Restaurant industry future may be hubs
Twist on food halls fuels sharing and support
It can be difficult to describe what exactly is happening at some of the Bay Area’s most interesting food spaces right now. Some are like food halls, with multiple vendors operating under one roof. Some present as specialty food shops, but with so much more going on behind the scenes. Others describe themselves as collectives, though they don’t function as a traditional coop.
For a lack of a better term, let’s call them food hubs. For diners, they offer one space to try an exciting variety of dishes — perhaps vegan sweet potato brownies alongside Peruvian chicken at a Berkeley cafe, or summer squash tacos, cheeseburger lumpia and jollof rice at a sprawling South of Market restaurant. For chefs and business owners, they’re a way to collaborate, share space and lower costs while they try to survive the pandemic.
Even conventional restaurants like Mister Jiu’s have been opening their kitchens more to popups during the pandemic, though much of the food hub innovation is happening among people of color in the East Bay. One big difference between these food hubs and food halls is that food halls are typically driven by developers and managed by an outside company. This wave of new food hubs is driven by folks in the restaurant and food industry who are attempting to control their own destinies and to help others in their communities.
“This is just the times we’re in,” said Andy Kellogg,
who recently reopened Berkeley’s Hidden Cafe under a new model inspired by artist residencies. “We all have to support each other. We’re on the same team.”
To the customer, there’s not a huge difference in going to a food hub versus another specialty food store or restaurant. For the chefs, though, there are significant distinctions in working with one of the newfangled food hubs: They often get ample marketing for their brands, and payment for space comes along with a sense of camaraderie.
When Marco Senghor reopened his Oakland restaurant, Bissap Baobab, in September, he did it as Bissap Baobab Oakland Collective Kitchen — a way to also sell items from women of color who lost their jobs during the pandemic. There, diners can find Senghor’s West African dishes, as well as jujube tea from Mama Juju Tea and vegan mangococonut dessert from Marina’s Sweet Catering.
If Marina Houngbadji of Marina’s Sweet Catering sold muffins directly to a typical cafe, it likely wouldn’t advertise that the muffins came from Marina’s, and it also might significantly overcharge for them to make a profit, Houngbadji said.
With Bissap Baobab, however, her desserts are clearly labeled under Marina’s Sweet Catering, helping boost her brand. She also decides what she wants to serve and sets her own prices, paying Senghor just a commission. Plus, the collective provides advice and emotional support — two very important things during the pandemic, Houngbadji said.
Another seemingly simple retail setup is Magnolia Mini Mart, a hit specialty foods shop in West Oakland that’s already expanding. Alex Tejada started it during the pandemic once she realized her catering gigs were coming to an end. At first, she sold vegetables to help farmers that she used to purchase from as a caterer, but then it grew to sauces, breads, tarts and more from people just starting their new, pandemic born businesses.
As with Bissap Baobab, Magnolia takes a commission — but in a sense, Magnolia has turned from a store to an incubator with free consulting. Tejada’s team helps vendors with branding, packaging, labeling, sourcing, forming a limited liability company, lowering costs and even getting into other stores.
As it turns out, Tejada loved helping entrepreneurs find an audience and grow their businesses.
“We didn’t start with a business plan. It just happened,” she said. “It’s more like a community project than a regular corner store.”
Now, the store sees exciting bakery popups swing by regularly: Berkeley’s Bake Sum brings boxes brimming with flaky, Asianinspired pastries; El Cerrito’s Thuy’s Treats delivers crackly cream puffs filled with salted egg yolk or coffee custard; San Francisco’s Astranda arrives with giant, puffy cinnamon rolls, ready to be glazed for a line of eager customers. And as Magnolia has grown, Tejada has been able to hire a diverse team and share the profits with employees so that everyone feels invested in the shop’s success, sort of like a collective.
But some food hubs have already run into roadblocks — with difficult to define business models, they don’t always satisfy health code requirements, which are built with more traditional restaurants and food stores in mind.
That was the case with Epic Ventures Test Kitchen, which Rashad Armstead opened in August with the goal of uplifting Black chefs who lost their typical sources of income during the pandemic.
He invited chefs to hold popups in the commercial kitchen and operate it like a ghost kitchen, with no traditional storefront or dining space and customers having to place orders online. Though the menu frequently changed, customers knew they could buy food from a Black chef there whenever it was open.
But a health inspector sent Armstead a cease and desist letter in September, saying the popups weren’t permitted to operate in that specific kitchen. In Alameda County, popups are supposed to apply for permits for every location they operate out of — and each permit costs $ 522. Armstead said that is unrealistic for cooks who are just starting out and might only earn $ 100 during a popup.
Armstead said he’s asking the health department about possibly allowing popups to pay the permit fees in installments. He said he still thinks collaborative ghost kitchens make sense for the future of the industry, but for now, Epic Ventures Test Kitchen remains closed.
“If the health department and the city stops people from making money and trying to survive, what’s going to happen to our economy?” he said. “We need to start being creative. That’s why you’re seeing so many people selling food out of their houses.”
The concern around permitting led Kellogg down a different path for the Hidden Cafe. Instead of inviting chefs to temporarily take over the cafe’s kitchen or rent space like a shared commercial kitchen, he’s planning to hire chefs as parttime employees.
“That means we have to follow through with them being part of the team and taking on responsibilities outside their craft,” he said. “It’s almost like a collective model, even though we’re not a collective.”
Among the first to come on are Bilal Ali and Keone Koki, whose popup Broke Ass Cooks was shut down by the health department in September. The chefs are serving chicken dinners on weekends starting Nov. 7 under the name Michoz, with the Hidden Cafe taking a commission of sales.
Ultimately, the goal isn’t to make a profit off of sharing the space; it’s just to survive, Kellogg said. The cafe tried everything earlier in the pandemic — opening a small market for groceries, selling familystyle meals for takeout, feeding frontline workers through nonprofits — and the owners burned out without even being able to pay themselves. For Kellogg, it seemed worthwhile to try something radically new that might help others in the process.
Tejada hopes this trend of collaborative business models continues postpandemic, but she’s skeptical.
“Scarcity breeds creativity. A lot of people don’t have much right now so people are trying to make do, and I think that’s brought out a lot of hustlers,” she said. “Things will fall into place again when things go back to normal.”
But at one new collaborative restaurant space, owner Fabien Santos sees no reason to back to a traditional restaurant model in the future. At his massive SoMa restaurant, Merkado, he serves Mexican street food while Filipino specialist the Lumpia Company parks a food truck on the shared patio. In the mornings, Nigerian restaurant Eko Kitchen uses the kitchen to prepare meals for frontline workers as part of SF New Deal.
The staffs don’t overlap, which is important to Santos for safety reasons, and the group is figuring out ways for Eko Kitchen to offer dinein services some days — the next one is scheduled for Sunday.
With Merkado’s landlord, Presidio Bay Ventures, not charging rent during the pandemic, the three restaurant owners just split the utilities. They’re discussing formalizing their collaboration when the pandemic ends and potentially bringing on other vendors.
“There is staying power,” Santos said. “We all share the same vision, we’re all kids of immigrants, and we all want to work together.”