San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Valencia’s next wave of food businesses
A new generation of restaurants is moving onto Valencia Street in the Mission District, adding to what’s long been one of the most popular dining strips in the city.
However, the past year has not been kind to many businesses on the corridor. In November, Pauline’s Pizza & Wine Bar (260 Valencia St.), which opened in 1985, closed its doors. Upscale Mediterranean restaurant Tawla (206 Valencia St.) closed a few weeks later. The Elbo Room ( 647 Valencia St.) closed on New Year’s Eve and was handed over to new owners in January; they plan to open a new bar in the space.
But already many vacancies are being scooped up by a new generation, and the allure of the corridor’s siren song seems to vary for each business.
Popular Italian outfit Flour + Water (2401 Harrison St.) was focused on proximity for its new pizzeria. It took over the former Farina Pizza (700 Valencia St.) on the corner of 18th Street, less than a mile from its flagship restaurant. It is planning to open in the spring.
Meanwhile, the owners of Brew Coop — a beer bar where patrons pour their own beers via an automated tap system — desired an address with lots of foot traffic. This eventually came in the form of 800 square feet at 819 Valencia St., near 19th Street, the former home of Osha Thai. The bar opened in January, albeit to mixed reviews.
Señor Sisig, the Bay Area Filipino fusion truck, is opening its first brickand-mortar restaurant in the old Blue Fig, which closed last year. Co-founder Evan Kidera had been searching for a space in the area for about a decade.
“There’s emotion attached to it for me,” Kidera said. “I was born in the neighborhood. My dad was a bluecollar sushi chef way back on Valencia when most people didn’t want to be out here. The story of finding a place here just felt right.”
There’s more on the way, too. Booming local brewery Fort Point is taking over the Brasserie St. James space (742 Valencia St.), which has been dark for over a year.
The elder statesman of the new wave is Gourmonade (899 Valencia St.), San Francisco’s black-owned drink stand where fresh lemonade sells for about $8 a bottle.
Since his stand arrived on Valencia last summer, owner Vicktor Stevenson has quickly expanded Gourmonade to temporary stands at Airbnb, Square, Dropbox and even the Transbay Transit Center (before it closed in the fall). Next, he wants to find a larger permanent spot, also preferably along Valencia. “There’s just a lot happening in this area,” he said.
He’s not sure he can afford one, though. Stevenson said as a new business in the area, he’s been cognizant of the rent increases happening along the strip. Recently, Stevenson said, he went to look at a space on 23rd Street in the Mission and was told it had already been leased for $12,000 per month.
“It’s all well out of my price range,” he said. “In a couple of years, people might not recognize this part of Valencia.”
San Francisco’s Angler (132 The Embarcadero), the glitzy seafood restaurant from Saison chef-partner Joshua Skenes, is expanding to Seattle.
The new outpost is about two years from opening, Skenes told The Chronicle, and will debut as part of a forthcoming luxury development in Seattle.
Part of what makes the new location unique, Skenes said, is that it will have to be built from scratch. The San Francisco Angler opened in the former home of Chaya Brasserie.
“It’s cool because we essentially have carte blanche when it comes to designing the inside of the space,” Skenes said.
Angler opened in late September as one of the year’s most anticipated projects. By November, Esquire magazine had named it the best new restaurant in the country.
The Seattle growth falls in line with Skenes’ plan from the beginning to establish Angler outposts across the country. He just needed to find the right markets. Seattle, with its produce, coastal location and natural resources, was “ideal,” Skenes said.
And as that operation takes shape, plans for another Angler in Los Angeles continue to move forward.
“It’s the same approach with both locations. We adapt to the market and produce,” he said. “Angler can fit into a lot of places.”
After almost five years of on-and-off construction and permitting delays, the Fillmore’s bygone soul food spot Gussie’s Chicken and Waffles is closer than ever to opening a new restaurant in Uptown Oakland, next to the Paramount Theater.
According to owner Michele Wilson, construction on Gussie’s Southern Table and Bar (2021 Broadway) should be completed by May. After four years of “working through various challenges,” that means the doors could be open as early as June.
When it does open, Gussie’s will be less than 400 feet from Tanya Holland’s new Brown Sugar Kitchen, which is also set to open in the coming months.
Wilson made her name in the restaurant world long ago when she helped bring the Los Angeles soul food chain Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles to Northern California. She ran Roscoe’s with her ex-husband for a little less than a decade before opening Gussie’s in 2009.
Gussie’s will also be one of several notable soul food businesses that have re-invented themselves over the last half-decade.
Since 2014, the Fillmore lost both 1300 on Fillmore and Black Bark, popular black-owned ventures from David Lawrence and co-owner (and wife) Monetta White. The restaurant has since opened a location at the San Francisco International Airport.
A similar tale is evident in Farmerbrown, which closed in 2018 after 13 years in the Tenderloin. It also lives on as a restaurant at SFO. Its sibling project, Isla Vida, opened last year in the former Black Bark space.
In Oakland, Pican, a upscale Southern restaurant on Broadway, also bid farewell. An offshoot of the restaurant called Pla ytis open in downtown Hayward.