Line Cook Salary in San Francisco, CA (2026)

What line cook pay in San Francisco really looks like

San Francisco is a standout-pay market for line cooks. The local median of about $22.13 an hour ($46,030 a year) runs $8,640 (23%) above the national median of $37,390, one of the widest premiums in the country for this occupation. Offers benchmarked to U.S.-wide averages will read far too low here — hold out for the local number, and treat the metro median as your floor, not your target.

Pay is tightly clustered here: the 25th-to-75th-percentile band runs just $44,340 to $49,360 (BLS). A narrow spread means the metro median is a dependable expectation rather than a midpoint between wildly different jobs — there is little room above it without a credential, a specialty, or a supervisory step, so the ladder up is about the role, not just the employer.

This is a substantial local market: BLS estimates roughly 20,540 line cook jobs across the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metro area (a count of metro employment, not a survey of reported salaries). A deep employer base is good news for pay — it means more openings to compare side by side, more turnover creating vacancies, and more leverage to hold out for an employer at the top of the local range instead of settling for the first offer that lands.

Right now, Jobeezy is tracking 24 open line cook jobs in San Francisco against the BLS $46,030 benchmark — the live listings and the employers hiring are below, so you can see which openings actually clear the metro median before you apply.

Put it together and the picture for San Francisco is concrete: a metro median of $46,030 with most line cooks landing between $44,340 and $49,360. The practical move is to aim for the upper half of that band. Jobeezy fit-scores local line cook openings, surfaces the employers posting toward $49,360, and applies for you — so your time goes to the jobs that clear the San Francisco median, not the ones that sit under it.

How we know this — San Francisco sources

Wage figures for Line Cook in San Francisco, CA are the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS May 2025 estimate for the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA metro area (MSA code 41860) (SOC 35-2014), released 2026-08-25. Suppressed cells are shown as an em dash, never a zero.

Reviewed by Dalton Metzler · Jobeezy Compensation Data

How we source & label these figures →

Line Cook pay in San Francisco, CA — common questions

How much does a Line Cook make in San Francisco, CA?

The median Line Cook salary in San Francisco, CA is $22.13/hour ($46,030/year) ($8,640 (23%) above the national median), with a typical range of $44,340–$49,360 (25th–75th percentile). Figures are BLS OEWS May 2025, released 2026-08-25.

Is San Francisco a strong pay market for Line Cooks?

At a $46,030 median, San Francisco is $8,640 (23%) above the national median. The U.S. median is $37,390. Jobeezy shows you which local employers actually pay at the top of that band before you apply.

How can I earn more as a Line Cook in San Francisco?

Target employers paying toward the $49,360 (75th-percentile) mark and anchor your negotiation to the BLS band. Jobeezy fit-scores Line Cook openings in San Francisco and auto-applies, so you reach more high-paying employers fast.

How many Line Cooks work in San Francisco?

BLS estimates roughly 20,540 line cook jobs across San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA (May 2025 metro employment — a count of jobs, not of salaries reported).