Off the Grid: St. Mary’s Square

Always a good selection of trucks!

OTG: St. Mary’s Square
Organizer website:
Hours: Mondays, 11am-​2pm
4 – 6 food trucks
Tourists wondering along Chinatown are not aware of this little oasis just steps from Grant Avenue. And even many SF office workers don’t know about this hidden gem. It’s a half block sized park directly above the St. Mary’s Square Garage. To get here, start on Kearny street (at Bank of America Building), walk uphill ²⁄₃ of the block on either the California or Pine streets side. The park entrance is at Quincy street.
This OTG replaced the Monday OTG Civic Center event in July 2011.
Unlike other OTGs, no chairs are provided, because the park has its own built-​in benches. OTG staff is on hand to keep the space reasonably clean.
I love this serene park space, wish we had more places like that.
** Update: This is another location that will not return for the 2013 season. It CLOSED at the end of the 2012 OTG season in October.

What a great experience my family had at OFF THE GRID… MULTIPLE food trucks in one location in San Fran… large line ups at the best trucks but they went rather smoothly… the only downfall was the cold temperatures, even in August… bundle up but it is well worth it

Woot woot! Monday’s jut got cooler. This location is great because the lines are short. So yeah, don’t tell anyone.

Is it just me, or was this place hard to find? I read on
that it was on California and Kearny. I went up and down Kearny and couldn’t find it! I searched on Unilocal but for some reason couldn’t find a posting specifically for St. Mary’s Square. So I tried googling for a more precise location and read sfweekly’s blog about it and got the St Mary’s Garage address at 433 Kearny! Wrong and wrong. Finally I looked up the OTG facebook page to see which trucks were gonna be there and looked up their twitter accounts. Luckily, one of the trucks tweeted California and Quincy so I was able to find it. Whew! They should consider putting up signs a long Kearny and California since that’s where the heavy food traffic is.
The park is cute! It has benches for you to sit down and eat your truck food if you don’t want to wait to get all the way back to your office. I’m just kind of sad that it doesn’t have more trucks. =(
–1 star for being quite hard to find.
–1 star for only having 3 trucks!

Came here today with a friend before she left for school. There were only a few trucks there. This was my first time going to a Off the Grid event, so it was pretty cool.
We went there early on in the day, which was definitely a good thing. As we enjoyed our food, more and more people came so the lines got pretty long. It is definitely a good location, with the park and benches for people to enjoy their food. I noticed that many of the people who came seemed to be business people, as they were in suits and office work clothes.
My friend and I both got something from «The Rib Whip.» She got a rib sandwich for $ 8. I got the «Skinny Legs» which was roasted chicken legs smothered with bbq sauce and their mac and cheese for a total of $ 10. The chicken was moist and fall of the bone goodness. The mac and cheese was pretty good too, but i expected it to be more cheesy in texture.
All in all, it was a good first time experience. Would definitely want to come back and try some more different food.

FINALLY! OtG love for the FiDi. There’s only been two so far… but so far, so good. Keep ‘em comin. I now have something to look forward to on Mondays. :) Of course its not as big as Fort Mason… but its perfect since most people in the FiDi (including myself) are usually in a hurry anyway.
St. Mary’s Square is a good spot to have it. I much prefer this to when they did a test OtG at Embarcadero.

This location is still fairly new but amazingly popular. I still wish it was at Civic Center Plaza on Monday lunches since it a better location. This past Monday there were four trucks there. There are a few benches to sit on but the trucks and the makeshift lines really cause a bottleneck in navigating through St. Mary’s Square.

Yesssss! A new location has been added to Off the Grid’s weekly itinerary! Better yet, this one is located within walking distance to the FiDi… No treks to OtG: Civic Center on Mondays anymore!
OtG:SMS had its soft opening on July 25 and its official grand opening will be on August 1. St. Mary’s Square is a quaint little urban park where four food trucks are ready to please your belly on Mondays from 11am-​2pm. Unlike the pavement landscape of other OtG locations, you’re able to enjoy your food truck feast on park benches and green grass. Check out their Facebook and Twitter for info on the rotating food trucks.
Mondays are so much more mmmm…