Check, Please! Bay Area

KQED's award-winning restaurant review series Check, Please! Bay Area launched in 2005 with a simple premise: to welcome local diners — not professional restaurant critics — to share their favorite Bay Area restaurants. Each week, host Leslie Sbrocco joins three local diners who recommend their can't-miss dining destinations. After anonymously trying each other’s restaurant picks, the guests come on the show to champion, celebrate and even critique their experiences with humor, enthusiasm, and authentic conversation.

Looking for a comprehensive list of every restaurant featured on Check, Please! Bay Area? Visit our KQED Bay Area Restaurant Guide (now online in beta!), a robust tool highlighting more than 470 video-based restaurant reviews from the everyday people who appeared as guests on the show dating back 17 years.

Meet Our Host

Leslie Sbrocco

Host of Check, Please! Bay Area

Award-winning author, speaker, consultant and television host Leslie Sbrocco is known for her entertaining approach to wine and food. Voted one of the Top 100 most influential people in the American wine business, Sbrocco engages audiences both on screen and on stage with her humor and affability. As host of Check, Please! Bay Area, Sbrocco has won a coveted James Beard award, three Taste Awards and multiple Emmy awards. She is a regular guest on NBC’s Today Show and appears frequently on national television outlets. Her work has appeared in O, the Oprah magazine, Coastal Living, Woman’s Day, Health, Good Housekeeping, and Glamour, among others.

Be Our Guest

Have a go-to local eatery in the Bay Area? We’re looking for charismatic Bay Area residents to share their recommendations for the most delectable dining experiences out there, and we want to hear from you!

Apply to be a Guest

Check, Please! Bay Area Team

Lori Halloran

Series Producer

For her work in arts and current affairs programming for KQED, Check, Please! Bay Area Series Producer Lori Halloran has garnered five Regional Emmys and multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, the NorCal RTNDA, the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club and the Los Angeles Press Club. At KVIE in Sacramento, she produced the national adventure program Off Limits, where she flew in the Goodyear Blimp, got towed out to sea on the Navy’s FLIP ship and spent a long, cold night checking bear traps in Yosemite. Originally from Canada, she’s partial to poutine, butter tarts and salt n’ vinegar chips.

Cecilia Phillips

Coordinating Producer and Reporter

Check, Please! Bay Area Coordinating Producer and On-Camera Reporter Cecilia Phillips began her career at KQED as an intern for Check, Please! before becoming a Digital Video Producer for KQED Food. She has been a part of the Bay Area food scene in many roles, including working under several celebrity chefs and serving as a food tour guide for many years in San Francisco. As part of her special series "Cecilia Tries It," she scours the Bay Area in search of off-the-beaten-path spots for exciting, culturally diverse, culinary experiences that fans can’t miss. Recommend your favorite hidden-gem food spots to her on Instagram @ccroundthetown.

Candice Yung

Assistant Producer

In her role as Check, Please! Bay Area’s Assistant Producer, Candice Yung wrangles interview subjects at unusual food locales, provides extensive research and writing support, contributes to on-site production and more. A Bay Area native, Candice recently graduated from the University of San Francisco, where she studied performing arts and social justice. For the past few years, she has worked in the Bay Area food scene preparing different sweet treats, ranging from boba milk tea to chiffon mousse cakes.

Josh Decolongon

Audience Engagement Producer

Josh Decolongon is the Engagement Producer for KQED Food and Check, Please! Bay Area. The co-founder of Endless West, a San Francisco based startup that creates alcoholic libations molecule by molecule, Josh has spent a decade in the food and wine industry. He has previously appeared in The Wall Street Journal and Vice News; he has also been featured in SFGate and Thrillist for his wine videos and infographics, which are popular on Instagram. You can regularly find him documenting San Francisco’s Castro Community Benefit District as their social media coordinator. Originally hailing from Canada’s west coast, Josh enjoys experimenting with flavors for a new cocktail or finding the next exciting wine pairing.