Between flights last weekend, I had 2.5 hours in United’s SFO Polaris Lounge. How is it holding up one year later?
I’ve reviewed this lounge twice already…once during a media preview and again as a passenger. The lounge is spacious and comfortable, with amenities including a sit-down restaurant, buffet, sleeping rooms, showers, and private restrooms.
Oftentimes, things look wonderful at first but don’t age well. Would that be the case at the SFO Polaris Lounge? How was it one year later?
I’m happy to report the lounge is holding up just fine. I was there from about 5:00PM to 7:30PM and the lounge was in good shape, not crowded, and still quite excellent for a domestic U.S. lounge.
Most guests were clustered upstairs in the bar and dining area. The other half of the upstairs area was literally totally empty. Downstairs was also empty.
Restrooms now have Sunday Riley products.
The highlight of my visit was dinner in the restaurant. There was no wait for a table and we (my wife, son, and I) were promptly seated.
Here’s the current food menu:
I began with a wonderful “spring forward” salad that contained Granny Smith apples, dates, and mixed greens. The champagne vinaigrette was fabulous.
I enjoyed a gin basil smash with my meal.
For my main course, I had a wonderful cedar plank salmon with pea puree and sundered tomato relish. Seriously, this was one of the finest fish dishes I’ve ever had in a lounge.
Simply fabulous…
For dessert, I ordered a chocolate truffle cake (served warm) with ice cream. Again, it was fabulous.
I concluded my meal with a very nice cappuccino (the coffee in this lounge is far better than in the other Polaris lounges).
Throughout dinner, service was professional and (mostly) prompt (the dessert took a bit long to arrive…).
CONCLUSION
Here’s the bottom line: the food in this lounge is excellent and far better than what is served onboard. My recommendation is to eat here before your flight: you’ll enjoy a very nice meal. United’s SFO Polaris Lounge is holding up well.
Looking good – the salmon is a proper main
This menu looks much better than the previous one. SFO’s offerings were pathetic compared to other Polaris lounges. It’s good to see they’ve changed it up. Thanks for the updated report.
Was there for the first time two weeks ago. Four hours to use it between flights. Excellent facility, huge. I ordered the Polaris burger sans egg, bacon, cheese, aioli. Server asked how I wanted it cooked. I said medium. It came out just that. Delicious. Unlike what folks had posted over at Flyertalk with pictures showing well done every time. Perhaps UA read those reviews. Had the same salad – excellent, very tasty. No wait, servers friendly. A true gem in UA’s premium lineup. Used the showers and then the quiet lounge to sleep for an hour after the great lunch. Plenty of wide-open quiet space as Matthew reports on the first level, and at the end of the second livel opposite the dining area. Thanks, United!
Matthew – do you recall if the buffet food was the same as a year ago? I know the EWR PL buffet can use some rotation (perhaps seasonal rotation).
@Nick, I thought I had taken pictures of the buffet, but I either deleted them or did not take them. I’m sorry – the options have changed. A lot of Asian dishes, plus a nice salad bar like in United Club, cheese board with dried fruits and fresh strawberries, plenty of sweet treats.
I spent about 3 hours in this lounge last week connecting ICN-SFO-IAH (SFO-IAH was delayed). The showers were very refreshing. I found it somewhat annoying that the hot food was not put out on the buffet until sometime after 8 am local time even though the flights connecting from Asia start coming in before that. I know they have the sit down restaurant but I just wanted to grab some eggs or something and not go through a whole process. I also appreciated that the bar had “to go” style cups for coffee. I like to drink coffee slowly but the EWR Polaris lounge had told me on the outbound EWR-SFO-ICN that they had no to go cups with lids. I pointed out that even the regular United clubs have this and they just shrugged.
Indeed, eat at the Polaris lounge (perhaps with a negroni) and sleep on the plane. Well done United on this one.