Wondering where San Francisco's insiders are eating and drinking? It's easy to spot lines out the door, but some underlying trends are harder to see.
We took a data-driven look at the question, using Yelp and SafeGraph, a dataset of commercial points of interest and their visitor patterns, to deduce which restaurants have been on the tips of diners' tongues this month.
To find out who made the list, we first looked at San Francisco businesses on Yelp by category and counted how many reviews each received. Rather than compare them based on number of reviews alone, we calculated a percentage increase in reviews over the past month, and tracked businesses that consistently increased their volume of reviews to identify statistically significant outliers compared to past performance. Then we analyzed foot traffic data from SafeGraph to validate the trends.
Read on to see which spots have the momentum heading into springtime.
The Pawn Shop
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about The Pawn Shop, the SoMa speakeasy and tapas bar is a hot topic, according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "Wine Bars" on Yelp saw a median 1% increase in new reviews over the past month, The Pawn Shop bagged a 3.6% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a solid 4.5-star rating.
As for foot traffic, The Pawn Shop saw visits more than triple in the past month, according to SafeGraph data.
Open at 993 Mission St. (at Sixth Street) since January 2019, this speakeasy can only be accessed from an exterior that looks like a pawn shop, with a special buzzer that admits patrons to the room. It offers more than 50 wines from around the world, in addition to beers, cocktails and Spanish tapas.
According to SafeGraph, The Pawn Shop usually gets busy on Wednesdays and Tuesdays, attracting a quarter of its total visitors over those two days. If you want to avoid the rush, consider dropping by on a Friday.
Pearl 6101
The Outer Richmond's Pearl 6101 is also making waves. Open since May 2018 at 6101 California St. (on the corner of 23rd Avenue), the "California-inspired Mediterranean" cafe has seen a 5.4% bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 0.6% for all businesses tagged "Seafood" on Yelp.
Moreover, on a month-to-month basis, Pearl's review count increased by more than 170%.
Opened by the team behind Pizzetta 211, Pearl 6101 serves a full menu of breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner fare. There's a heavy focus on seafood, with options like homemade sourdough bagels with smoked salmon, a la carte oysters with fermented hot sauce, seared ahi crudo, and red snapper with sunchokes.
The rest of the menu is focused on Mediterranean-style meat and pasta dishes, too, as well as sweet and savory brunch items on weekends. Over the past month, Pearl has maintained a convincing 4.5-star rating among Yelpers.
There's more than one hot spot trending in San Francisco's seafood category: Harborview Restaurant & Bar has seen a 3.8% increase in reviews.
Niku Steakhouse
SoMa's Niku Steakhouse, which specializes in Japanese wagyu beef, is the city's buzziest steakhouse by the numbers.
Niku, which opened a year ago at 61 Division St., increased its new review count by 6.1% over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 0.6% for the Yelp category "Steakhouses." It outperformed the previous month by gaining 1.4 times more reviews than expected based on past performance.
The restaurant specializes in pricey imported wagyu steaks (often known as "Kobe beef"), including a $225 tomahawk steak for two. The steaks are accompanied by Japanese-inflected sides like crispy potatoes, Brussels sprouts with umeboshi marmalade, and homemade kimchi.
Other options include pork chops, fish dishes and an assortment of small plates. Niku also boasts an extensive wine list of wines from around the world.
This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.
