Bean Sprouts Café and Cooking School

This is the café inside the Chabot Space and Science Center, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Highlights from our visit, keeping with the puns on the words ‘pea’ and ‘bean’ that café uses.
Pea-​rfect category:
— Service — they went above and beyond for us. Getting us warm milk for our two-​year old, which allowed us to spend an extra couple of hours at the center, was much appreciated, as was being reminded about the 10% member discount.
Pea-​retty good category:
— The chicken pesto sandwich — warm, delicious, carefully prepared, not stingy on the ingredients, including the star — freshly prepared pesto.
Has-​bean category:
— The coffee was Terrible. Only reason this is not a five star review. I’ve rarely had coffee this bad. Not that hard to brew a pot, people!
Overall, solid place to grab a bite at the Chabot. Enjoy!

Ate here today after a stop by the Space and Science Center. It’s the only food place at the center so we had to eat here due since everyone was hungry.
The worker that took our order was nice and the food was prepared in an adequate amount of time. They did run our of wheat bread which the use to make some of their sandwiches, so we had to change some of our order since they could only use chibatta bread.
My 4 and 5 year old scarfed down the pepperoni pizzas they ordered. My sandwich was ok, nothing spectacular. One bite from my wife’s avocado sandwich ans I was good. The greens had too much dressing on it that I didn’t care for, but my wife liked it.
Pricey on the food seemed a bit much, but maybe it’s right on for a museum café.
I’d eat here again if I was hungry, and most of the food was adequate enough.

This is a pretty decent venue bearing in mind the menu is targeted at little kids. My kids enjoyed the pizza, tomato soup, and salad — basic but affordable and healthy options when coming to a Science Center around lunch time. The only problem was that two of the employees had a full-​on argument while taking our order. It’s the first time this has happened to me at a restaurant but it seems to me that the management of this venue might want to take better care of their employees and provide some guidance and coaching.

My 4-​yr-​old is treated like a QUEEN here: the staff simply is splendid and fun. She calls them her «friends» at the Space Center. Some people may suggest the operation could be more organized, but with how personable, friendly and enjoyable every experience we have is here — and how unique the concoctions are — it FAR exceeds any imperfections. In a way, or makes it all the more lovable for my daughter I my daughter. And they know that’s all that matters: happy, well-​fed kids. Food-​wise and otherwise!

You should probably skip this place unless you’re really hungry. The food was good but the service was very disorganized and the staff kept asking customers to give back cutesy order cards that were never actually handed out. One employee even said, «I can’t find what you ordered without the card.» How about reading the printed CASH REGISTER RECEIPT that I handed back to prove it!
Several people had to wait for orders that apparently had gotten lost. Our waffle pizzas were tasty and the portion of pepperoni was generous, but the pizza was cold in the center. The cheese on top was melted but not the cheese inside.
They were out of cups for Iced Tea so they gave us 12oz coffee cups instead. There was no ice in the cups, which is probably a good thing, since there probably wouldn’t have been room for any actual Iced Tea.
We’ll pass on future visits.

Grabbed a quick salad and sandwich and they were great!

The reviews for the Bean Sprouts at the Children’s Discovery Museum had me worried… But service is definitely not a problem here.
Ordered a pizza and it was in the oven before it was even rung up. All the staff helpful and interacting with the customers.
(More about the food later…)