Affordable SF restaurant goes viral

The first time I tried to eat at Pink Onion, I gave up. 

I’d been lured to the tiny Italian restaurant in the Mission by TikTok — as had everyone else crowded on the sidewalk waiting for a table. After being quoted a three-hour wait, my partner and I exchanged a look of horror, tucked our tails and left.

A few months ago, Pink Onion went viral on social media for a dinner combo deal that seemed too good to be true: an appetizer, pasta, pizza and dessert that feeds 2 to 3 people, all for $55. And on Wednesdays, they throw in a free bottle of wine, too. 

One video from an SF food influencer asking, “Why is no one talking about this?” racked up more than 200,000 views on Instagram; another from Bay Area rapper Grand-O declaring he’s “Taking ALL My Shawties Here” has 122,000 views.

My mistake was trying to go on a Wednesday — San Francisco loves free wine. Reservations at Pink Onion are almost completely booked out for Wednesdays for the foreseeable future, so unless you walk in right at opening time, you’re probably out of luck. 

But it wasn’t always this way. 

“Until a couple of months ago, it was still very neighborhoody,” said co-owner Matthew Coric. “… It was full and kind of like a party atmosphere, but you could definitely walk in on a Wednesday.”

Despite their newfound social media popularity, Coric said they haven’t actually seen a significant effect on their business. Since Pink Onion is a small restaurant with only about 30 seats, they were already at max capacity, regularly churning out 250 combo meals every Wednesday. The main change is that it’s attracted a lot of newcomers, he said. 

TikTok and Instagram may have just found out about Pink Onion, but Coric and his wife and Pink Onion co-owner Nallely Quintero Udave have been offering the $55 combo meal for years. Coric couldn’t remember exactly when they started it, but it was definitely during the heart of the pandemic. 

“It was a weird time — you weren’t allowed to go to restaurants,” he said. “We did this as a way to send a nice dinner to people who lived in our neighborhood. That’s how it started.” 

But even when pandemic restrictions were lifted, they kept it up — the neighborhood loved it too much to stop. Now, the real question: Do they actually make any money off this deal?

“I don’t think so,” said Coric, laughing. “But you know what? I think most restaurants would say this: How much money are you actually making on a Wednesday anyway? And we’re not losing money.”

As far as financing the free wine goes, Coric said he’s usually able to find a good deal by buying wines his regular vendors need to liquidate, or by purchasing wines from countries that offer good value for a lower price, like Spain, Portugal, Argentina or Chile.

While I would have loved a free bottle of wine, booking a Wednesday dinner at Pink Onion was not in the cards for me. So my partner and I returned on a Saturday night, this time with a reservation. 

We were seated immediately, the buzzy restaurant only just beginning to fill up for the night. Sitting across from a painting of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enjoying a pizza together, we dipped our free flatbread into balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Next to us, a guy bragged to his friend about how he totally knew about this place before it blew up on TikTok. 

For our combo meal, we settled on the tangy, refreshing Pink Onion salad with romaine, goat cheese, berries, toasted pecans and blood orange vinaigrette to start, then the Pesto di Pistachio — an incredibly rich, creamy pesto pasta made with ricotta and fresh whole wheat pasta from Bayview Pasta in the Dogpatch.

By the time the thin-crust pizza arrived, equal parts airy and crunchy and heaped with punchy toppings, we were already getting full. We ordered the Magic Mushroom, made with mozzarella, tomato sauce, crimini mushrooms, truffle oil and prosciutto. If you’re assuming you’d get a skimpy four-course meal for $55, you’d be wrong: The salad was overflowing, the pasta endless, and the pizza a full 12 inches. 

We barely put a dent in the dreamily fluffy tiramisu, which helpfully came in a plastic takeout container (it seems leftovers aren’t unusual). The remainder of the pasta and pizza fed my partner and I each an entire second meal the next day. Even though we had to pay for our own drinks ($6 for a beer, $9 for a glass of wine), the check was still quite cheap considering it left me so full I could barely form a coherent sentence: $70 before tax and tip. 

The food at Pink Onion was unpretentious, but it was damn good. My partner even declared he preferred this more homey grub to a very popular, fancy SF Italian restaurant we’d recently eaten at for a special occasion. As Pink Onion declares on its menu, “Our pizzas aren’t coal fired, and they don’t have an egg on it. We offer an authentic casual fine dining without the BS.” 

Fortunately, Coric has no plans to stop offering the combo deal anytime soon, although he conceded he might have to bump it up by $5 at some point to not lose money. 

“When we started our restaurant, it wasn’t to get rich,” he said. “We really want to be part of the neighborhood and give back. And $55 is still not free. I know we’re in San Francisco and things are more expensive here, but we honestly do it more because it just makes people happy.”

Pink Onion, 64 14th St., San Francisco. Open daily 4 to 10 p.m.