Soon and Soon Souvenir Shop is getting a second life on Grant Avenue, with Mister Jiu’s chef Brandon Jew bringing the tiny Chinatown storefront back later this summer as a Hong Kong-inspired cafe teamed up with Paper Son Coffee. The address is the same, 731 Grant Avenue, but this round the focus is a tight menu of pour-overs, espresso and specialty drinks that tip their hat to classic Chinese cafe culture. The interior is still famously cramped, so seating will be outdoors only in a planned parklet out front.
The San Francisco Standard reports that Paper Son will debut a house blend called Apricot Mist, a yeast-inoculated Yunnan mixed with a washed Ethiopian, and that the team plans to roast on a small scale right at the Grant Avenue spot. According to the Standard, the shop will be staffed by two baristas working a commercial-grade single-grouphead Synesso ES1. The publication also notes that the original Soon and Soon opened in December 2021 and closed in October 2022, with the comeback now slated for late summer or early fall 2026.
Paper Son founder Alex Pong told The San Francisco Standard there is some poetry around the concept, describing the Chinatown project as a way to honor family ties while translating specialty coffee into a Cantonese-style, hand-poured service model.
Paper Son itself has grown up. It started as a pop-up in Dogpatch and then moved into a downtown outpost known for Asian-influenced signature drinks and rotating pastry partners, as detailed by Eater SF. That profile calls out the Thai Tea Cloud and matcha passionfruit soda as fan favorites and explains how the brand threads immigrant family stories through its menu, which gives the Chinatown project a built-in following that stretches beyond casual souvenir hunters.
What to Expect
The new version of Soon and Soon will keep the hybrid identity: coffee bar plus specialty retail. The first iteration stocked rings, hats and totes, and the relaunch is expected to echo that mix while Paper Son works to recreate its downtown-style pastry collaborations. Paper Son’s downtown shop regularly features baked goods from Tano SF, a model highlighted on Paper Son Coffee, and that same coffee-and-bakery pairing is the template for Grant Avenue.
Small Space, Parklet Plan
The Grant Avenue space is tiny, which is exactly why seating is shifting to a yet-to-be-built parklet outside. The layout steers the project toward grab-and-go service, centered on takeout coffees, curated souvenirs and bottles of wine for tourists who wander past. For nearby residents, it reads as an attempt to fuse neighborhood memory with a modern specialty coffee scene right in the heart of Chinatown.
