Innovators feed Valencia restaurant boom RESTAURANTS Valencia Street's bet: If you open it, diners will come

The interior of Abbot's Cellar in San Francisco, Calif., is seen on Thursday, Sept. 27th, 2012. The interior of Abbot's Cellar in San Francisco, Calif., is seen on Thursday, Sept. 27th, 2012. Photo: John Storey, Special To The Chronicle Photo: John Storey, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Innovators feed Valencia restaurant boom 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

The numbers alone are staggering.

Since spring 2011, 16 restaurants have opened on the three-block stretch of Valencia Street between 16th and 19th streets in San Francisco's Mission District.

Thirteen of them are in spaces that have been converted from other businesses, and several, led by the 250-seat Amber Dhara, are plus-size. At least four more restaurants are scheduled to open in coming months.

That adds up to nearly 1,000 new restaurant seats on these three blocks alone. And that doesn't include the dozens of restaurants on cross streets or surrounding blocks.

One thousand new seats in three blocks. Even in a city obsessed with dining, it's hard to believe there is that much pent-up demand for new restaurants in this one part of town. Are there really that many new diners?

Some say yes.

"It's become one of the great neighborhoods of the country. You have the Meatpacking (District) in New York and the Hollywood strip in L.A.," says A.J. Gilbert, who opened Luna Park on Valencia near 18th Street in 2000.

"Obviously Valencia Street has its own character, but it's amazing how it's become world-class."

It's not just the concentration of restaurants that is remarkable, but also the diversity of the food.

In addition to the time-honored margaritas at Puerto Alegre and cheese slices at Arinell, Valencia Street is now the place to find smoked cheddar gougeres at Craftsman and Wolves, open-face lox sandwiches at Bar Tartine, Mexico City-style tuna tostadas at Tacolicious, Roman fried artichokes at Locanda, and Thai-inspired pork belly rice bowls at Mau.

Observers say the boom is a result of a confluence of factors. Some projects born during the 2008 recession have finally come to fruition. The influx of tech money - in the form of both diners and investors - has spurred new endeavors, as has the relative ease of navigating the area's commercial zoning regulations.

Perhaps the icing on the cake has been the recent improvement to the street itself. It widened the sidewalks, which spiked foot traffic and allowed for the addition of outdoor tables.

"For restaurants, it's a natural place to gravitate to, with big spaces and reasonable rents," says Dylan MacNiven, who earlier this year opened West of Pecos, a Southwestern follow-up to his two Woodhouse Fish Co. locations.

"If you walk up and down on a busy day, there's nothing like it."

Another veteran San Francisco restaurateur, Joe Hargrave, has also gravitated to Valencia Street, opening a branch of his popular Tacolicious there last year near 18th Street.

"For its population density, I don't think the Mission has ever had the restaurant density," he says. "It's catching up now, all at once."

Hargrave's landlord is Jack Knowles, who purchased the defunct New College buildings in 2010 and has turned them into the Chapel, a live music venue in partnership with New Orleans' Preservation Hall. Later this year, Knowles plans to add a 90-seat restaurant and a 110-seat bar and grill to the space.

The Slanted Door's Charles Phan, a graduate of nearby Mission High, has been part of two different restaurant booms in the neighborhood. He opened the original Slanted Door nearly two decades ago in the Valencia Street building he owns near 17th Street. Its groundbreaking Vietnamese food made it a national sensation, although the prices and valet parking that went along with the sophisticated menu raised some hackles in the neighborhood.

Phan moved the restaurant a decade ago, eventually landing in the Ferry Building. Last year, he reopened the space as Wo Hing General Store. Sales have been more sluggish than expected this time around, yet he asserts the number of new restaurants is a positive development.

"Overall, it's good for consumers. It reminds me a little of North Beach in the '80s, with all these restaurants popping up at different price points," he says. "It's a good vibe here. To me, it makes it more San Francisco than a lot of neighborhoods."

However, not everyone is thrilled. Jose Ramos, the building manager at 780 Valencia, owns 780 Cafe with his family. He's been on the block for 18 years, dating back to the building's time as the New College, and is involved with various community projects.

He says the change hasn't necessarily been for the better.

"It's expensive, very expensive," he says. "This street has totally changed. All these restaurants come in, they pay five or six dollars a square foot."

That's comparable to rents in other prime areas like the Marina and Cow Hollow, but, as Ramos points out, "This used to be a dollar-a-square-foot neighborhood."

While some of the street's old-timers, most notably Puerto Alegre, remain popular, others have been priced out. It's caused concern that the neighborhood is drifting away from its long-standing Latino roots, not to mention losing touch with many of its residents who can't - or don't want to - frequent the new spots.

"It's tough for business owners - being a mom-and-pop, and then you have a really fancy restaurant and you go in there and you feel out of place in your own neighborhood," Ramos says. "You feel uncomfortable."

And costs are continuing to rise.

"Rents on Valencia Street are generally at a premium. The notion that the Mission District is cheap is really a historical, rather than current, perspective," says Carol Gilbert, president of the real estate agency CGI.

Now, she says, Mission Street and the blocks east, rather than Valencia and the streets west, have become the new frontier for prospective restaurateurs.

It's not only retail rents that have gone up. "I feel bad for my staff," says Vijay Bist of Amber Dhara.

"They came to me saying they can't afford to live here. They have to commute from Oakland or the South Bay, so I tried to find a few places for them to rent."

The street is in transition in other ways as well. Although some see the corridor as an upscale pocket in an area that continues to struggle with crime, earlier this month a 17-year-old girl was stabbed at Valencia and 21st Street, and last week an overnight street brawl at 16th Street and Valencia left at least one person with critical injuries.

As elsewhere in the city, regulatory issues also are part of the picture. It took Knowles 1 1/2 years to get a full liquor license for his upcoming ventures; that means he can serve until 2 a.m. But across the street at Mission Cheese, owner Sarah Dvorak has spent more than a year just trying to extend her beer and wine license to serve until 10 p.m.

"In order to compete, we need those hours," she says.

To be sure, San Francisco has repeatedly faced issues of food and gentrification. In just one example, The Chronicle in 1985 wrote about a rash of San Francisco croissant shops that some people said were ruining the neighborhoods.

"Valencia Street is very concerned about keeping its identity," says West of Pecos' MacNiven, who lives two blocks from the restaurant and is a member of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association.

"I think there is a breaking point for the neighborhood, but I also think a flat-out moratorium is bad. Other neighborhoods have done that, and it leads to a decline in quality."

A moratorium doesn't seem to be on the horizon, but there is some discussion about other possible changes.

Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose district includes the west side of Valencia Street, notes concerns from some retailers about the mix of businesses.

Many of the new restaurants are open only at night, and have replaced spots that formerly housed all-day businesses. That has impacted the street's vibrancy during the day.

"It's terrific that Valencia Street is becoming such an incredible food corridor, and I'm supportive of that, but want to make sure there's a balance," Wiener says.

He has asked the Valencia merchants' association to get input to see if changing the permitting process would diversify the area's businesses.

Supervisor David Campos, whose District 9 includes the east side of Valencia, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

One entrepreneur who converted a non-restaurant space to food service is Chad Robertson. He recently expanded Bar Tartine into the adjacent storefront to open a new bakery and sandwich counter.

"I love it when someone brings something new to Valencia," Robertson says. "Like Gajalee, the coastal Indian place. I'm happy about that place - it's something that hasn't existed here. If it continues to be passionate independent operators adding diverse things, we love that."

But even though the Mission's restaurant-led evolution has been going on for decades - with places like Foreign Cinema and Delfina, along with the Slanted Door - Valencia's deluge over the past two years is striking.

Robertson compares it to what happened on one of the city's most popular culinary stretches: 18th Street between Guerrero and Dolores. It's where he and his wife, Elisabeth Prueitt, opened Tartine Bakery a decade ago near Bi-Rite Grocery and Delfina.

At first, daytime business was slow. Then, Pizzeria Delfina and Bi-Rite Creamery opened on the same block, and business surged.

Still, it's natural to worry about competition.

"Not everyone can survive," says Nat Cutler of the new Abbot's Cellar. "I imagine in the next year or so, you'll see a few of the new places close down or get sold."

Indeed, on a recent weeknight, there was no better sign of this than at three of the taquerias along the Valencia Street stretch: Two were packed; a third was empty.

It only attests to the city's obsession with good food.

"What makes San Francisco the greatest restaurant town in America is that, if you do a good job, the chances that you are successful are enormous," says CGI's Gilbert.

"Warren Simmons, who started Chevy's and developed Pier 39, used to have a saying: 'Find me a successful restaurant and I'll open one next door.' There's great wisdom in that."

San Francisco Chronicle food editor Miriam Morgan contributed to this report.

See a map of restaurants on Page G6