Online bubble tea delivery service Sweet A Little has been quietly building an audience here in San Francisco, and now it’s launching its first storefront — in the former South of Market home of Anthony Mangieri’s bygone, beloved Una Pizza Napoletana.

Sweet A Little founder Connie Xu launched her company in 2015 after burning out in finance.

“The 2008 crash shook me,” says Xu, who began looking for a new career path that would allow her to connect with people on a day to day basis in a more positive and healthy way.

For Xu, tea was the perfect cornerstone upon which to build her new company.

“Tea is universally ritualistic. It brings people together,” says Xu.

Working out of a commercial kitchen in Hunters Point for the past 3 years, Xu and her team have been building a customer base for their tea delivery service, which she says now serves between 100 to 300 people daily.

Xu and her team just signed the lease for the retail storefront at the corner of Eleventh and Howard streets in SoMa.

Though still in the early stages — the permit process for the brick-and-mortar location has only just gotten under way, Xu and her team hope to open sometime this fall — the storefront will eventually serve as the hub for Sweet A Little’s delivery service.

In addition to offering curbside delivery, one of Xu’s goals is to keep her drinks healthier than the average bubble tea.

For the time being the delivery service is still using traditional boba straws, but unlike many other bubble tea shops, which use plastic cups and seals for their drinks, Sweet A Little uses a compostable wax-lined paper cups and seals. Xu says that she’s in active conversations with manufacturers to switch to a more ecologically friendly straws to meet the a citywide ordinance banning straws that was drafted earlier this summer and is set to take effect in July 2019.

Overseeing the drinks menu is business partner and director of recipe development, Alex Ruiz, who has a background in pastry at places like Roka Akor and Le Marais Bakery. Eventually, they also hope to offer tea-infused cookies and chocolates.

The current menu features 8 different tea drinks, including matcha milk tea, roasted oolong milk tea and elderflower green iced tea. Each drink costs $4.95 (.60 cents extra for toppings like honey boba, lychee jelly and egg pudding). Delivery fee is $2.99, but is waived when you order three or more drinks.

Though the official storefront won’t open until sometime later this fall, tea can currently be ordered via Sweet A Little’s website (an ordering app is in the works) for delivery Monday to Friday from 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tea delivery is only currently available for SoMa, FiDi and part of the Mission.

Sweet A Little, 210 Eleventh St., San Francisco. https://sweetalittle.com

Sarah Fritsche is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sfritsche@sfchronicle.com. Twitter/Instagram: @foodcentric