Ella’s Restaurant

No wait to get in around 8am on a Friday morning, friendly and attentive server, simple but tasteful décor, solid coffee and absolutely *horrific* food.
Boyfriend ordered pancakes, eggs, and sausage and I ordered the country style sausage, toast, eggs and potatoes.
Our food came out very quickly but was room temperature at best. My thick toast was cold, my sausage was so hard that I had to saw, not cut through it, and my potatoes were room temperature. I was so desperate to try to enjoy something on my plate that I tried to pepper and ketchup my potatoes to make it edible. It was still terrible.
The food tasted like something that should have been served on an aluminum tray at a crappy pay by the pound place on an off street in a depressed Midwestern American manufacturing town. Hearty portions of sadness!
Boyfriend and I both ended up just eating our eggs. He didn’t even take two bites of his pancakes which says a lot, the man will eat Bisquick.
About $ 40 not including tip for two breakfasts and a coffee, of which only four eggs and the coffees were consumable.
I’m really thinking we may have just ordered the wrong things on the menu at the wrong time, if I could do it again I would have stuck to the pastries people seem to be raving about.
Unfortunately, I doubt I will be giving this place a second chance. The bit out of the ways location, difficult parking situation in the area and the trauma of the first breakfast makes this place somewhere I would not head over to again.
Our nice server will be the onl uh positive memory I have of this place.

Two friends and I were waiting for fourth member of our brunch party to arrive. A table was soon available, and they sat our incomplete party right away with no hassle. No hassle! Who knew such a thing was even possible at brunch in San Francisco! Later, when our waitress saw us trying to calculate who owed how much, she voluntarily — insistently, even — took the bill away and came back with separate checks. You’d think this kind of service must be too good to be true. Surely the food was terrible, right? Wrong! Everything tasted homemade and hearty and delicious. It was like eating breakfast at my grandma’s farm. Extra points for the homemade buttermilk biscuits. Get the Ella’s Plate to try a little bit of everything.

Breakfast. And an old SF presidio tradition. I remember when the only places to have a great breakfast in the city were Ella’s, Mama’s, or Dottie’s. In fact, Ella’s was basically considered the Mama’s of this part of town. There was no Brenda’s, no Sweet Maple, no Plow. In other words, there wasn’t quite so much competition.
Today, there are too many breakfast/​brunch spots to count. Isn’t 25 Lusk even doing brunch now for chrisakes?! But even so, Ella’s is still straight up solid.
Unless you go at the absolute peak times (weekend mornings), the wait should be a small one (unless you are w a large group). The last couple of times I was here, we were seated in less than 15 minutes. But there wasn’t a line. If you see a line out front, of course you’ll need to count on a substantially longer wait.
I ordered lemon ricotta pancakes, & they were fabulous! Light, fluffy, lemony. I tried to order them on another visit, but they weren’t on the menu that day. Bummed, I went w the regular pancakes instead, & I was not disappointed. So pancakes here are a sure bet.
Then, there are the stellar baked goods. Croissants, biscuits, coffee cake… all noteworthy. But, it’s the sticky bun that’s the star. A must order.
Ella’s is a classic, & still a good hit.
3 & ½ stars.

Ella’s in Laurel Heights was recommended as a personal suggestion and is a great spot for weekend brunch. They also serve breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday, but I’ve only been here for weekend brunches when I’m in town.
This restaurant serves basic comfort food made with fresh ingredients. The breads served here are handmade from scratch in the restaurant. They are so good that even the most dedicated low-​carb dieter will have to have a taste. The brunch menu changes from week to week, but the same items will come up every couple weeks or so. The interior is very cozy. Brunch can get crowded, so you may have to wait!

Ella’s has promise but in my repeated visits here, it has never delivered. The food seems like it is about to make the leap from decent to very good, but it doesn’t. The server seems like s/​he is about to come by to check and see how you are doing, but s/​he doesn’t. The chicken pot pie that your friend is served without a pie crust seems like it should be more than a bowlful of chicken stew, but it never will be.
That pie crust is the magic ingredient that makes a chicken pot pie something good. And a chicken pot pie served without pie crust (the kitchen just ran out, we were told) is a perfect metaphor for what’s wrong with Ella’s.
If they can get it together, from the kitchen to the waitstaff, this place could be very good. Instead it’s just okay and the prices belong somewhere much better.

Awesome neighborhood brunch place. Huge portions! Always very kind.