Restaurants:
Outfits in struggling districts to get cheaper liquor licenses
San Francisco will once again pour affordable liquor licenses into neighborhoods struggling to generate commercial development.
It’s the second phase of a plan for the city in which 30 neighborhood-specific licenses will be distributed over six years.
The licenses, called Type 87, are designated for underserved commercial corridors along the Bayview’s Third Street, the Excelsior’s Mission Street, portions of Visitacion Valley and several neighborhoods on the west side of the city, such as Taraval Street, Noriega Street, Ocean Avenue and San Bruno Avenue.
Priced around $15,000, the Type 87s are substantially cheaper than the more traditional Type 47 licenses, which due to their limited number in San Francisco, can fetch upwards of $250,000 on the city’s secondary market. Both licenses allow for the sale of hard alcohol in restaurants. Only Type 87 is neighborhood-specific.
The Type 87 licenses exist because of a law authored by Assemblyman Phil Ting, DSan Francisco. The law, passed last year, mandated that five new licenses be added to the city’s total every year through 2023.
Until last year, San Francisco had not issued a new liquor license in more than 80 years. New bars and restaurants have bought liquor licenses from other businesses that recently closed or sold their license.
One recipient of the first five licenses was the Dark
Horse Inn, a bar in the Excelsior. The bar previously was operating with a Type 41 license, allowing the sale of beer and wine but not hard alcohol. A pair of Bayview restaurants that opened within the past month are also now operating with Type 87s: Tato, a new Mexican restaurant, from Kristin Houk, who also owns nearby All Good Pizza, and Cafe Envy, a neighborhood bar from April Spears, also of Auntie April’s.
“The licenses are about more than just opening a business and being able to sell alcohol,” Spears said. “These Type 87s can basically help build a community from the ground up.”
One of the first five licenses remains unclaimed, according to the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, after a business to be awarded it withdrew.
The recent application window for forthcoming Type 87 licenses was Sept. 10 to Sept. 21, and though the city does not yet have a complete list of all the businesses that submitted applications, according to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, at least five local businesses have applied. If more than five apply, a drawing will be held in October.
The licenses cannot be transferred once awarded. If a businesses closes or relocates, its license will be canceled and another created in its place.
Among the new applicants are Java Beach Coffee Roasters and La Puesta De Sol Cantina, both located in the Outer Sunset. Kat Stewart Anderson, proprietor of a Bayview cafe named Word, also applied.
“It’s certainly going to help having one of these licenses,” she said. “I mean, for me, I can open just with coffee and tea, but the license can complete a business by expanding what’s available to customers.”
Paula Heitman, who along with husband Tim Heitman ran Society Cabaret out of Union Square’s Hotel Rex at 562 Sutter St. for about five years, is searching for a standalone space in the Outer Sunset. Her business also applied for a Type 87 license.
“The Type 87 is nice because it encourages people to go to other parts of San Francisco outside of just downtown or areas like that,” said Heitman. “I never would have looked in the Outer Sunset before, but now I’ve found a couple of places I really like and that would be good for us.”