Family Cafe is a sweet and exceedingly small family-owned establishment, serving coffee, tea, katsu, and curry. The chicken katsu sandwich comes with housemade sauce, and they also have quite possibly the most beautiful vegan sandwich in San Francisco. Would you look at those vegetable batons?

The Japanese deli in the Ferry Building boasts a big glass case filled with sushi, salads, and bento boxes. In sandwiches, select from a katsu sandwich with crispy pork, an ebi katsu with a crispy shrimp croquette and egg tartar sauce, or a tamago sandwich with mustardy egg salad. 

The newest addition to this list, Katsuya opened March 2021, hidden away in a small food court near the Dragon’s Gate entrance to Chinatown. It’s taken off on Instagram, thanks to its chicken katsu, ebi katsu, and cheese katsu, with dramatically gooey cheese pulls. 

Volcano is a Japanese curry spot in the Richmond, so diners can either get their katsu sunk into a bowl of lava-like curry sauce, or stacked onto a sandwich. The katsu pork or chicken sandwich is more of a handful, with generous cabbage and sauce. There’s also a mini sandwich available for only $2.75, which is notably not crustless, but more of a bun, and can be stuffed with crispy Spam, fish, or a potato croquette. 

This small shop in South Beach is only a block from the ballpark, and has a short breakfast and lunch menu, filled with bowls of chirashi or donburi. But it includes one perfect katsu sandwich, in this case chicken, rolled in oversized nama panko.