What do you order when you walk into a place that looks like it hasn’t tried to impress anyone in decades? That’s the question most first-timers face at Clementine, the French-ish deli and sandwich counter on California Street in the Inner Richmond. The honest answer: you order the croque monsieur, you sit down, and you stop worrying about it.
The woman behind the counter most mornings is usually someone who’s been there long enough to know the regulars by their orders, not their names. That’s not a slight — it’s just how the place runs. Clementine has operated since 1998, which in San Francisco restaurant years is practically ancestral. The owner, Eric Jaouen, is Breton by origin, and the menu reflects that without making a fuss about it. There are galettes. There is a decent selection of French cheeses behind glass. There are sandwiches on fresh-baked bread that arrive without a lot of ceremony but with noticeably good ingredients.
The space itself is narrow and unhurried. A few small tables, a pastry case, a chalkboard with daily specials. The lighting is the kind that makes it easy to read and hard to photograph, which probably explains why it doesn’t come up much in the feed-driven restaurant coverage that shapes how people find places to eat now. That’s also probably why the regulars like it. On a Tuesday morning, you’ll find retired couples, a few people with laptops who clearly come here instead of working from home, and the occasional parent with a toddler who’s just been to the park.
The quiche is worth mentioning specifically. It’s not the rubbery, cafeteria-style quiche you’ve suffered through elsewhere. The crust holds, the filling has actual texture, and the daily variety — usually something with leeks or a classic Lorraine — rotates in a way that makes you want to come back during the week rather than just on a weekend visit. A slice runs around six or seven dollars. A full sandwich with a coffee stays well under twenty.
Jaouen has spoken in the past about wanting Clementine to feel like a neighborhood spot rather than a destination, and he’s largely succeeded at that to the point where people outside the Inner Richmond barely know it exists. The neighborhood around it on California Street — a stretch of dry cleaners, a wine shop, a hardware store that’s been there forever — doesn’t draw foot traffic from other parts of the city the way Clement Street two blocks south does. That suits Clementine’s rhythm fine.
The pastries are made in-house, and the croissants are flaky in the way that good ones are, without the obscene butter-to-bread ratio that has become a kind of performance at some newer spots. The pain au chocolat is similarly measured. This is not a bakery trying to win anything. It’s a bakery feeding people.
Go on a weekday if you can. The weekend breakfast rush — such as it is — brings a line out the door, which is manageable but changes the feel of the place. Weekday mornings, you can take your time. Clementine opens around seven and closes by mid-afternoon, so it rewards early-to-mid-day visits. Parking on that stretch of California is easier than most of the city, and the 1-California Muni line stops almost directly in front.
It’s not trying to be anything other than what it is: a French deli run by someone who knows what that means, in a neighborhood that’s been grateful for it for twenty-five years.
