United Club, SFO

I've visited the rather lackluster United Club a couple times, both morning and evening.  The only real highlight is the snack mixes.  And candy, when they have it, but I think that may be entirely removed now. Start below for my original reviews.

Update Review - December 2024 Visit

Another visit to the bigger location near the rotunda.  I was satisfied with this visit.

Snack Mixes: Chocolate/almond/dried fruit, corn nuts, dried fruit.

United generally has decent snack mixes, and I love snack mixes, so I love that they have them as the first thing you encounter when you enter.

This lineup was a bit boring however.  The corn nuts were good, fresh, crispy ***.  Dried fruit average, not what I wanted.

The one that let me down was the mix that said it had chocolate covered espresso beans (and dried fruit and almonds).  It did have those later two things, but ... every chocolate covered thing I encountered was a raisin.  BOOO.  That said, the almonds in particularly were strangely good, and the dark chocolate hunks in here were high quality.  ***+.

The second snack station over by the bar had the same offerings, another slight disappointment, as usually they have something different over there.

BBQ Rolls.

The main entree selection of the day was a build-your-own bbq sliders station, that they called, "bbq rolls", featuring Hawaiian buns as the base, two hot filling choices, and coleslaw.

The Hawaiian rolls were soft, not stale, and enjoyable.  ***.

Pulled Pork, Vegetable Succotash.

The hot options to stuff inside (or eat alongside) were pulled pork that actually smelt great, and a corn succotash.  The pulled pork was tender and flavorful (although fairly generic bbq sauce flavor), but was a bit greasy for my taste.  **+. 

Nacho Bar.

The nacho bar had standard chips, salsa, sour cream, guac, etc.  The slaw for the sliders was hiding here too.  

The slaw was very classic slaw, mayo based, and I liked it well enough.  Fresh, crispy, not drowning in dressing but well dressed.

Noodle & Salad Bar.

The main food station had a noodle bar that people seemed really into, with add-ins that could also easily morph into salad bar toppings, made even more easily given their placement side by side.  This area had a second, totally different, coleslaw as well, this one with apples, and more mustardy flavor.  I preferred the classic slaw from the pulled pork station.  The salad greens were fresh and crisp enough.  Pretty standard salad bar offerings.  ***.

There was also a section of pre-made sandwiches that I failed to take a photo of, and chicken orzo soup.

Cheese, Crackers, Desserts.

The final station was the generic cubes of cheese and assorted crackers, along with desserts.

Almond Toffee Blondies.

Rather than the standard cookies and brownies, they had blondies with attractive big hunks of chocolate in them.

Apple Cinnamon Crisp Bar.

I was delighted to see the apple crisp (although mislabelled as a apple cinnamon crisp bar).  They do sometimes have the soft, mushy, pretty awful apple crisp bars in this lounge, that I always lament, because they have such good apple cobbler style cake on board some flights.  So real fruit crisp?  Sounded great.

It was served in a vessel as if it should be warm, but it was not.  It was still decent - nice size hunks of apple, not too mushy, well spiced, tons of streusel on top.  I wanted some whipped cream to go with, and I wanted it warm, but, really, this was a nice surprise.  ***.

Update Review - January 2024 Visit

This visit was to the larger location near the Rotunda.

I had extra time before my international flight, so I took the opportunity to wander over to the bigger United Club in the rotunda area.  I hadn't visited that one in a while.

Overall it was the same as any previous visit, and not noteworthy.  Basic salad/sandwiches/chips and salsa/soup of the day, yadda yadda, but I was still pleased to find a different mix of snacks and candy than the Polaris lounge, the Coke Freestyle machine with a huge array of options, and, shockingly good cooked plantains?

Snacks!

Not fancy, but, the corn nuts, wasabi peas, and Jelly Belly beans all made me pretty happy.  In particular, I really do like their wasabi peas, they are really well coated with nice kick to them.

Caramel Apple Bars.

Besides the basic cookie and brownies they had the same caramel apple bars that the smaller lounge had my last visit, and I forgot I didn't like.  Oops.  Yeah, just mush. These are shockingly bad. *.

Cuban Pork?

The hot dish was more interesting than the standard meatballs or pasta this time.  Reasonable looking cuban pork, with beans and ...

Plantains!

Plantains!

They really were pretty good, nicely cooked, not too mushy, light seasoning.  A surprise to find in the basic United Club.  I wished for some whipped cream to take them in a dessert direction though ... ***+.

Update Review - Nov 2023 Visit. 

This visit was to the smaller location near the G gates in the International Terminal.

Clam Chowder.

The soup of the day was clam chowder, something I seem to frequently try in airline lounges.  I blame the The Lounge in Boston, where I once had actually quite good clam chowder.  Ever since then, I seem to get drawn in to it, even though most version aren't very good.

This was no different.  It was at least reasonably thick and creamy, but, I didn't taste nor find any clams.  Mine had a few small bits of potato.  It definitely needed seasoning.  No reason to eat this.  No crackers to go with.  **+.

Update Review May 2024: I like clam chowder.   I often like airline lounge clam chowder even.  This was ... a nice, thick, rich chowder.  But ... clam?  I didn't find any clams.  I didn't taste any clams.  I didn't really taste much of anything.  It was woefully under-seasoned.  It did have some hunks of soft potato and celery.  But wow, it needed salt, pepper, sriracha, and, well, clams.  **+.  

Beef Meatballs.

The main entree was beef meatballs in red sauce.  I'm not entirely sure what you were supposed to do with them ...

Bread and Cheese.

The rest of the meatball station had slices of bread and shredded cheese, so I think you were supposed to kinda make meatball sandwiches?  

Pesto Tofu.

But for vegetarians, this station had pesto tofu, which seems kinda weird to put on bread slices.  The station mostly seemed like it was missing pasta (and additional sauce).  

Sandwiches.

The other main dish was sandwiches, either a vegetarian curried chickpea wrap with hummus, veggies, and more, or a pastrami reuben on marble rye.  If I was actually wanting food, I do like a reuben, and nearly tried it.

Cheese & Fruit.

The cheese and cracker selection was more pedestrian than the Polaris lounge version, and no meats on offer, but it was kept better stocked.  They also had fresh grapes rather than dried fruit.  The grapes were fine.

Salad Bar.

The salad bar was more meager than the Polaris lounge version. 

Nachos & Toppings.

However the chips and salsa lineup was more extensive, with fresh jalapeno and onions, sour cream, and even guac.

Snacks.

The snack dispenser lineup was different from past visits.  Today it had savory corn nuts and wasabi peas, and Jelly Belly jelly beans.  I had the wasabi peas in the Polaris lounge, but snagged corn nuts (average, good crunch, not stale, nice salt level) and plenty of Jelly Belly beans here.  ***+.

Caramel Apple Bars.

Shockingly the dessert was not token cookies, but rather, caramel apple bars.  So seasonally appropriate.  Given that I've enjoyed the apple pie on recent United flights, I gave this a try, hoping it would be the same vendor (Eli's Cheesecake).

This was far less good.  Fairly mushy all around - mushy apples, mushy topping.  Relatively strong spicing.  I didn't like this much.  **.

Pumpkin Swirl Cake.

This looked *exactly* like the pumpkin swirl cake I had last year from Boudin.  I didn't like theirs and had little hope for this.  It was a little better than the Boudin one, this at least was moist, and had a decent pumpkin flavor.  To me though it needed to be warm with ice cream, or with whipped cream or icing to be a dessert.  It seemed more like a breakfast coffee cake.  **+.

S'mores Bar (May 2024).

It was ... fine?  But much like s'mores, I don't really care for the elements.  Gooey marshmallow, dominant graham crumble, minor chocolate element.  It ate very dry. **.

Update Reviews - Early 2023 Visits

Snack Mixes.

Three different snacks were available, different from the ones I had in the Polaris lounge: "Super charged cranberry blend", M&Ms, and another seed and nut mix dubbed "healthy trail mix".

I tried the trail mix (mostly sunflower seeds), and the super charged mix, which at least had some reasonable quality dark chocolate chunks and yogurt covered raisins.

Nacho Bar.

I'm sure some people are excited by the nacho bar, but, I didn't try anything.  

Sandwiches.

The sandwiches are generally lower quality here than in the Polaris lounge, e.g. on this day one was ham here, and it was prosciutto there.

Cheese / Crackers / Cookies / Brownies.

The cheeses and crackers are also a notch below the quality in Polaris lounge, and the desserts are usually just chocolate chip cookies and brownies.

Peach Cobbler.

I did discover a hidden treat though - in the back corner of the lounge, near the coffee and tea station, was ... peach cobbler?!  These came pre-portioned in cardboard cups.  Of course I had to try one.

It actually wasn't bad ... soft but not too mushy peaches, generous sweet crumble.  It was served at room temperature, and without any toppings, but I think if it was warm, and/or had whipped cream or ice cream to go with it, it would be pretty good.  I think you could throw yogurt on it and call it breakfast too.  A nice surprise, but at room temperature with no accompaniment it was only ok.  ***.

Update Reviews - 2022 Visits

There are several United Clubs at SFO, I first stopped by the bigger one, near F gates.  It is considerably bigger than the one in the International Terminal G gates.  There are far more seats, and a few more food options.  However, I wouldn't call it a particularly nice lounge.  Besides soup, there is no hot food.

Sandwiches.

Basic pre-made sandwiches with lower end ingredients than the Polaris lounge are the main dish.

Salad Bar.

A basic salad bar with lackluster looking ingredients comes next.  They did have some kind of marinated chickpea salad to add on for protein.

Chips & Salsa.

Perhaps slightly unique is a nacho-ish making station, with corn tortilla chips, salsa, pico de gallo, beans.  Sadly, no cheese, a vat of nacho cheese would really help improve this offering!

I did try the pico de gallo and it really was not good ... it didn't taste fresh at all.

Minestrone Soup.

The token hot item, vegetarian minestrone soup.

Cookies.

Cookies were large, and looked ok actually, but they were not as soft as they looked, weren't particularly buttery not sugary, just, highly mediocre.  **.

Brownies / Fruit / Cheese Cubes.

They also had some dry looking brownies, juicy enough grapes, and little cheese cubes.  The Polaris lounge had slightly nicer cheeses and more cracker options.

Update Review - Late 2019 Visit

Although I had access to the far fancier Polaris Lounge, I decided to check out the United Club as well, mostly because it was closer to my gate, and I was hoping that they might have more snack-style things, which is what I was in the mood for.

The feel really was dramatically different between the two lounges - here the furnishings are blah, the space crowded, but, I just wanted to swing by the food station anyway, and that really was a bit more my style.

The buffet has no substantial food offerings, just soup (minestrone) and a salad bar (more significant than the Polaris one, actually), but features potato salad, that I really did kinda like.  Nothing special, grocery store quality, but the potatoes were not soft and mushy, it was really creamy and loaded with mayo and well seasoned ... it was my kind of potato salad.

Snack Station.

The real exciting thing for me though of course was the snack station.  The snack station that even featured little candy bags, and a sign that said "What's better than snacks? Snacks to go!".  Yes, yes, a lounge was actually *encouraging* me to take their snacks!!!

The lineup was not all that exciting, banana chips, the same honey mustard pretzels as the other lounge, generic looking hard style chocolate chip cookies and brownie cubes, and ... Mike and Ike's? Or something that sure looked and tasted like Mike and Ike.  

I was not sad to suddenly have a bag of chewy candy and loaded up on Mike and Ike's.

Hot Chocolate Station.

And then .... the best part ... the hot chocolate station!

No, not because I wanted hot chocolate.  But because it was basically a topping station.  Whipped cream!  Sprinkles!  Mini chocolate chips!  Marshmallows.  And ... togo cups.  Again, "take me away!" it screamed out.

So I did.  I knew my flight would have ice cream, so I got my toppings here in the lounge, and brought them on board.  I had a killer sundae on my flight, and was quite pleased with myself. 

Original Reviews 2018-2019

Morning (April 2019, 9:30am visit)

The lounge was bigger than I remembered, with plentiful seating.  A snack station, several drink stations, small food buffet, bar.

Breakfast options are what you expect.  Basic, not high quality, but there.

Snack Station.

Right when you enter is a station with the essentials: water, coffee, snack mix, pretzels, goldfish, banana chips, cookies.

I immediately grabbed a cup of snack mix, as I do just love this stuff.  I was pleased to see sesame sticks in the mix.  I discovered later it was kinda bbq flavored, which certainly wasn't an appeal to me.

Oatmeal.

Hot oatmeal, with basic mix-ins.

Fruit / Yogurt / Granola.

A small yogurt/fruit/granola station.

Cold Cereal.

A small cereal station, including fruit loops!

Fruit.

Whole fruit, nothing out of the ordinary.

Bagels, Toast, Toppings.

A toaster was available to toast bread and bagels, basic plain cream cheese, butter, and Smuckers jams on the side.

Pastries.

Mini muffins, pastries, and quickbreads of several varieties were available.  I don't know why I bothered try one, I think I was bored, so I took a custard danish.  The custard was fine, but the danish itself was exactly as expected, not flaky, and not actually good.  Maybe better than one served on board.

Illy Coffee Machine.

Several self-service coffee machines are distributed around, in addition to the vats of pre-brewed regular only.  I was pleased to see decaf available, but it was really quite horrible.  I left the lounge to find a Peets nearby.

Coca-Cola Freestyle.

The self-service soft drink machine was one of the Coke freestyle machines, with some fun options like all flavors of flavored Sprite Zero, but ... it wasn't working, vending only plain water, and only a thimble full at a time.  Sigh.

Hot Chocolate Station.

The hot chocolate station was cute, it had sprinkles (!) and mini marshmallows and mini chocolate chips.  No whipped cream.  At least this was unique.

Evening - 2018

No, I wasn’t flying United.  I don’t do that.  But I was flying with Air New Zealand, and unlike my last flight where we used the Singapore Airlines Kris lounge this time my only option was the United Club.  Which was under construction, as they were building the fancy Polaris lounge.

Underwhelmed.

Let’s just say … my expectations weren’t high, and, well, it still underwhelmed.

Lounge Seating.

The lounge was much smaller than I anticipated.  And it was very full.  There was literally no seats.  We were told to share tables with other guests.  The bathrooms were nice enough, stalls with real doors, and nice quality soap and lotion.  No showers.

This was not a space I wanted to spend any time in.  The main terminal was more tranquil.

Drink Fridge.

I mostly went to the lounge to check it out, and get a drink.  A self-serve fridge was stocked with bottles of beer and Schweppes drinks (tonic, club soda, ginger ale). 

Soda Fountain and Hard Alcohol.

A soda fountain had classic soft drinks.  There were some basic wines and hard alcohol, all self serve.  All fairly standard offerings for an international lounge.

Coffee.

A coffee machine had Illy coffee, and there was some pre-brewed as well.

Soup, Salad Greens.

The only hot item was soup, a single variety (vegetable).  Next to it was base greens for making salad.

Rolls.

Some stale looking plain rolls and packaged crackers went alongside the soup.

Salads.

A few more salad ingredients were available (carrots, tomato, edamame), along with pre-made deli style salads (soba noodles, two types of pasta salad, and waldorf salad).

I tried only the waldorf.  It was actually ok, in a strange way.  The apples and celery were crisp, the grapes juicy.  The dressing really as just mayo it seemed, with very little seasoning, but, I kinda liked it.  The walnuts added a good crunch.   I know it wasn’t a good salad, but, it was sorta refreshing, in a mayo-coated way.

Wraps, Cold Cuts, Cheese.

There were two types of wraps (I think chicken and ham), some cold cuts, cubes of cheese, and fruit salad.  I didn’t touch this stuff.

Hummus, "Dessert"

And lastly, veggies with hummus, and a very very sad dessert selection of chocolate chip cookies and brownies.  I also didn’t try this.

Mixed Nuts.

I’ll admit, I adore snack mixes in airline lounges.  Like the addicting American Airlines mixes.  But United had only mixed nuts.  I was kinda excited when I saw it contained brazil nuts, but alas, the nuts weren’t very well seasoned, and tasted stale.

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