Alaska Airlines Lounge, SFO

Update Review, August 2024

In late July 2024, Alaska Airlines moved into Terminal 1 at SFO, and with that, opened up a new lounge.  I got to visit 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.

Seating.

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

Bar.

I didn't visit the bar, but it too was an nice space.  I think they feature some local beers as well.

Bathrooms.

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.

Snacks.

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.  Meh.  **.

Candy.

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.

Original Review, August 2023

This was my first experience of any Alaska Airlines lounge.  I've only flown with Alaska Airlines once before, when I flew SFO-SEA, which you can read about here, and didn't qualify for lounge access then.  This time, I was flying long haul, to New York, and thus, a chance to check out the lounge.

The lounge in SF is known to be one of the nicer ones in their network, having opened only last year, and pretty restrictive about who is allowed in (no more priority pass, no domestic First Class unless flying 2100+ miles in a single flight, etc).  There were only a handful of passengers there when I visited, even though it was what I'd expect to be a fairly peak time, 12:15pm on a Tuesday.

I wouldn't say the lounge is worth going out of your way for, but it seemed much nicer than most domestic lounges, certainly many notches above the United Club or American Airlines Admiral's Club.

The Space

Fireplace, Open Seating.

The lounge is pretty impressive when you walk in.  Large, spacious, well lit with large windows overlooking the planes outside.  Firepit in the center, and wing chairs all around.  A quite inviting space.

Dining Area & Bar.

There are also ample dining tables, and a bar with seating.  Again, very spacious, and sparkly populated.

Food & Drink

Candy Bar.

I was excited for one unique feature of this lounge: the candy bar!  Located right when you enter, with little bags provided to encourage you to take some sugar for the road.

Much of this was just a display however, with only the bottom row actually accessible.  The candy was mostly local: Ghirardelli chocolate squares, Jelly Belly beans, and the Oakland Fortune Cookie Factory fortune cookies.  And M&Ms.  I was slightly annoyed that the only color/flavor Jelly Beans were yellow (lemon?).  Still, this was a nice offering, better than most US domestic lounges.  ***+.

Bar Snacks.

Located up at the bar was two jars of snacks, one was just lightly salted peanuts, the other a mix, with some things I liked (rice crackers!), and lots of things I wasn't too into (cheddar goldfish-like things, pretzels, almonds), and some I was impartial to (bagel chips).  As an avid snack lover though, I was happy to see these.  ***.

Toast Cart.

Right near the front of the lounge is the other signature experience ... the toast cart.  Like the candy bar, it too features a local product, Acme Bread.  Sadly for me, it only had sourdough, and I don't care for sourdough.  Still, Acme bread is quite good bread, and this is a very unique offering.

To go with the bread was two spreads, sundried tomato hummus and lemon basil cream cheese, along with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  When it launched, they had burrata and avocado, clearly both higher end and more trendy, but alas, down to kinda meh spreads for my visit.  I did try both, and they were about as expected, nothing special.  ***.

Cold Cuts, Cheese, Salads.

The main buffet has some not very interesting cold cuts and cheese, plus more hummus, waldorf salad (that at first glance looked like potato salad and I was excited), and grapes and strawberries.  And ketchup, mustard, and mayo, that made me really wish there were hot dogs around.  Sliced bread was available to make a sandwich.

The strawberries weren't particularly flavorful, but were a surprise to see.  The waldorf salad was fine, with apples, bits of dried cranberry, creamy dressing that was not over dressed.  I didn't try anything else.  **+.

Salad Toppings.

The other side was makings for salads, although fairly meager.  Walnuts, chicken, grape tomatoes, egg, onions, cheese, and more strawberries (this time sliced), and some dressings.  The sign encouraged us to make our own "summer salad".

Salad Base.

The salad base was romaine and spinach, relatively fresh.  It looked a bit odd on a platter.  Croutons on the side.

Hot Items.

Next came the two hot items, which I thought would be soup, but actually were more exciting than that: vegetarian chili and mac and cheese.  No cheese, sour cream, or anything interesting to garnish the chili, besides the crackers on the side.  Still, better than your standard lounge soups.

Macaroni & Cheese.

The child in me went right for that mac and cheese.  It wasn't that bad, really.  Quite creamy, quite cheesy.  Not very fresh, but, pretty comforting, and far better than average domestic lounge grub.

***+.

Desserts.

The dessert lineup was your standard lounge offerings: cookies and brownies.  Two kinds of cookies, chocolate chip and oatmeal.  They looked hard and not interesting.  I tried the brownie because it had two kinds of chocolate, big chunks and disks, which was fine.  ***.

Biscoff packaged cookies were hiding up by the barista station as well.

Breakfast Leftovers.

It was afternoon when I visited, but they had breakfast leftovers on the side, with a couple banana nut muffins, a sole bagel (with cream cheese packed with it), and english muffins (with butter), along with a toaster, Smucker's jam, and Peanut Butter & Co peanut butter.  Peanut Butter & Co still makes my favorite peanut butter (the White Chocolate Wonderful flavor, which I've reviewed before), so I was happy to see that, rather than more common brands (although it was just the Smooth Operator variety).

Pancake Machine.

And of course, the pancake machine, which is operational at all times of day.  Syrup was available to go with.

Brewed coffee (regular and decaf), along with hot water and tea completed this station.  At the bar, you could also order made to order espresso drinks, which I did.  The decaf Americano was shockingly good.