La Trappe Cafe & Trappist Lounge

No Longer In Business

Stumbled onto this while heading to the BART and had to stop. Small number of taps with some unique beers- a French Red ale, a Swiss ale and of course Belgian. Really good bottle list.

In a part of a beer-crazed city where there’s a slight dearth of craft beer focused places, La Trappe is even that much better. Cozy downstairs bar, real variety on tap, HUGE variety in the bottle, excellently prepared Belgian-style menu, and likely the most eloquent beer descriptions on a menu that I’ve ever seen. Seriously - if you’re up in Fishermen’s wharf (which for the most part, if you are a Ratebeer person and you’re in SF, you won’t be, but if you’re 90% of the other visitors to this fine city, you will be), this is a must-stop. Occasionally, I run into high-price weeks at hotels in other parts of SF, and end up in the Wharf, and it’s always my last stop (sometimes my only stop) when that happens. The food is belly-busting and very, very good. The beer list won’t have the breadth of local CA offerings you’ll find elsewhere in the city, but it’s a little slice of Belgium incarnate.

I had a great time here during an event for San Francisco beer week. Friendly and attentive staff, good selection, and nice decor/ambiance. I didn’t get food but what other people were getting looked good.

Nice place. Food was good. went downstairs to have some beer on tap. nice bar seating, very roomy but wasn’t too full. The tap list was awesome, they really have a lot going on here.

Brick-filled cellar - nice-looking place. Huge selection of nearly 100% Belgian-style ales. A few stray non-Belgians in there too. Food is good. Pricey beers - the only thing that’s not fantastic about this place. Great service.

not the easiest place to get to, tap list was a bit lame, most of the low end Belgians, not really interesting, lame selection of locals. Food was just OK.

Good food, huge rare Belgian selection. Service is okay, but struggles to keep up with the heavy business. Basement bar and dining area is extremely comfortable and inviting once you manage to get yourself situated. If I lived nearby this is a place iId probably want to go to all the time but wouldn’t due to the crowds and slow service.

Had dinner here a while back. Upstairs (street level) there isnt much to see. It’s a cafe style place that looks fairly typical of SF. Downstairs though is pretty neat. There is a lounge area where you can sit and wait for a table or just hang out and then the restaurant is further back into the mountain.

Bottle list is good (lots of lambics), food is good (had the rabbit stew), service is good, but the prices are out of control. Price wasnt an issue at this dinner so I ordered a little bottle of Hanssens Gueuze and paid $20 for it. My dinner was hair under $50.

Might go back to just grab a pint at the bar or split a bottle of lambic with someone but I dont see myself dropping that kind of money at this place too often.

6th Feb 2013: my wife and I visited the basement. We could only have a table if eating, (the place was very full) as the wife doesn’t like sitting at the bar we were shown to a small unlit square at the rear. I had to stand by the kitchen corridor to read the beer menu it was so dark where they put us, smart, modern, comfortable but just too dark. The barman helped a lot, but not one American beer I wanted on the menu was in stock (I visit Belgium often, so wasn’t really interested in that selection, huge though it was), so I had three Canadian beers. All in good condition. The food looked good from where we sat and as I blocked the service corridor beer searching I got a closer look on occasions. All in all a cool place, busy and friendly staff, just a pity about their US selection stock.