San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Latin American restaurants mark turning point for Presidio Trust
Two new restaurants are coming to San Francisco’s Presidio.
The Presidio Trust just announced that it has signed leases with the Presmex Group by Eduardo Rallo, whose other company Resmex Group operates several Latin American restaurants in the Bay Area. Presmex will take over the space inside the historic Presidio Officers’ Club, previously home to Traci Des Jardins’ Arguello, as well as a spot at the Presidio Transit Center, part of the upcoming Presidio Tunnel Tops development.
Rallo is expected to announce more specifics on the two restaurants later. His current businesses include three restaurants at San Jose’s Santana Row: the lively open-air El Jardin, upscale Zazil Cocina Mexicana and casual rotisserie chicken-focused Chika. He was also behind Colibri Mexican Bistro, a San Francisco restaurant near Union Square that closed during the pandemic, and co-founded World Wrapps, a fast-casual chain credited with pioneering the fast-casual model, in 1994.
The new restaurants also mark a turning point for the Presidio Trust: The government agency used to own all of the park’s restaurants and contract out with companies such as Bon Appétit Management Co., which was Des Jardins’ partner at shuttered Presidio restaurants Arguello and the Commissary. Now, the Presidio is giving up more control by leasing out the spaces; the two Presmex restaurants have 15-year leases.
Arguello and the Commissary stopped serving food at the start of the pandemic in 2020 and officially shut down about a year ago, when the Presidio Trust and Des Jardins couldn’t come to terms on a lease. Signing a long lease during such an unstable time for the restaurant industry seemed unwise, Des Jardins previously told The Chronicle.
That former Commissary space, which occupies 4,600 square feet and a prominent location on the Main Post, is still
Eduardo Rallo’s Presmex Group is taking over the space inside the Presidio Officers’ Club, previously home to Arguello.
empty. The Presidio Trust is looking for a tenant there and also for a massive, 6,000square-foot restaurant space at the Presidio Tunnel Tops, with views of the Golden Gate
Bridge.