Il Fornaio Caffe Del Mondo

Trapped in the international terminal at SFO, was looking for restaurant with sit down service. Nope. Il Fornaio is located at the end of the terminal, so it's your last stop and they did offer wine. Stood in line for a salad and a glass of wine. Salad? Nope, they ran out. Counter clerk seemed to dislike her job and was not friendly. Settled on toasted Tosti Proscuitto sandwich and a glass of Pinot noir. Waited for my order and carried it to a seat. It was such a sad little sandwich; bland and did not taste fresh. Won't return here.

When is airport food ever good? I still haven 't found any. It 's always over priced and prepared by people who don 't give a rat 's ass about quality. From a distance, this place looked promising. It was at the far end of terminal A and was the least crowded option around. It looks like a fancy little cafe or bistro with plenty of baked goods, sandwiches, beer, and wine, but make no mistake... it 's still in an airport. The pollo al pesto panini I tried was pre made and the girl behind the counter slapped it in the panini press to warm it up. The bread was actually good crispy outside and chewy inside. Everything after that went downhill. The chicken was dry and bland and needed much more pesto to kick it up a notch. There 's plenty of seating and despite the mediocre food it makes for a decent place to relax while waiting for your flight.

Stopped at the cafe one the way to my disgustingly early flight to Las Vegas and ordered a raspberry almond scone and a triple espresso. The scone was good but I was very disappointed in the espresso. The triple was the equivalent of 1 shot glass of espresso, it was lukewarm, and just bitter with no coffee flavor as you would expect. In the land of the blind the 1 eyed man is king so if you want espresso in the airport early this is 1 of 2 places you can go in this terminal. There is considerable room for improvement in regards to beverages (at least espresso).

I finally located a place in the International Terminal that had large screen plasma TVs and one of them had ESPN running on it. So I sat down and made camp. I had a Panini style hot Italian sub and a bottle of water. The sandwich was very good. The bad thing was that the music in the place was EXTREMELY LOUD!. I asked the manager if she could turn down the music and turn up the volume on the football game. She said she wanted to but that her manager was due to visit and that he would have a problem with her doing this. She told me she would be happy to do this once he had visited and left. So I watched the first half with no volume and horrible, loud music and barely any customers in the Caffe. The ones that were there clearly had not come for the muzak. Finally, the annoying manager left, and the assistant manager came over, handed me the TV remote, and told me to increase the volume to my preference. I thanked her profusely. Magically, as soon as there was volume on the game lots of other football fans gravitated in to watch the game. I ordered an oatmeal cookie and a cup of coffee to enjoy during the rest of the game. Sadly Virginia Tech lost to Boston College during the last 2 minutes of the game.

I don't like to give bad reviews but.... The biggest negative for me was the customer service. They are not friendly and that's putting it mildly. Pastry was not so great and latte was boiling hot. Banana was $1.50! Maybe it's too early in the morning but jeez, a thank you and a smile would go a long way in this stressful surrounding. There is not much to choose from on this end of the A terminal but next time I'll walk to another area.