Victim of Its Own Success: The Club SFO Review

Review Summary

Worth Coming to Airport Early For: NO.

Better Than The Terminal? If quiet, YES. If line / busy, NO.

Date of Visit: September 29th, 2024

Location: SFO, Terminal 1 (Harvey Milk)

Introduction

After a work / fun trip to San Francisco, it was time to head back home to NYC. I had read good things about The Club at SFO so I figured I’d head to the airport a bit early to check it out.

Now, before I sound like a whiney blogger, I want to say this lounge has the potential to be the best Domestic Priority Pass Lounge, by a long shot. IF:

1. They actually open the full lounge / kitchen
2. Hype / lines die down

However, those 2 things were huge negative factors when I visited.

Location

My flight was on American, which conveniently flies out of terminal 1 at SFO. SFO is probably the best US Airport for a variety of reasons, one of which is all domestic terminals are connected airside. If you’re flying out of terminal 3, you can still visit, it just may take you a bit to walk over (and that walk may not be worth it…).

Terminal 1 at SFO is also probably the nicest US airport terminal, so honestly it’s not the worst place to spend time, even without lounge access. Today was a Sunday, so security had a minimal wait.

Access & Entrance Policies

The lounge can be found just a short walk after passing through security, right next to gates B4/B5.

The club is accessible via priority pass. All you need to do is show your membership card / QR code in the app and a same-day boarding pass for entrance.

When I arrived (~10am), there was no line, but by the time I left an hour or so later, a line had already built up.

Lounge Amenities & Review

The lounge is on the second floor, but the admittance / info desk is on the first. There is an elevator towards the right if needed. The entrance is beautiful:

And now to the main room. This lounge was absolutely packed when I visited. Just to get food, there was a line stretched all the way to the staircase. It was ridiculous. I’ve never seen so many consultants / bankers / techies / surplus elites congregated in one place.

There’s a nice bar, which was also entirely packed (10am people!)

There’s a few coffee and water stations around the lounge like this, fairly standard:

The food options were fairly limited when I was there (see all options on my plate). There were QR codes at every seat making me think they’ll have some sort of dine-on-demand concept in the future, but just the buffet today.

The food was pretty meh. Honestly tasted kind of … soapy? Hopefully that was just extra thyme or something.

Breakfast / pastry station:

Lounge Showers & Relaxation Room

Unfortunately when I visited, the relaxation room was closed. However, this looks incredible and I’m sure will improve the lounge experience greatly once opened. Here’s me trying to view inside:

The bathrooms and showers were extremely nice. The showers looked open although require booking at the front desk, as you’d expect.

Overall, this lounge could be great, but just wasn’t due to insane crowding and a lot of amenities missing. Hopefully these are just short-term kinks they’re working out.

Anyways, at least I got a decent free lunch, and before long was time to board my flight back to New York. I won’t be reviewing that one, but true to the name of the blog, I did snag the exit row