Recent Reviews

15 Reviews

Filter by: Location   Category
Pier 41
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 951-4900

Forbes Island  

Categories: American (New), Seafood, Party & Event Planning
Neighborhood: Fisherman's Wharf

5.0 star rating
12/14/2011
On September 10th, 2011, we recently held our wedding at Forbes Island. It went perfect.

We scoped the place out months beforehand and met with Casey- the man directing much of the planning and front-facing focus of the island. He was both warm and uniquely accommodating, an excellent combination when planning a wedding. If not for Casey, Forbes himself, and the rest of their unique and personable staff, we would not have had such a beautiful wedding!

It was almost unsettling how WELL everything fell together... aside from the cake, a few decorations, and deciding what to eat, the staff had everything prepared without much need for our support save the occasional decision. There was no delay in serving drinks, and food; everything was cooked perfectly with compliments all around. The island is wired for ambient music, and our choices synchronized throughout the island. We were concerned that some folks may find themselves seasick, but the island was stable, and Casey's team came prepared with ginger backups for us just in case.

Having a party or a once in a lifetime celebration? Forbes Island is the perfect place, not only for it's unique and fun environment, but for top notch service, professional and personable staff, and excellent cuisine. And if you just come to dinner, you'll probably run into us as new, frequent diners.

You can see some photos of the wedding at:
http://www.flickr.com/...

Was this review …?

San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 621-7603

Flash Messenger  

Category: Couriers & Delivery Services
Neighborhood: Financial District

5.0 star rating
7/29/2011
Flash is the perfect name for them - the best courier service in San Francisco, we've exclusively used them for 5 years now for all of our facilities in the bay area:
http://bentlyholdings.com
http://bentlyreserve.com
http://belvedereplace.com
http://bentlynobhill.com

Every requested is greeted with courtesy and professionalism - very prompt and attentive. We've called more times then I can recall for emergency pickups and deliveries as far as San Jose, for items ranging from a book to a thumb drive to a small server rack. Over the hundreds of requests, they have a perfect record of on-time delivery, and excellent customer service.

Great delivery people, great office people - all of my coworkers love them, they're timely, safe, and a good price. Can't ask for much more.

Was this review …?

San Francisco, CA
(510) 878-8328

Moving You 1-2-3  

Category: Movers

5.0 star rating
5/23/2011
Not only prompt and careful service, but always vocal about what he's doing and attentive to my needs. Robert was both trustworthy and professional, a refreshing alternative to the traditional moving company. He did a stellar job in our recent move, on time and for a great price. Highly recommended!

Was this review …?

1800 Mason St
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 982-5728

Trattoria Contadina  

Category: Italian
Neighborhood: North Beach/Telegraph Hill

5.0 star rating
12/28/2008
Fantastic little neighborhood gem with a unique, seasonal menu and staff that makes you feel like home. Mixed in between the trendy and the wealthy restaurants of the always lively North Beach district, you won't find a better warm meal, with a better group of people. Dinner is a mix of unique creations of chicken, veal, seafood, pastas & the usual antipasta + appetizer. Follow up your dinner with a home made tiramisu or their unique chocolate raspberry heart. Once, they had a 'calamari steak', and I've been dying for it to return...

So far, this restaurant has lived up to two Valentine's Day dinners, 2 birthday parties, and 1 general dinner. I'm looking forward to many more:)

Brady J. Frey
http://bradyjfrey.com

Was this review …?

240 Stockton St
San Francisco, CA 94104
(877) 588-6227

MacCentric Solutions  

Category: IT Services & Computer Repair
Neighborhood: Union Square

5.0 star rating
9/20/2008
I lead a dual role in my position at http://bentlyholdings.com, http://bentlyreserve.com and http://kamalaspa.com - I'm the Art Director and the IT Director. This puts my consultants in the unusual circumstance of having to be 1) technically sound and 2) socially adept: so it says a lot that MacCentric has been our exclusive IT consultancy company.

I've had the luxury of watching Noam, the founder of MacCentric, grow from a one many show to the president of a small business, and although the growth has been significant, the character has stayed the same. Professionally, he's the only consultant, in any aspect of our business, where I know I can rely on in a pinch. I've migrated our mac servers from Panther through Leopard, and each time I'm pulling my hair out in the migration of 300+ heavy imap users, Noam has either stayed with me for the almost weekend long extravaganza, or bailed me out when I've been the only person available at the office on a weekend early morning disaster.

When I go on vacation, I call on MacCentric to be on 24 hours a day in case of need... and the poor team has had to go through with it, but they've done so with flying colors. When I've had multi-million dollar buildouts that required a second opinion in technicals, I've called MacCentric to give me their thoughts. In short, I've used them from small projects such as imac repairs, to large server rebuilds, to debates on IT-long-term plan-of-attacks.

4 years later, even after all those hours of work and documentation and everything else that comes with the IT industry, what I find even more impressive is that I now consider Noam a close, personal friend. How many executives get lucky enough to find a company that they trust as if they were their own employees, and yet still invite them to Holiday Dinner not to talk shop, but to talk life?

MacCentric is one of those rare companies that seems NOT built off financial throes, but built off personality. I looked for a company to rely on, and was lucky enough to find a long term business colleague with a team of individuals taking pride in their work; I don't doubt you'd find the same.

Was this review …?

727 Folsom St
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 546-6777

Enterprise Rent-A-Car  

Category: Car Rental
Neighborhood: SOMA

2.0 star rating
9/4/2008
A few weeks back, I had a weekend planned in Napa with my girlfriend at a local resort to celebrate my friends birthday. Everything had been scheduled ahead of time, and everything went as planned... except the rent-a-car. I had to pick it up before 5:30 pm at Enterprise, and when I arrived, I was in line behind 3 already disgruntled guests being managed by one service rep and one manager typing away on his computer. When it came my turn after a 20 minute wait, I introduced myself and started to finalize my paperwork when payment was requested. I handed over my debit, unaware of the deposit fees using debits, and the young lady quickly charged me a $500 deposit... then decided to let me know that was the policy after the swipe, the receipt in hand

Financially, I could afford it and that wasn't the problem - the issue was more so the lack of explanation, coupled with the poor customer service shock when I questioned the reasoning for the scenario. As her manager rambled from his desk 40 feet away about their policies (and couldn't cite the policy in any paperwork), I checked my zipcar account on my iPhone, and rented a nice mini cooper for the weekend at a paltry $40 more than Enterprise (which, for those of you with a zipcar know, includes gas and 180+ miles per trip). I requested a reverse of the charge and cancelled my Enterprise reservation. I walked two blocks, picked up the Cooper by swiping my keycard on the dash, and was off for my weekend free of company time constraints and staff pre-occupied by the coming weekend.

Maybe I'm spoiled now, but in an economy where old model rent-a-car businesses compete with new industries, I would assume making it easier to keep my business is a target high on the list. In this case, the Enterprise in SOMA helped lose a long time national customer and professional traveler.

Was this review …?

1737 Post St
San Francisco, CA 94115
(415) 563-1901

Nijiya Market  

Categories: Specialty Food, Grocery
Neighborhoods: Japantown, Lower Pac Heights, Pacific Heights

5.0 star rating
6/28/2008
Although pricey for some items, an excellent market for sushi grade fish and other Japanese groceries. I've never had any problem with the staff at the location as long as I've lived here.

Unlike y Y.'s racially biased review below, I wouldn't assume any Latin worker is from a Mexican decent, and I wouldn't question why there would be any race working or visiting a public business. I'd imagine if I did, I'd be a racist moron. In fact, I'd question why any member of the opposite sex would hit on me, since I'd have little intellectual qualities to offer in an adult relationship... but that's just me.

Was this review …?

1801 Market St
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 431-6395

It's Tops Coffee Shop  

Categories: Coffee & Tea, Diners
Neighborhoods: Hayes Valley, Mission

5.0 star rating
4/13/2008
Top of the line diner in San Francisco - not only the best breakfast food food, but the best local atmosphere. It's been great to find a real breakfast joint in san francisco, I put up a thorough review with photos of this place for all to see:
http://bradyjfrey.com/...

Some info:
"...you're teased with everything from the best waffles and pancakes in the Bay Area (I'd argue, in my travels, most of Northern California), packed with blueberries or walnuts, or smothered with peanut butter or bananas, to french toast and cooked-just-right-hashbrowns, maybe omelets stuff fat with the local fixings, burgers by exquisite locally ranched meats; even beer battered mushrooms with an Elvis special.
Catch yourself in a dinner mood? Maybe you'll be lucky and stop by on a Friday night before the crowd hits: you'll run into one of the owners, Bruce, and he can tell you about the original cast iron he cooked that massive burger on, flavored for generations, over house tap. You can order breakfast if you want, sure, but sift through four pages of menu filled with hot off the grill Lamb Chops or perfectly marinated Steaks. Follow up with a traditionally home-made milk shake, maybe a banana split or Bruce's very own mud pie."

Was this review …?

721 Neeson Rd
Marina, CA 93933
(831) 384-3483

Skydive Monterey Bay  

Category: Skydiving

5.0 star rating
3/16/2008
We had an excellent experience on our first Tandem Jump here. The staff was very friendly and professional with us, we didn't have any of the problems that some people were noting below. The atmosphere was untraditional to normal business customer service, but that's part of the element of what you're doing: you're jumping out of a plane, not ordering at a French Restaurant. Nevertheless, we went with 9 people and scheduled to be first thing (which I recommend, since if the weather permits, you don't have to wait for the other folks to jump), all of us had a great time and we're thinking about going back to get AA certified.

You can read my full review of the event on my To Do list:
http://todo.bradyjfrey...

You can see videos of all of our jumpers, photos of the event, and if you scroll down to the heading 'The Surprise' you can skip past all of my research referencing and get a detailed explanation of our event.

A special appreciation to Jackie for helping my girlfriend plan this huge event since November, and answer little questions for us (such as wearing contacts or glasses, average temp, all the unusual stuff), and to Mike and Raff for not only keeping Sheryl and I alive, but showing the ropes and explaining in detail what we were doing. I wanted an experience where it didn't feel like a cheap roller-coaster - pay your money, get on the plane, jump off. They offered feedback, explained historical and industry specific questions. All of the Jump Masters seem highly skilled and searching online to verify references was easy to do. All of them were very caring of safety, even explaining certain things we can and cannot do for safety regulations.

So, for the most part, I'm seeing these bad reviews as people who didn't listen to the fact that it says you may have up to 6 hours of delay (on their website, and told over the phone), and expected concierge service for their adventure. It's not the Hilton, you'll be treated the same as any other person in there - with the average respect of a client who has next to nothing in experience compared to the person that will keep you safe. If anyone has questions about our jump, you're welcome to contact me further, thanks!

Was this review …?

450 Sutter St
San Francisco, CA 94108
(415) 989-0010

Frank B Dal Santo, MD DDS  

Category: Oral Surgeons
Neighborhood: Union Square

5.0 star rating
3/9/2008
Dr. Dal Santo has been nothing but professional and genius. Over the past few months I was in extreme pain, and although my dentist had little in the way of answers for me, I was transferred to Dr. Dal Santo for a more thorough review.

He discovered that some of my pain was actually medical related (found out to be a damaged nerve from a botched dental treatment) after bouncing between dental professionals, and that other areas of pain were related to the awkward growth of my wisdom teeth. After recommending me to the proper medical care, he extracted two of my wisdom teeth (two more to come) both quickly and as painless as I could imagine with local anesthesia. Included in the extraction cost were two brief followup appointments to monitor my recovering, and his staff has been available to answer all the questions I have.

Interestingly enough, during my wait in the medical office (the Dr. was performing an emergency appointment), I had the chance to review my medical files and the notes he had taken on our interaction (his assistants opened the file on the monitor in my office for the Dr.). I was surprised to see such an extremely thorough detail of our discussions and detailed documentation of his thoughts/theories/recommendations and followups. I've seen doctor notations before, but never ones that kept intricate documentation of exact discussions as well as future questions for progress, and it was enough to reassure me of his skill.

You'll find his prices maybe steeper than others in his professional; could be the location in the city or it could be his skillset. Regardless, it didn't bother me - the cliche bit is true, you get what you pay for, and I wanted to make sure whatever permanent decisions I made for my body came out perfect. So far so good, money well spent. I recommend him to those looking for top notch work.

Was this review …?


More »

19 Friends

 
  •  
  • 4987 friends
  • 125 reviews
 
  •  
  • 68 friends
  • 9 reviews
 
  •  
  • 1219 friends
  • 271 reviews
 
  •  
  • 137 friends
  • 30 reviews
More »

6 Compliments

  • You're Cool

    You're welcome! I had a great time at the Bently Reserve and good job with… More »

  • You're Cool

    Thanks for posting about the Spider Ball. Sounds like a blast. Random RAB… More »

  • You're Cool

    You're so cool polar bears wear sweaters around you.  Thanks for the… More »

More »

No Lists

Brady hasn't made any lists yet.

"Art Director"

Review votes:
25 Useful, 11 Funny, and 17 Cool

Compliments
Location

San Francisco, CA

Yelping Since

June 2007

Find Me In

San Francisco, CA

My Blog Or Website

http://bradyjfrey.com/...

When I'm Not Yelping...

I run an Art and IT Department

My Second Favorite Website

http://todo.bradyjfrey...

The Last Great Book I Read

Oil!

My First Concert

Smashing Pumpkins @ the Metro in Chicago

Don't Tell Anyone Else But...

I played High School Football while in the Chess Club

Most Recent Discovery

http://bradyjfrey.com/...

Current Crush

Sheryl Jang