Affordable San Francisco Massages
Found: Affordable Massages without Sketchiness.
Where: Delightful Foot Massage. 1538 Polk St. San Francisco, CA 94109
The best thing about vacations is relaxing and not dealing with normal day to day stress. Of course nothing is better at getting you relaxed than a good full body massage. As soon as I booked my trip to San Francisco I called my friend who lives in the city and asked where I should go to get the best massage at a decent price. He of course knew of a place, thankfully. I wanted to avoid what happened to my roommate when she and her boyfriend had made the trip to S.F. earlier in the year.
According to her, she and her boyfriend had gone to Chinatown to eat. Her boyfriend is half Chinese and claimed he could tell the sketchy spas apart from the legit ones, so she went along with him to get one. He walks her into a massage spa that performs full body, neck, and foot massages. Her boyfriend chose the neck and foot massage and was put on a bed in the main area of the spa and my roommate, who doesn’t like her feet to be touched, chose the full body massage. The people there didn’t speak much english and ushered her to a small room or what my roommate would describe as an area blocked off from the rest of the spa with partitions and a curtain. Having been used to massages at other spas, she fully unclothed herself and got beneath the sheet. As her masseuse started massaging her she noticed that he was using an off-brand body lotion to get her lubed up. Knowing it wasn’t an expensive massage, she didn’t say anything and let the man get to work. She prefers light-medium touch when it comes to her massages, and tried telling the masseuse he was putting too much pressure. He didn’t understand her and just kept going about his business, my roommate was in borderline tears from the pressure. After what seemed like forever, he motioned for her to get up and he left the room. She assumed the massage was over, to her delight, and get up to start getting dressed. About halfway through putting on clothes, her masseuse walks in and freaks out, yelling and walking away. Apparently, all he wanted her to do was turnover on the table so he could massage her neck. After that my roommate was done. In her words “worst massage of my life.” Although I found the story amusing, I knew that I did not want that experience for myself and when I recanted the story to my S.F. local friend, he laughed and assured me the place he goes to was nothing like that.
On the last day of my trip, my friend and I decided to treat ourselves. We went to Delightful Foot Massage, his favorite massage spot. There are two locations located on Polk Street about two blocks from each other, one small and one big, and we decided on the bigger one. When we got there, the place was full and there were several people waiting. They asked us what service we were wanting and said they would be able to work on us in an hour. My friend and I used the time to check out a coffee shop down the street. When we returned, we were each escorted to our own private rooms. I wasn’t sure if I should take off my clothes but did anyway since it was what I was used to. Turns out that it was no problem at all. We were both treated to an amazing hour long full body massage. My masseuse performed a deep tissue massage and throughout the session kept asking me if it was too hard and if I was okay. I myself was a fan of my masseuse and felt amazing afterwards. He used a body oil and after massaging each area would wipe me down with a hot towel to remove the oil. The massages were $45 each and we each tipped our masseuses $10. I’ve read different Yelp reviews that are similar to mine, where people really enjoy the massages and masseuses, but I’ve also read some that make the place out to be some sort of hell hole. For the price it’s definitely not going to be the upscale massage spa you may be used to, but I’m definitely becoming a repeat customer. So don’t take a risk walking into just any place advertising massages, check out Delightful Foot Massage and be sure to write a comment below about your experience there.
