Growing Dublin sees a boom in restaurants
Visitors to the Ulferts Center in Dublin are hungry. Couples and families scope out the growing array of lunch options at the twolevel shopping complex: Chinese, Indian, Thai and Japanese food, as well as a bakery and bubble tea shop.
From the strip malls on central avenues to recently developed shopping centers, new restaurants are popping up throughout Dublin like they haven’t for a decade. A total of 22 new restaurants opened last year, according to city data, the most in 10 years. In 2020 and 2021, the city recorded just five new restaurant openings each year.
The growing restaurant presence has also helped bring in more revenue to the city. The sector brought in $2,213,827 in sales tax last year, also a 10-year high. Restaurant sales tax revenue in 2020 was around $1.4 million and $1.99 million in 2021.
Population growth might be driving demand for new restaurants. Dublin boomed between 2010 and 2020, growing from 46,000 to 73,000 residents. This 58% increase, driven largely by Asian groups, made it
California’s fastest-growing city.
On the ground floor of the Ulferts Center, Sonia Yim makes trendy South Korean egg toast sandwiches at her new restaurant Egg Happiness. Yim considered opening in a few East Bay cities, but she ultimately chose Dublin because of the abundance of Asian restaurants nearby. Her neighbors include newcomers like 10 Seconds YunNan Rice Noodle, which specializes in western Chinese noodle dishes in pork bone broth. Upstairs is an opulent location of the local dim sum chain Koi Palace. Milky Way Tea Shoppe, which specializes in bubble tea and ice cream, plans to open at the center later this year, joining the existing boba shop Tea Heart. And the East Bay’s first location of popular Korean American grocery store H Mart is on the way to Dublin.
“People usually come in for something else, and see my restaurant and come back to check it out later,” Yim said. Business has been good, with lines of locals and shoppers from nearby outlet malls regularly stretching out the door.
On top of the good location, Yim mentioned that the paperwork for opening was a lot simpler than in other East Bay cities.
Dublin’s deputy city manager Hazel Wetherford cited a number of programs to help restaurateurs open, like matching grants for windows or facade upgrades, and a business concierge program, which connects an applicant with a city staffer who walks them through the paperwork process.
“It can be daunting for new entrepreneurs to talk to several departments like fire, public works and city planning,” said Wetherford.
The city also keeps new business application fees at a flat $106, to cover staff time and regulatory costs, whereas other cities charge a percentage of projected sales. For Yim, the flat fee alone took out a lot of guesswork. “How do I calculate that when I’m just starting? I have no sales data,” she said.
Mohammad Ziad opened a location of his small chain, Yafa Hummus, in Dublin in 2020, serving shawarma and plates of falafel and hummus made with his grandfather’s recipes. The COVID-19 pandemic quickly shuttered his business, but he decided to stick around, and eventually reopened. “We saw the potential here,” he wrote, pointing to the city’s growth and lack of Mediterranean restaurants.
Ziad said the city makes it easy to open up a shop, but the flat fee is close to what he paid in other cities where he operates: Livermore, Tracy and Lodi (San Joaquin County). Rent for his space in Dublin is also pretty average, he said.
Dublin Chamber of Commerce President Inge Houston said her organization has the same number of active restaurant members as it did last summer, with new businesses joining as others let their membership expire. However, she’s excited to see the variety of diverse restaurants opening all over town. “Today, you can get a taste of the world in Dublin,” Houston said.
The city also actively promotes new businesses on its social media pages. Yim estimates that around 30% of her initial clientele came after seeing a post welcoming Egg Happiness to Dublin. Ziad said support from the city and chamber of commerce was key to Yafa Hummus settling into Dublin.
Wetherford said restaurants will continue to play a role in the city’s economic activity. New developments, like the downtown Dublin project — a redevelopment project that seeks to create a pedestrian-friendly community and walkable community town square — will include restaurants. There is also a large development in the works on the city’s east side, which will include up to 265,000 square feet of commercial use, per a local planning commission agenda.
“A lot of commercial space is coming to Dublin,” Wetherford said.
That could also mean more places to eat.