Jay Barmann
San Francisco Divisadero SoMa
Namu Stonepot closes its Divisadero location; team set to open unnamed food hall — with pizza! — in SoMa
Namu Stonepot (553 Divisadero) is no longer serving its loco moco bowls and stonepot rice from the Divisadero space where it's lived since 2017, but the menu is still being served at Dolores and 18th, and will be appearing at a new food-hall concept the team is opening soon on 9th Street. Read More
San Francisco Mission
Osito, a tasting-menu restaurant centered on live-fire cooking, aims for October opening in the Mission
Osito, a much-delayed restaurant with a celebratory, communal tasting-menu concept centered around live-fire cooking of meat and fish, is finally taking shape and aiming for a fall opening at 2875 18th Street (at Florida). Read More
San Francisco Hayes Valley
The Brixton is expanding to the former Stacks space in Hayes Valley
We all knew that the Stacks space (501 Hayes St.) at the corner of Octavia and Hayes likely wouldn't stay empty for long, and as the pandemic wanes we learn that the owners of Cow Hollow's The Brixton (2140 Union St.) are set to open a new location — their third — there in the coming months. Read More
Oakland
SF social club The Battery is buying Oakland's historic Bellevue Club
The 92-year-old private social club on Lake Merritt, the Bellevue Club (525 Bellevue Ave.), is being sold to San Francisco-based club The Battery, for an East Bay expansion. Read More
San Jose
Mass shooting claims at least eight lives in downtown San Jose
A mass shooting on Wednesday morning at the Valley Transit Authority (VTA) light rail yard (101 W. Younger Ave.) in downtown San Jose has claimed the lives of at least eight people, likely all VTA workers, and the shooter also reportedly took his own life at the scene. Read More
San Francisco Hayes Valley
New wine bar with its own sashimi bar, Le Fantastique, Coming to Hayes Valley
The Hayes Valley/Mid-Market environs are about to get a new and unique sounding restaurant/wine bar called Le Fantastique, from the team behind Bird Dog in downtown Palo Alto. Read More
San Francisco Bernal Heights
New mountain lion sighting, this time in Bernal Heights
Another mountain lion has made it into the urban wilds of San Francisco, and it was spotted in Bernal Heights on Tuesday morning. Read More
San Francisco Mission Outer Richmond
The Mission's Roxie Theater reopens May 21 with 'Cinema Paradiso'; Balboa reopens with Godzilla fest
At long last, the Mission District's beloved indie movie house, The Roxie Theater (3117 16th St.), has a reopening date and a reopening movie: 'Cinema Paradiso' (1988). Read More
San Francisco North Beach
Tosca Cafe reopens its historic dining room for the first time in two years
After nearly two years of being totally dark, the 102-year-old Tosca Cafe (242 Columbus Ave.) is opening its doors again this week, having undergone its second light remodel and refurbishing in the last decade. Read More
San Francisco NoPa
11-year-old Bistro Central Parc in NoPa to be revived under new owner
Bistro Central Parc, the popular French bistro at 560 Central Avenue in the NoPa neighborhood that closed in December 2019, will be reopening under new ownership but under the same name in June. Read More
San Francisco
San Francisco enters 'Yellow' tier; indoor bars can reopen without food on May 6
While many bars across the city have spent money on heat lamps and outdoor patio platforms, and partnered with nearby food businesses in order to abide by public health orders that drinking can only be done with a "bona fide meal" in front of you, the last of those rules for bars goes away starting on Thursday, May 6. Read More
San Francisco Castro Pacific Heights
Chef Melissa Perello on the reopening of Octavia and Frances: 'It's like opening two brand new restaurants'
It's been a long 14 months of total closure for a pair of acclaimed neighborhood restaurants, Octavia and Frances, both of which were opened by chef Melissa Perello in the last decade. And she says that the team is taking the task of reopening them one step at a time, with Octavia happening first. Read More
San Francisco Hayes Valley
Hayes Valley's 20th Century Cafe to close in June
Get your ten-layer Russian honey cake while you can. After eight years on Gough Street, pastry chef Michelle Polzine's ode to the cafe culture of Vienna and Prague, 20th Century Cafe, is calling it quits. Read More
San Francisco North Beach
Specs announces mid-May reopening in North Beach
Historic, beloved North Beach dive bar Specs turns 53 years old this week, and after nearly 14 months of being dark, the bar and museum of curios is planning to light up again next month and start slinging its cheap drinks outdoors. Read More
San Francisco Embarcadero
Anthony Strong's SuperStella Van, Red Bay Coffee and more new businesses arrive at the Ferry Building
A spate of high-profile closures at San Francisco's once-thriving Ferry Building is being followed by some more positive news, as four new businesses announce openings at the iconic shopping and dining complex. Read More
San Francisco Divisadero NoPa
Bay Area bagel boom continues with opening of Schlok's in NoPa
After months of operating a wildly popular bagel pop-up, Schlok's is getting set to open a brick-and-mortar shop at 1263 Fell Street, in a former laundromat off Divisadero in NoPa (in the same complex as RT Rotisserie and Nopalito). Read More
San Francisco SoMa
30-bed drug sobering center proposed for Howard Street office building
SF Mayor London Breed on Tuesday announced a proposal to lease an empty office building at 1076 Howard Street for use as a 30-bed drug sobering center, making good on a promise first made before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The facility will focus on those living on the streets who are experiencing methamphetamine-induced psychosis. Read More
San Francisco Castro Duboce Triangle
2100 Market Street, formerly Home, Church Street Station, and The Truck Stop, makes appearance in 'Doodler' podcast
The one-story, flatiron-shaped building that once lived at 2100 Market was home to multiple businesses over several decades. One of its brief incarnations in the 1970s, a 24-hour diner called The Truck Stop, figures into the unsolved case of "The Doodler," a serial killer who preyed on gay men in San Francisco, and about whom Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan has just done a new podcast. Read More
Oakland
New Latinx LGBTQ+ club Que Rico opens next week in downtown Oakland
A new nightclub catering to the LGBTQ+ Latinx community of the East Bay is debuting on Tuesday, April 13 — but for obvious reasons it's going to start out sort of low-key serving drinks and quesabirria tacos. Read More
San Francisco Ingleside
New Jersey-based Korean American grocery chain H Mart set to open at the edge of Oceanview
At long last, after about an 18-month delay, popular Korean American grocer H Mart is opening its first San Francisco location in OceanView Village at a near-term date still to be announced. Read More
San Francisco Excelsior
Neighborhood-serving COVID vaccine clinic opens in the Excelsior
A new neighborhood vaccination clinic at 20 Norton Street in the Excelsior District, similar to those that have opened in the Bayview and Mission in the last two months, just opened on Wednesday morning. Read More
San Francisco Cow Hollow Mission Russian Hill Tenderloin
News from the Bay 'hoods: Liholiho Yacht Club relocates, Cow Hollow gets a dispensary, and more
Liholiho is temporarily moving the Dear Inga space on 18th Street, a new Japanese fine dining spot from a former Californios chef is taking the La Folie space in Russian Hill, and Oakland is getting a new ghost kitchen food hall. Read More
San Francisco Outer Richmond Outer Sunset
More than half of SF residents surveyed say the Upper Great Highway should remain car-free
A majority of respondents to a recent survey by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority say they think the Upper Great Highway along Ocean Beach ought to remain closed to vehicle traffic post-pandemic. 53 percent of residents, many of them living in the Sunset District, said the four-lane stretch between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Way should remain the pedestrian and bicycle promenade that it has been for the past year. Read More
Oakland
An update on Oakland's internet-famous duck couple, now settled in at their "forever home" in Marin
They've been called "Oakland's cutest couple" and "Ebony and Ivory" and various other things, but a pair of domesticated ducks that were evidently dropped off at Lake Merritt last year to fend for themselves have officially settled into new digs at a rescue sanctuary for injured or neglected farm animals in Marin County. Read More
San Francisco Mission
El Rio reopens its patio for the first time since March 2020
Beloved Mission District bar El Rio is finally reopening its patio, 12 and a half months after it was forced to close along with the rest of the bars across the city in March 2020. Thursday, April 1 is the big day — and the patio will reopen for table service at 4 p.m. Read More