FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - AS Opens Stunning SFO Alaska Lounge (7/24/2024)
Old Sep 3, 2024 | 12:51 pm
  #35  
jewree
All eyes on you!
10 Years on Site
 
Join Date: May 2014
Location: San Francisco, CA
Programs: Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Ambassador
Posts: 257
I visited just a week or so after it opened. Overall, it was a nice place to spend some time (which, for me, was abundant given flight delays), but besides the coffee (and the candy), the food and drink offerings weren't particularly compelling.

Setting

The space felt fairly large, given how few people were there. It really was quite tranquil.

Light filled high table. It was very bright, with tons of windows and views over the tarmac. There were a variety of styles of seating, but I appreciated the high counters along the window the most, so I could choose to sit or stand. Every single seat had power, but regular and USB.

Other seating types were these booths for two. There were also large 4 person diner-style booths.

I didn't visit the bar, but it too was an nice space. I think they feature some local beers as well.
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The bathrooms were really quite attractive, and had nice quality soap and lotion.

Food & Drink

Food and drink are mostly all self-serve, the exceptions being espresso drinks from a barista, or alcoholic drinks from the bar.

Coke Freestyle Machine. I was happy to see the Coke Freestyle machine, with a slew of choices. I tried 3-4 different drinks when I was there, and enjoyed them all. Flavored diet Sprite! Cream soda! So happy to have this.

Coffee / Tea. Self-serve robot machine coffee drinks and bags of tea were available, in addition to a staffed barista station. They even had nice touches like flavored syrups, mocha sauce, and more. I didn't try any.
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Two kinds of snacks were available: simple pretzel twists, or a Chex-ish mix with assorted seasoned Chex-like cereal, pretzels, little breadsticks, bagel chips, and darker rye? chips. I always love a snack mix, so this made me happy, although this wasn't a particularly remarkable mix.

Pancake Machine. The signature pancake machine was of course available, two of them in fact, no matter what time of day.

Soup. One soup and one vegetable broth were available.

Fried Rice. The lounge wasn't crowded. It was prime lunch time (12:08pm). And ... there was no fried rice. It took quite a while for it to be refilled. I didn't try it anyway.

Maple Sausage. I understand the pancakes all day, but the breakfast style sausage was a bit odd to see. I checked back even at 1:30pm to see if it was swapped out, but, nope. Sausage all day. It too was running low. The sausage was ok-ish. Not very flavorful sausage itself, but the maple glaze was decent.

"Grilled Vegetables". I had to laugh at the veggies. They were labelled as grilled. They were very much not grilled. They were warmed steamed vegetables, that were too soft, and basically like frozen grocery store mixed veg. Not very good at all.

Mystery ... Chicken? Later in the day, around 2pm, another entree was available. It wasn't labelled. I think it was something like General Tso's chicken maybe? I found it interesting that both this lounge, and the nearby also newly opened The Club, both had similar Asian chicken dishes. I didn't try this, as I had the one in the other lounge already.

Salad / Noodle Bar. The main buffet was a salad / noodle station. Meager offerings for both. Base of greens or ramen noodles (chilled), then chicken, tofu, tomatoes, mushrooms, beets, and a few other things. All cold. There was a quinoa salad and some dressings as well. I had a little salad, but it wasn't particularly fresh.
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More signature Alaska lounge offerings: local chocolate (Ghirardelli, squares, both dark or mint filled), Jelly Belly beans (blue and light green, not sure the flavors), and colorful fortune cookies. I did quite appreciate all of this.
Bread & Spreads. Later in the afternoon, two unlabeled spreads were put out next to the bread. One looked probably avocado based, and the other spinach dip maybe? I didn't try either. I assume the bread was SF sourdough.
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