Best Dim Sum in San Francisco: Cheap Counters to Cart Service

San Francisco has been eating dim sum since the 1880s and the city still does it in two completely different registers. There is the two-dollar takeout counter with a line on the sidewalk, and there is the white-tablecloth banquet room where a cart comes to your table. Both are worth doing. Which one you want depends mostly on how much time and money you have.

What Is the Best Dim Sum in San Francisco?

For the best cheap dim sum, Good Mong Kok Bakery at 1039 Stockton Street in Chinatown. It is a takeout counter under an orange awning with a line most of the day, everything is sold by the piece, most items are under two dollars and you will feed two people for ten. There is nowhere to sit. Buy a bag and walk two blocks to Portsmouth Square.

For the best sit-down dim sum, Yank Sing at 49 Stevenson Street in SoMa. It has been open since 1958, it is the city’s grand old dim sum room, and it is expensive: budget thirty-five to fifty dollars a head. What you get for that is consistently excellent xiao long bao, scallop siu mai and proper service.

For the best of both, the Richmond District. Hong Kong Lounge at 5322 Geary Boulevard and Dragon Beaux at 5700 Geary do cart or order-sheet service at prices between the two extremes, and they are where a lot of San Francisco families actually go on a Sunday.

How Do the Main Dim Sum Restaurants Compare?

Is Chinatown or the Richmond Better for Dim Sum?

Chinatown is better for the cheap counters and for the walk that comes with it. The Richmond is better for a sit-down meal: newer rooms, more space, easier parking, and the restaurants along Geary Boulevard are where the city’s Chinese families go when they want a proper weekend lunch. Clement Street between about 2nd and 12th Avenues is the best single street in the city for wandering between bakeries.

Is Dim Sum Good with Children?

It is one of the best restaurant meals in the city for children, for three reasons. Food arrives immediately and keeps arriving, so there is no hungry waiting. Everything is small and hand-sized. And the rooms are loud enough that nobody minds a noisy table; a busy dim sum hall on a Sunday runs at a volume that makes a toddler’s contribution irrelevant.

Safe first orders for a cautious eater: char siu bao, the fluffy white barbecue pork buns; egg tarts; plain rice noodle rolls; and steamed chicken feet, which are excellent and which most children will decline with great interest. Cart service is easier than an order sheet with children because you can point.

When Should You Go, and Do You Need a Reservation?

Peak dim sum is 11am to 1pm on Saturday and Sunday, and at peak you will wait. Go at 10am or after 1.30pm and you will walk in almost anywhere. Yank Sing and Dragon Beaux take reservations and it is worth making one for a weekend group of four or more. The takeout counters take nobody’s reservation and the line is the whole system.

Which Dim Sum Places Have Closed or Moved?

Three worth knowing, because old guides and old map pins still send people to them. Ton Kiang on Geary closed on 30 August 2020 after forty-two years. Hong Kong Lounge II on Geary closed after a fire and has reopened under a new name, HK Lounge Bistro, at 1136 Folsom Street in SoMa. It is small and wants a reservation. And City View has moved: it is now at 33 Walter U. Lum Place in Chinatown, opposite Portsmouth Square, not at its old Commercial Street address.

Correction, 1 October 2026: this guide placed Yank Sing at 101 Spear Street (Rincon Center). Yank Sing’s own site says its lease there has ended and lists only 49 Stevenson Street. It also said Ton Kiang closed in 2019; the restaurant’s own closing notice, reported at the time, gave 30 August 2020.

Prices and hours were checked in September 2026 and can change, so confirm before you go. We take no payment for inclusion.