Good place for a quick lunch. I love that they will substitute tofu for meat in any of their crepes. I never realized until today that they have both indoor and outdoor seating areas. I did get a wee bit windy while we were outside today. If I could change anything about the place, it would be the amount of "packaging". First the crepe goes into foil, then paper, and then plopped onto a paper tray. Too much waste. We shouldn't have this amount of garbage that will sit around for years after a 20 minute lunch.
Been craving crepes. Woke up early just to get some scrumptious goodness. Ordered the "Milan" (sauteed mushrooms and jarlsberg cheese). Not spit-out-of-your-mouth-after-one-bite horrible, but not scrumptious. The crepe was dry and tasted really eggy. And, the jarlberg cheese was too dry. They should try to use a more moist cheese.
Admittedly, the price isn't bad for someplace Downtown. $5.37.
So, I would like to give MC more props, as it were, as their lovely crepe delivery brightened up an otherwise uneventful friday at the office, but the crepes are really not super. The dulce de leche crepe is magical, but for real, who could screw up dulce de leche and a crepe? No one, is who. Anyway, the meal crepes I think are just a bit much, not very delicious, only acceptable. In short, crepes are delicious. MC's are fairly delish, but they ought to be. I should add that they are reasonably priced.
This place is fantastic. The setting is like a courtyard in a museum. The perfect informal meeting place or a great lunch date location (I took my wife there).
The crepes are good. They have a few "lunch" crepes. They are good, but don't expect to be filled up. A good light lunch.
Instead, I highly recommend this place for a mid-afternoon dessert crepe. Yummy! If you and a co-worker need to have a meeting, why not get outside and enjoy a crepe?
The strawberry crepes are super.
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I first met Assaf when I was slinging soup out the back of my subaru. He and his former partner John were awesome guys with great energy and some great healthy crepes. It's now Metro Crepes and Assaf is by himself but it's still rolling and hopefully it'll grow. I'm a firm believer in quick and convenient healthy lunch options. We need less McD's and more Metro Crepes in the world. If you're downtown, check them out at 1 Sansome or if you're in Oakland they're downtown at 12 st. I love the Mykonos crepe and for breakfast I used to get what now is called the Mill Valley.
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This place is cool, it's the middle of the citigroup plaza, so you eat surrounded by this giant marble gazebo with a fountain in it. i don't think there is such a thing as too many fountains.
They have wireless access, which is very awesome.
Course the gazebo thing makes it unpleasant to visit in the rain. i think you can go inside though.
Also the crepes are kind of expensive, but then what do you expect from crepes? If you want cheap crepes go buy a quesadilla.
The crepes are good and have all sorts of things in them. A cool place to go for lunch when there is sun.
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I tried the Athens and it was pretty good. Seeing as you order from a literal hole in the wall I had the expectation of a "hole in the wall", but then again, I like those sorts of places. It was about 1 minute between order and pickup, and the food wasn't bad for a quick lunch. This place loses a couple of stars for being on the pricey side for what you get and because the food itself was a three star lunch.
I've gone to this place during lunch several times. It's sort of like fast food crepes, but, MAN, they're good. The San Francisco seems to be the most popular, and good reason. The balance of flavors is great, but watch out for the bottom! I've had to go back to work with embarrassing stains on my slacks. Check it out for the good crepes, but you may want to avoid if you're any kind of crepe-snob.
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#*@&^#*@&# They re-warmed a crepe instead of making me a new one. There was no line or anything! They didn't want to spend 45 SECONDS making me a new one. WTF?#@*(@&
I give them two stars for having lemon & sugar crepes. I should only give them one since they put too much sugar on it, but I'm in a good mood.
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Okay, they have free wifi. That's the main reason why my crew congregated here for lunch. But in case you missed the memo, wifi alone will not sustain you through those afternoon work hours. If you're actually looking to eat something tasty, this is not the place.
I have now made two visits to Metro Crepes and both times I have been *completely* underwhelmed with the food. I will not be making a third trip to this establishment and here's why: the crepes are simply not real crepes. They are spongy and chewy and cold and bland. The toppings do not taste or look fresh. If I'm going to subject myself to questionable food, at the very least I want it to be cheap, and Metro Crepes fails the patented cheapness test.
So does my dislike of Metro Crepes make me a "crepe snob" as one other reviewer might suggest? Perhaps. Or maybe I'm just discerning with my lunchtime dollars. I'd rather support an establishment with better food. Period.
While I generally enjoy the Bangkok crepe, this place is hit or miss. Today it missed.
The best part about this place is the Las Vegas, which is listed on their menu as "any crepe and a spanking $25". I always sign my boss up for one and our secretary always forgets that it's a joke when she calls in the order. Ah, some things never get old....
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every now and then i'll get a craving for metro crepes' san francisco crepe. love the extra salt from the smoked turkey (i'm not a huge turkey sandwich eater but this is yum!), just the right amount of cheese & mushrooms, the tomatoes help me feel like i'm having somewhat of a healthy lunch, and the pesto sauce adds a nice kick. the crepe itself is bland and a bit rubbery compared to the typical "authentic" buckwheat crepe, but it will do - mainly, it's there to hold all the yummy goodness inside. the milan (just jarlsberg & mushrooms) is a bit too monotonous, and i haven't tried the dessert crepes - just yet. (although the las vegas intrigues me...)
tip - arm yourself w/ a knife & fork, or at least a tide pen for clean-ups - i can't imagine trying to pick a crepe up and eat it w/o dropping any of its contents!
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I love this place for one solid reason. The Berkeley Crepe!! Ta Da!!! The BEST Hangover crepe ever... This crepe has single handedly brought me back to functional life many a friday mornings. I don't know what kind of cheese they use but I think it's swiss which is wierd cuz I hate swiss. Anywhatsit.....I love this place and Richie is the crepe guy and he is uber nice and friendly. If you're lucky enough to remember to go in strawberry season they have a yummy crepe filled with berries and whipped cream...mmm. They also have a free small coffee on Mondays with your order.
8/14/07
Had the Athens crepe for lunch today. It was very tasty. Of course it's on the small side but if you eat this with a salad, it will do the trick. I think their lunch crepes are better than the dessert crepes.
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I ordered the Strawberries & Cream crepe and finished it feeling very underwhelmed. It was very bland. Crepe was kinda cold. For the money you pay, it's defnitely not worth it!
cool place to have your FiDi lunch. lots of seats in the One Sansome plaza, good peoplewatching, nice view, and relatively decent crepes and salads
order the philly cheese steak crepe, exactly like a real one without stuffing you full of bread. think kinda-sorta-atkins-philly-cheese-steak and you'll get the idea
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had the 'north beach' which is basically a pizza crepe. it was pretty good but i can see that if you don't eat it right away that it would get soggy very fast. it was cold outside so we ate in the marble area that looks like it used to be a bar. it was frankly cold environment for a rollicking crepe lunch.
i'll eat here again but with mild enthusiasm.
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For what it is, it is great. Grab a Barcelona crepe on the way to work and have a completely scrumptious experience. LOVE 'em.
Came here for lunch with a friend today. First of all, the Citigroup Plaza was totally closed off because of the protest that was happening on Market Street, so we had to go into the Citigroup building to get to the plaza. Then the security guard in the plaza kept telling us to go back in the building and leave. We were really confused. Why would we want to go back in the building and leave when we just wanted to get some food? We finally got it in his head that all we wanted was to buy some crepes. I ordered the Florence (which I actually really liked) and my friend ordered the Plymouth Rock (which she didn't like so much). Then we split a Madrid (which wasn't bad). Another problem was that they wouldn't let us sit in the plaza to eat (blocked off) so we had to go inside. Except it was such a beautiful day outside that we didn't want to be cooped up indoors. So we ended up going across the street and sitting outside the E-Trade building and watching to protest.
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several of my co-workers raved about this place and maybe it was the type of crepe i ordered (milan). f
* first: it wasn't even warm
* second: the crepe was super soggy because of the mushrooms
* third: it took forever and it was 1.15pm
although i had a bad experience with the crepe the side salad i got was wonderful. i'll have to try this place again and revisit this review.
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