The late Joe Betz, seen with his son Steven in 2017, purchased the House of Prime Rib in San Francisco in 1985 and worked there until his death last year.
John Storey/For the S.F. Chronicle
An overflowing plate at the House of Prime Rib in 2017.
John Storey/For the S.F. Chronicle
Over the years, the Chronicle ran nine full restaurant reviews of the House of Prime Rib, seen here in 2017, written by five different critics. Their star ratings have been remarkably consistent.
John Storey/For the S.F. Chronicle
The chill of the salad forks, the gleam of the serving carts, the succulence of the beef under a rock salt crust.
Such details appear over and over in the Chronicle’s coverage of the House of Prime Rib ever since it opened in 1949. And they did so once again on Thursday, with critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan’s new two-star review of legendary San Francisco steakhouse.
Fegan’s piece, the first Chronicle restaurant review with a star rating in eight years, sent us into the newspaper’s archives to see how critics have assessed the House of Prime Rib over the decades. For most restaurants, the exercise would tell a story of evolution: new chefs, new menus, new renovations. But we found the opposite.
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The Chronicle ran nine full restaurant reviews of the San Francisco steakhouse over the years, written by five different critics. Their star ratings and views of the Hopper have been remarkably consistent — which seems to be because the restaurant itself has remained almost unchanged.
A slice of prime rib is plated at a carving station, left. Chef Gerardo Ramirez, right, at the House of Prime Rib in 2023.
Craig Lee/S.F. Chronicle
A slice of prime rib is plated at a carving station, above. Chef Gerardo Ramirez, below, at the House of Prime Rib in 2023.
Craig Lee/S.F. Chronicle
“Tonight’s menu is mostly indistinguishable from one you would have been handed in 2025, 1985 or 1949,” Fegan wrote on Thursday. Former food critic Patricia Unterman deemed the restaurant an “anachronism” as early as 1981, while correctly prophesying that “the Hopper will stay open for years to come just because it’s the same.”
When the Chronicle previously gave out star ratings, the Hopper never dipped below one star (“good”) or above two (considered “very good” at the time and now “great”). The restaurant also made the Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants 22 times in the 26 years the full list was published, only beaten by Zuni Cafe.
Over the years, critics have universally agreed on the value of a dinner at the Hopper, whether it was $7.75 in 1975 or $68.85 in 2026, always inclusive of salad, creamed spinach, Yorkshire pudding, horseradish, potatoes and bread. Otherwise, there have been plenty of quibbles along with praise.
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“The salad bowl is prepared at the table, tossed in a bowl set to spinning at high speed on a bed of crushed ice,” wrote Wade Holland in what appears to be the restaurant’s first full review in August 1975, which ran next to an illustration of a plate crowded by a thick cut of meat and a butter-slabbed baked potato. Holland praised the “meaty” jus and fresh grated horseradish while deriding “the corny chilled salad fork routine” and saying the Yorkshire pudding could be sent back to England.
“The salad bowl is prepared at the table, tossed in a bowl set to spinning at high speed on a bed of crushed ice,” wrote Wade Holland, in what appears to be the restaurant’s first full review on Aug. 31, 1975.
S.F. Chronicle Archive
In 1987, Unterman gave the restaurant its first starred rating of one star, calling it “gently rejuvenated” under the ownership of Heide and Joe Betz, who bought it in 1985 (Joe Betz ran the restaurant until he died last year at age 86). “The gorgeous roast beef has not changed, thank goodness, nor has the spinning salad bowl, the rich creamed spinach nor the mashed potatoes,” Unterman wrote.
In 1994, former critic Michael Bauer upgraded the Hopper to 2½ stars. “All the beef here is aged and cooked in rock salt, producing an exceptionally flavored and juicy piece of meat,” he wrote.
But in 2007, Bauer dropped the rating to two stars, writing “while there’s still a lot to love about House of Prime Rib, I’m afraid that success may finally be spoiling it.” Though the meat was “consistently superb,” he found flaws in the service and, like Holland, the Yorkshire pudding. The Hopper would not be in the Top 100 Restaurants that year or the year after, though Bauer reinstituted it in 2009.
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In 1987, Patricia Unterman gave the restaurant one star, calling it “gently rejuvenated.”
S.F. Chronicle Archive
The next review came from former critic Soleil Ho during the depths of the pandemic in late 2020, when it offered takeout for the first time in its history, all of its familiar accompaniments to the prime rib captured in plastic containers. “Thank goodness the restaurant has figured out how to make something as potentially impersonal as takeout feel like getting a care package from someone who really loves you,” Ho wrote.
Ho also captured a reason for the Hopper’s staying power that continues to be relevant today.
“In a moment when everything seems to be changing all the time and ‘normalcy’ is at a premium,” Ho wrote, “the House of Prime Rib has heightened appeal.”
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