United Polaris SFO Lounge: Is It The Best?

~ Chris Wada

We stopped by the United Polaris SFO lounge for the first time to check out the best of what United has to offer for business class customers.

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Location of the United Polaris SFO lounge

The United Polaris SFO lounge is found in the international terminal (G Gates) at San Francisco airport. The entrance is immediately past the security checkpoint near the connection to the F Gates.

Access rules

If you want to access the United Polaris lounge at San Francisco or elsewhere, you’ll need to be one of the following customers:

  • United Polaris business class: available at departure and arrival airports along their same-day itinerary
  • First class on a Star Alliance flight: available at departure only, but can bring one guest
  • Business class on a Star Alliance flight: available at departure only

What are the flights where United business class is considered Polaris? You could just check your ticket if Polaris is mentioned. Otherwise, it includes flights to the following destinations:

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti)
  • South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru)

Once inside the lounge, you’ll see signage that says Skytrax considered the lounge to be the best business class lounge in the world. Is that still true?

Once you gain admission, you’ll probably want to head upstairs to the second floor, which is where most elements of the lounge can be found.

The bar

Let’s start with the bar–not because I’m an alcoholic but because it’s the first thing you see when going up to the second floor. It was fairly empty at 8AM, but by 10AM, it was a popular place to be.

There are many beers on tap, which is cool.

Sit-down dining in the United Polaris SFO lounge

On the second floor just beyond the buffet is the restaurant where you can enjoy some sit-down dining. The hours of operation of the restaurant in the United Polaris SFO lounge are as follows:

  • Breakfast: 8AM to 11:30AM
  • Lunch and Dinner: 11:30AM to 9:30PM

We arrived right at 8AM and found a short wait to be seated. If you want to dine here, it’s important to come early during your visit to the lounge. There are only 14 2-top tables and four 4-top tables available at one time.

Once at the front, the restaurant attendant scanned our boarding passes and asked if we needed a high chair. Maybe Char looked small to her?

Once inside, we took a seat at one of the four center tables. It was another short wait for someone to come by and take our order.

The menu

The menu is centered around small dishes because the expectation is you’ll eat again shortly onboard your flight. If you’re hungry, you should order a couple of items for yourself.

The last page shows the desserts, which is a bit much for breakfast.

If you want to see what’s available for lunch, you’ll find that on the menu posted by the host stand.

And while it wasn’t listed on the menu, there is plenty of alcohol available if you want it.

Food and drinks

I started with a glass of Laurent-Perrier champagne for breakfast. Yeah, I decided to skip the splash of orange juice and just went straight to the good stuff.

The bagel is fine. I don’t think it’s anything different from a bagel you can get yourself out in the buffet.

The açai bowl has some good flavor but could be a bit more frozen.

The fresh-made smoothie is sweet. While it says it includes spinach, you can’t taste it at all. So if you want your kids to drink their veggies, this is what you should get. On a side note, I’m glad the kids liked to study Beast Academy (not sponsored) while they waited for food instead of playing on their iPads.

The dill smoked salmon flatbread tasted like it needed a crispier bread to go with it. The salmon is fresh and the flavors mesh well, but it lacks substance. It almost seemed like the bread was a little on the stale side. Plus, I would have preferred it came on a smaller plate just so it doesn’t look so empty.

The Greek yogurt parfait is delicious. The honey adds enough sweetness on its own, but the fruit and granola added some nice freshness to the dish. We ended up ordering this twice during our meal because it was so good.

Of all the breakfast items, the omelet is massive. Alex gave it his stamp of approval, which he loaded with meat (bacon, sausage, and ham). The potatoes that came with the omelet were crisp on the outside and seasoned. The one thing to be aware of is the breakfast sausage is actually vegetarian with a bit of a funky taste.

Overall, I’d say the food is good and this is a better option than the buffet just outside. The service is… just OK. It seemed like the server was just going through the motions (odd to get that as we were one of the first customers of the day). You’ll probably want to eat here when you visit the United Polaris SFO lounge, especially compared to the buffet, as we’ll get to next.

The buffet

Can I just say before we talk about the food available that I’m surprised how small the buffet is given how many people have access to the lounge? It seemed like many items were completely consumed and staff had to constantly refill. On top of that, it was extremely crowded by the buffet as there is only one area to grab food across two floors of customers. The layout is a bit odd as a result.

Breakfast

The breakfast buffet had three meats available: vegetarian sausage, chicken apple sausage, and bacon.

There is also both scrambled eggs and scrambled egg whites.

Next to the eggs are some home-fried potatoes and berry bread pudding.

And then next to that is chicken rice porridge.

And then you have the usual suspects in the cold section of the buffet. There is plenty of fruit available, including some very red watermelon.

If you want pastries, you have your choice of cinnamon rolls or scones.

There’s a small yogurt bar where you can make your own parfait.

And then there is a very small selection of cheeses and cold cuts with some spreads.

Lastly, you can choose your favorite grains (bagels, English muffins, or bread).

Lunch service

First up is some mushroom dish. I didn’t have a chance to taste this one but of all the lunch dishes, this one was the least consumed by others.

Next up is just some rice. There’s nothing special about the rice. While listed as “spring onion rice”, it didn’t taste much different from regular rice.

The only main course is the chili plum sauce chicken. It’s unmemorable. I didn’t care much for the flavor and the chicken was a bit on the dry side.

The most popular lunch item was the corn chowder. It’s tasty and we found it to be the best thing available at the buffet.

For the lunch service, they at least provide more of a variety of cheeses and cold cuts than at breakfast.

There’s also a small salad section.

And some toppings in case you wanted to customize your salad.

The more interesting cold item is the mezze section, with naan, pita, and flatbread available with some spreads.

If you’re in the mood for dessert, you have your choice between a berry tart, some cheesecake, or chocolate chip cookies.

Rear buffet

There’s a small, hidden(?) buffet section on the opposite end of the second floor of the United Polaris SFO lounge. This area of the floor didn’t get too crowded, so it’s a good spot if you want more privacy.

Don’t expect any heavy snacks here. Instead, you’ll find lots of small snacks to enjoy if you’re between meals.

There’s also some tea and coffee at your disposal.

You’ll also find some apples and oranges back here. And if it’s outside of breakfast hours, you’ll also find chocolate chip cookies back here.

Downstairs drink station

For completeness, there is a small drink setup downstairs on the first floor of the United Polaris SFO lounge. However, don’t expect much food here aside from some oranges.

This is also the place to go if you want soda, as there was more available here than elsewhere in the lounge.

United Polaris SFO Shower suites

If you want a shower, head over to the first floor of the lounge. It’s in the back of the lounge past the escalators. On our visit, it was a four-person wait at 10AM, which went by fairly quickly.

After about five minutes, the staff assigned room #2 to me. The shower certainly looked nice enough. I could do my obligatory comparison against the industrial look of British Airways showers, so sure, let’s do that. I far prefer the look of this shower compared to the best that British Airways has.

The shower rooms have a sink and toilet.

Automatically in the room is a pair of slippers, and a bunch of toiletries in case you need them.

The soap, shampoo, and conditioner are by Therabody.

I wish I could say the shower is perfect, but I can’t say that with a straight face. The temperature fluctuated quite a bit while it was in use. And you’re going to want to exclusively use the rain shower. Just look at the other shower head in the picture below. The water pressure is so low it’s just barely falling out. I tried to adjust the setting on the head but it just cannot be budged.

Odds and Ends

If you need rebooking assistance, the desk on the second floor of the lounge near the escalator is where you’ll want to be.

This lounge gets crowded. By about 9AM, it became difficult to find any seat near the buffet. The further you got from the food, the more seating you could find. Another reason why I wish there was another buffet station just to spread out the crowds a bit more.

There is some view of the apron from up on the second floor. But it’s not a great place to watch planes since most views are just of the top of the terminal.

If I came here solo, I would probably hang out in these individual seats. I like the aesthetics of the seat, but I can’t say if there is enough desk space to work.

Recommendation: It’s nice, but I wouldn’t go out of your way to book an eligible flight from SFO

Let’s start with the nice parts. I like lounges that have a sit-down restaurant available. The food in that restaurant is good. I like the aesthetics of the lounge, from the seating to the showers and everything in between.

But the lounge has some shortcomings. The buffet felt a bit lacking. That normally wouldn’t be much of a problem with a sit-down restaurant, but that dining room too small for everyone in the lounge. It means people will inevitably need to eat from the buffet. It felt like a crowded lounge, which takes away from the ambience. I also didn’t like the water pressure in the shower.

I wouldn’t consider this to be the best business class lounge in the world. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be open to coming here again. We would if we had access, but perhaps it’s best to consider it this way: our United flight was delayed four hours. Rather than return to the lounge after hearing about the delay, we instead decided to explore the rest of SFO airport. And then when the kids wanted some food, we jumped into the United Club at the G gates rather than go back here.

So our thoughts is summed up best as: it’s good but not as impressive as we hoped.

Do you like the United Polaris SFO lounge?

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