Two spelling problems stand between most people and this dinner. The first is Trivoli Tavern, which is a Chicago restaurant in the West Loop and has nothing to do with San Francisco, however confidently a search result implies otherwise. The second is smaller but costs just as many reservations: the Chinatown restaurant everyone types as "4 Kings" is actually called Four Kings, spelled out, and searching the numeral drops you into a mess of unrelated listings and delivery aggregators. It is at 710 Commercial Street, on a quiet Chinatown block a short walk from the Financial District, and it has been one of the hardest tables in the city since it opened on March 14, 2024.
Four Kings puts its tables out on a fixed schedule three weeks ahead, and the good slots are gone within minutes of the release. Tell Karpo which weekend you want and it will work out the exact release day and hour, plus whether the walk-in bar is the smarter play for your group size.
Noon, Three Weeks Out
Reservations are handled exclusively through OpenTable, and slots become available three weeks in advance at noon Pacific. The restaurant is explicit that it does not take reservation requests by email, so writing in will not move you up any list. Work backwards from the night you want: subtract 21 days, put a noon alarm on that day, and be logged in with your party size preset. This is the same pattern that governs most of the city's high-demand rooms now, just with a different hour — Lazy Bear drops tickets on the 15th of the month at 10 a.m., Rintaro opens a 28-day Resy window at 10 a.m., and Four Kings goes at noon. Knowing the hour is most of the battle.
The Bar Seats Are the Real Move
If you miss the drop, you are not out of options: Four Kings keeps bar seats as walk-in only. That is the single most useful thing to know about this restaurant, and it changes the strategy completely. A pair willing to eat at the bar has a meaningfully better shot than a party of four holding out for a table, and turning up close to opening rather than at peak is what separates people who eat from people who stand around. Come as a two-top, come early, be prepared to wait, and order as though you meant to sit at the bar all along.
Four Nights a Week, and the Listings Disagree
Here is a live discrepancy worth carrying with you. The restaurant's own site lists service Thursday through Sunday, 5.30 p.m. to 11 p.m., closed Monday through Wednesday. A number of third-party listings and older press pieces still describe a different pattern — Thursday to Saturday from 6 p.m. and a Sunday-Monday schedule — which appears to reflect an earlier version of the operation. Trust the restaurant's own page over the aggregators, and if a Monday is the only night you have free, assume it is closed and plan accordingly. This is a four-night-a-week kitchen, which is part of why the tables are so hard to get: demand for a full week is being squeezed into half of one.
Who Is Cooking, and What That Means for the Order
Four Kings comes from chefs Franky Ho and Michael Long, both alumni of Mister Jiu's, working with partners Lucy Li and Millie Boonkokua. Their stated intention is to cook the food they grew up eating — Cantonese cooking with Hong Kong street-food instincts, unfussy and built for beer and a full table rather than for quiet contemplation. In practice that means the room is loud, the dishes come out to be shared, and the menu leans on things like fried squab and crab preparations. Order for the table, not for yourself, and put at least one whole-animal dish in the middle. Going as a party of two is perfectly viable at the bar, but a table of four or five gets more of the menu onto the surface, which is the way this food is meant to be eaten.
If You Cannot Get In at All
Two Chinatown alternatives hold up on their own terms. Mister Jiu's, at 28 Waverly Place — where both Four Kings chefs previously worked — is the MICHELIN-starred modern Chinese room upstairs off Grant Avenue, serving Tuesday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and closed Sunday and Monday. It is a more composed, more expensive evening and a genuinely different experience, not a consolation prize. For something cheaper and louder, Z & Y Restaurant at 655 Jackson Street holds a 2026 MICHELIN Bib Gourmand and runs Wednesday through Monday, 11.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., closed Tuesdays. Note the pattern: Four Kings is closed Monday through Wednesday, Mister Jiu's is closed Sunday and Monday, and Z & Y is closed Tuesday. Between them, almost every night of the week is covered by at least one — but no single night is covered by all three, so check before you walk over.
Making a Night of the Block
Commercial Street is a narrow, low-traffic block that most visitors never walk down, wedged between the Financial District and the busier Chinatown corridors on Grant and Stockton. It is a genuinely good approach on foot: come from the Montgomery Street side around dusk, cut up through the alleys, and you get the quiet version of a neighbourhood that is usually experienced as a crowd. After an 11 p.m. finish on a Friday or Saturday you are within a few blocks of North Beach for a last drink, though be aware that the neighbourhood's kitchens close much earlier than its bars, so eat at Four Kings and treat anything afterwards as drinks only.
This is a beer-and-a-loud-table kind of restaurant and the drinks flow accordingly. Drink responsibly, and sort out how you are getting home before the last order goes in.
Tags: #SanFrancisco #TrivoliTavern #FourKings #Chinatown #CantoneseFood #HongKongFood #CommercialStreet #MisterJius #ZandY #SFRestaurants #OpenTable #SFDinner
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Ask Karpo first
The two facts most likely to break this plan — which nights the kitchen actually opens, and what time tables are released — are also the two that change quietly and that third-party listings get wrong most often, as the conflicting hours above show. Before you set a noon alarm or walk over hoping for a bar stool, ask Karpo in iMessage to check the current service days, the live release time and whether the walk-in bar is moving that night, so you are working from this week's information rather than last year's.
