Another signature San Francisco mall is up for sale in the Metreon, but in this case, the sale is not being forced by owners surrendering the property to a lender, and the place has a bustling 92% occupancy rate.

The financial implosion of downtown San Francisco’s former Westfield Mall was the poster-child driver of the “doom loop” narrative, with its ever-increasing vacancies, shoplifting and violence, and most significantly, an owner who had to surrender the property to their lender because of the very San Francisco pandemic-era problem that their debt far outweighed the present value of the property.

And today’s very surprising news from the SF Business Times that the Metreon mall is up for sale will probably end up resurrecting more of that “doom loop” talk. But the Metreon appears to be in very solid shape financially, and is highly unlikely to sell for one of those desperate fire-sale prices that we see so much of SF commercial real estate going for these days. This is a rare SF real estate property that just might sell for the asking price, and quite possibly more.

For one thing, as the Business Times points out, the Metreon is currently 91.9% leased, an absolutely unheard-of figure at a time when the adjacent Union Square has a 20.6% vacancy rate. Yes, the Metreon's occupancy is mostly the Target store and an AMC cineplex, but both seem to be doing brisk business by what my eyes can tell. There are also five 40-foot billboards on the Moscone-facing side of the building that are reportedly pulling pre-pandemic levels of revenue, and every year, you have a shit-ton of guaranteed Dreamforce advertising for which a skilled bargainer could easily overcharge.

"Metreon represents a generational opportunity to acquire an iconic urban retail asset with immediate and long term opportunities to add value and to shape the future of downtown San Francisco," listing firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) says in its promotions for the building.

You can confirm the place is up for sale on JLL’s website.

But about the details: There is not a sale price listed in the brochures which the SF Business Times analyzed, but the current owner is Starwood Capital Group, who bought the Metreon in 2012. Interestingly, the City of SF owns the land on which the 312,592-square-foot shopping center sits, though the rental lease runs all the way through 2082.

Those of us who were here when it opened as the “Sony Metreon” in 1999 remember that despite the hype, the mall had a disastrous run. A PlayStation store and a Microsoft store hoped to bring crowds, but there were days when I would walk some floors and not see one other customer shopping. (Remember that Maurice Sendak Where the Wild Things Are exhibit? Nobody went!) The flagship stores closed and the Metreon was sold in 2006, ironically to Westfield, who then sold it to Starwood Capital.

But the Metreon has shown it can reinvent itself. And heck, it doesn’t even have to reinvent itself when it’s got a near-93% occupancy rate. Throw in a couple buzzy restaurants or bars in some of the vacant ground floor space, and the Metreon is a pretty attractive buy. Or at least, it is to any private investment firms willing to shell out eight or nine figures.  

Related: SF’s Former Westfield Mall Being Rebranded as ‘The Emporium Centre San Francisco’ [SFist]

Image: Jason F. via Yelp

A new smoothie-swinging robot is bringing the Metreon into the Age of Ultron, but oddly, the Stepford smoothie robot asks to be tipped for its services.

The gimmicky fad of getting your food or drink served by a robot has often fascinated San Franciscans, even if the popular launches of these machines does not always equate to long-term success. You’ll totally recall the little delivery robots in 2017 from now-defunct delivery service Eat24, robot butlers at fancy condos, and the robot security guards that knock over toddlers. Perhaps the most curious of these was the CafeX robot coffee shops, because they still charged the Healthy SF surcharge, despite being robots that do not need healthcare.

Another new San Francisco robot has arrived at the Metreon, and it is also asking for employment benefits. SFGate reports that a smoothie-making robot is at the Metreon, though, counterintuitively, this very much not-human smoothie-maker still asks for a tip.

“The humanoid-looking robot, with acrobatically long and twisty arms and a digital face, expectantly awaited my order,” Madeleine Wells explains at SFGate. “I made my selection on the POS screen — the aforementioned strawberry banana smoothie — typed in my phone number, and swiped my credit card. I was somewhat baffled by what came up next on screen: a prompt to add a tip. Did I really need to tip a robot?"

Never mind that you’re going to get a million more phone calls about “your car’s extended warranty” if you give that robot your phone number, why does the robot need to be tipped? Tips “would apparently go to the actual humans working at the company,”SF Gate reports, as the CEO of Palmetto Superfoods just happened to be there, indicating this was probably a press launch event.

Palmetto Superfoods is a real smoothie cafe, with locations in the Richmond and the Marina. The robot itself is made by a local company called RoboJUICE. So it maybe does make sense for an existing industry brand to bring in third-party robots, rather than some tech disruptor company trying their hand at making food and drinks.  

“On a busy day at Palmetto, usually we don’t want a customer waiting more than five minutes for their order,” Palmetto co-founder Charles Lee said. “But on a crazy weekend day, which happens every weekend now, you can wait up to 30 minutes.”

“What the robot does is now people can get their bowls in a minute, a smoothie in two minutes.”

Like most robot products, it seems a little oversold, not quite ready for market, and the goal right now may just be to attract investor attention. The product is still in beta, and SFGate reports “an error message popped up that the robot’s minders had to intervene to fix” during their session. Moreover, it’s just a temporary promotion. The Palmetto Superfoods smoothie robot is only at the Metreon on Fridays in the month of May, from Noon-5 p.m.

But the time might actually be right to automate service work. In the current job market, food and beverage service positions are difficult to fill, so there is much less of the dynamic of robots taking jobs. That may or may not be the case someday when we’re back to 10% unemployment.  

But for now, these may be the droids we’re looking for to improve margins in the food and beverage sector. The only problem remains, despite the ballyhood labor cost savings, that robot-server companies still tend to not be successful long-term once the hype wears off.

Related: Robot Barista At Metreon Charges For Healthcare [SFist]

Image: ROBOjuice

New restaurants are opening again! This week we have news about a new modern Mexican spot from the team behind Son's Addition opening in the Lower Haight, and the debut of some new KFC (Korean fried chicken) downtown.

Bonchon, the South Korean fried chicken chain that opened its first Bay Area location in Sunnyvale in 2010, quietly opened the doors of its first SF location earlier this week. There's a Bonchon in South San Francisco that's been there since 2014, and other locations in Berkeley, Pleasanton, and San Mateo, but now you only have to get down to the Metreon to enjoy some of their spicy double-fried wings. As Eater notes, the takeout menu includes other Korean dishes like bulgogi and kimchi-bacon fried rice. And there's a bunch of crave-worthy snack items too like Korean tacos (chicken or bulgogi), potstickers, and pork buns.

The new Bonchon takes over the space formerly occupied by Inay Filipino Kitchen inside the Metreon complex. And the fried chicken is available on DoorDash too.

The hours, for now, are 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., and it's open until 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Opening (hopefully) next week is Otra, a new Mexican restaurant at 682 Haight Street (the former SushiRaw near Pierce Street, two doors down from Danny Coyle's). The team behind it is Nick Cobarruvias and Anna Sager Cobarruvias, the husband and wife who opened Son's Addition on 24th Street in Mission in 2017.

As Nick tells Eater, the opportunity to open a restaurant in their neighborhood, the Haight, was too good to pass up. And while the pandemic delayed their plans for a summer opening last year — Hoodline reported on the plans for Otra last January — their landlord has been accommodating and the opening is finally happening, pending a couple of inspections.

Nick Cobarruvias's dad is Mexican, and he grew up eating Mexican comfort food in Texas like tamales, which have made it onto the menu at Son's Addition as well. At Otra, Cobarruvias plans to serve a number of vegetable-focused dishes — and not a lot of red meat. And he's going to be making his own fresh masa daily for tortillas and tamales.

And the cocktail program by Marlow vet Shanti de Luca will be tailored to the food, with tequila and mezcal as the focus, but Cobarruvias tells Eater he didn't want anything too fussy. "I didn’t want a hipster bar that takes 15 minutes to make a drink," he says. "I’m too old for that. I’ve got too much shit to do. We wanted good drinks and quick drinks. Drinks that make you want to eat food, and food that makes you want drinks."

SF is expected to allow more freedom for drinking indoors without food starting next Friday, but in the "Yellow" tier, the capacity for indoor dining remains at 50% with tables kept six feet apart.

Otra is opening with a new parklet out front, and possibly some outdoor seating in back as well.

We'll update this post when an opening date is firmed up.

Top image courtesy of Bonchon

So this is funny: There's a robot-manned coffee bar thing at the Metreon called Cafe X, and even it wants you to chip for its healthcare. Local blogger Mr. Eric Sir alerts us to the situation after he was unnecessarily charged the "SF Health Mandate" surcharge after this robot arm handed him his macchiato. "I, for one, welcome our new robot food service overlords," he writes. "What I'm not fine with, however, are spurious surcharges."

There on his bill for his $3.50 coffee beverage is a 30-cent sales tax, and a 14-cent healthcare surcharge, because hey, this robot might get carpal tunnel someday.

Mr. Eric Sir acknowledges that, sure, "human employees maintain this robot. But if you think about it, Cafe X is nothing more than a fanciful vending machine." And we don't pay healthcare surcharges on vending machine snacks.

Controversy over the Healthy SF law dates back about a decade now, after the always slim-margined restaurant industry cried foul over having to provide healthcare for their employees, and responded by adding this visible surcharge to most restaurant checks. Having made their point, Chronicle critic Michael Bauer called for restaurants to stop being stubborn about this and simply fold their healthcare costs into their pricing — however in 2014 he did learn why some restaurants still include the line item, which is that their rent can be tied to their gross receipts, and if they simply raise their prices their rent can go up.

And I guess even a robot cafe has to abide by the law too?

Previously: Billionaire Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. Owner Complains That SF's Healthcare Mandate Hurts Restaurants

San Francisco's AMC Metreon 16 was evacuated Tuesday night, after witnesses say a man with a gun began yelling during a screening of the movie Allied.

According to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Officer Grace Gatpandan, at around 7:55 Tuesday night, emergency dispatchers received calls "about a person inside the Metreon Theater (4th/Mission Streets) possibly armed with a handgun."

The Chron spoke with a witness identified only as "Gary" who said that the male suspect "was yelling and behaving erratically just as the previews wrapped up." When Gary returned to the theater after seeking a manager to quiet the man down, "people were screaming and running out of the theater," saying that the man had a gun.

"Witness Jeff Wincek said he saw the glint of a gun barrel and that 'it was definitely a pistol' that the man was waving," the Chron reports.

Gatpandan says that following the 911 call, "officers from multiple districts responded to the area, ordering the evacuation of the theater in an abundance of caution."

"One subject was located and detained, with a handgun also located at the scene," she says. According to KTVU, however, "It ended up being a replica gun." (An attempt by SFist to confirm that detail with SFPD was unsuccessful as of publication time.) "Even though the gun is a replica," KTVU reports, "the suspect could be charged with felonies depending on the circumstances."

According to KTVU, "The suspect appeared to be an Asian man in his 60s." Saying that "Information on suspects is provided only if they are arrested and booked," Gatpandan declined to provide the identity of the man detained in the incident, and said that more information would be released later today.

Witness says he heard 3 or 4 gunshots & people started running into Bloomingdale's. Mission & 4th. @abc7newsBayArea pic.twitter.com/L6KWSG63xl

— Katie Marzullo (@KatieABC7) November 26, 2015

Two days after a bloody shooting at a busy San Francisco parking garage, the suspected gunman remains on the loose.

It all started at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the 5th and Mission Parking Garage near the Westfield Mall and the Metreon. According to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Sergeant Michael Andraychak, a man was in line in the garage lobby waiting to pay for parking when a man in his 20s shot him numerous times from behind.

"It doesn't appear to be a random shooting. We believe that they may have known each other,"SFPD Officer Carlos Manfredi told ABC7.

“This happened very quickly and sporadically. From what I understand there was no communication between them," he told the Chron.

"I just heard a bunch of shots. I think it was like three, four shots, then everybody outside just started running inside, everybody. It was crazy," one witness told ABC7.

"The shots kept on going on and everybody started screaming and ducking for cover like a bomb had gone off," another witness said. "We saw the victim, by that time, come running out in the street and fell down, obviously had been shot."

The man, who was struck multiple times in the "lower extremities," was transported to San Francisco General Hospital and is in critical but stable condition.

Police, believing that the suspect had fled into the parking garage, closed down the seven-floor, 2,500-space structure for about two hours, to no avail.

Manfredi told KTVU that "We took all the public outside. We used our tactical units to do a systematic search, floor by floor, to check all the vehicles in the parking garage to make sure that the suspect wasn't still outstanding and on the loose."

Police didn't find a trace of the shooter, however, and must now turn to the tape.

"We're reviewing all of the video surveillance video that we captured," Manfredi says, "and we're also doing systematic checks throughout the other buildings, block by block."

Know anything about this shooting? If so, you're urged to call SFPD's Anonymous Tip Line at 415-575-4444 or to text TIP411 with “SFPD” at the start of the message.

Photo by Demetrios Lyras

Excellent news on the boozy movie theater front: Along with the Sundance Kabuki, the AMC Bay Street (Emeryville), and the upcoming Alamo Drafthouse Cinema at the New Mission, the AMC Metreon is applying to add a liquor license to their offerings and open one of the chain's McGuffins Bars at the SoMa location. As Socketsite reports, AMC has applied for the permits and gotten a thumbs up, so far, from zoning, but the liquor license still needs to be purchased.

It's unclear how long we'll be waiting for this or where in the Metreon complex the bar would go. But like the Kabuki it's likely going to have to be on a segregated floor, or devoted to a specific set of screens, because the liquor license won't apply to the entire premises.

Meanwhile, at the Landmark Embarcadero, they've been offering beer and wine the last two years in a bar/lounge area, but, sadly, because of the liquor laws and their few number of screens, you can only enjoy these adult beverages before or after the show.

A couple years back we'd heard that The Roxie on 16th wanted to sell beer and wine, too, but that plan hasn't yet come to fruition, and liquor licenses in the Mission are notoriously hard to come by because of a moratorium that's been in place since 1996.

• Bay Area moviegoers who were all psyched to see a special sneak preview of The Interview last night at the Metreon had their hopes dashed when Sony yanked it from release amid terror threats from North Korea. [KTVU]
• Sorry, Daisy. The new Sports Illustrated cover about the 49ers horrible season is just going to make it worse. [SI]
• The father of the young woman who fell from the cliff at Painted Rock in October says her death was poorly investigated, casts suspicion on the guy who was with her. [KTVU]
• The tides this weekend could be kind of amazing. [Chron]
• Peet's Coffee & Tea just abruptly shuttered stores in three states in order to consolidate and focus on the stronger California, Chicago, and Boston markets. [Business Times]
• Labrina McDonald, mother of just-released 49er Ray McDonald, says surveillance video would clear her son's name in this latest assault allegation. [CBS 5]
• Local teachers are psyched about the announcement that the U.S. has reopened diplomatic relations with Cuba. [Examiner]
• The few restaurants that have tried to abolish tipping in favor of uniform service charges that can be shared with kitchen staff are running into some snags. [Chron]
• A Hayward woman found a live scorpion in a dress at JC Penney’s. [SFGate]

We took a break from digesting to report on the presumed bloodbath happening at City Target at the Metreon, where we expected to brave hordes looking for Black Friday bargains. Alas, no such masses were found. We snapped the above shot at around 11:30 am today.

According to the Chronicle, much of the buyer melee subsided quickly throughout the Bay Area. A very orderly and brief Black Friday in San Francisco, it seems. (What we did find at City Target, however, were people who don't understand the concept of using a revolving door properly. Unbelievable.)

And for good measure, we sauntered over to TJ Maxx in SOMA (did you know that SOMA had a TK Maxx? Of course you didn't since it's an impossible place, near Fourth and Harrison, for pedestrians to access safely) and came across the following Black Friday tranquility. Nary a Maxxinista to be found.

It's here. The new Target store at Mission and 4th debuted yesterday, following Mayor Lee's ribbon cutting on Tuesday night (in the midst of the Mirkarimi proceedings). It's softly open now, with the official grand opening happening on Sunday. Yes, there is clothing, there are groceries, there are home goods, there is a pharmacy. Hoorah.

As discussed earlier, it's a smaller format than Target is accustomed to, and S.F. is one of the testing grounds of this City Target thing. You enter off of Mission Street, take an escalator to the second floor, and the store is there, all 85,000 square feet. LiveSoMa has some photos, and it pretty much looks like a regular Target but with not especially high ceilings.

So, the next time there's another one of those Missoni-esque designer brouhahas, you'll know where to line up.

[LiveSoMa]

Get ready: There's going to be a Target at the new Metreon complex in just a few short weeks. Traffic will, undoubtedly, be all that much more of a nightmare around Fourth and Fifth Streets, but as LiveSoMa reports, the opening date has been set for October 14, just in time for Halloween and holiday shopping.

We know very little about what the new store on the second floor of the complex will look like, but it's a new, urban, smaller-format version of Target that they're calling City Target. It occupies 85,000 square feet, and will no doubt feature all those designer home-goods and clothing boutiques that make the discount chain so hip-seeming and popular.

Also, the opening will mark the final phase of the Metreon redo, which already features a bunch of new street-facing food businesses like Split Bread, Super Duper, and Chipotle, and will soon include a newly reconfigured entrance at the corner of 4th and Mission.

Previously: Metreon Target Will Open In Time For Next Holiday Season
Target All Set to Move Forward in the Metreon

[LiveSoMa]

"Design Art Architecture" by Demetrios Lyras.

"Arc" by Bob Horowitz.

After a much-needed (?) $30 million makeover, the Metreon, struggling early aughts mall fortress at Fourth and Mission, will open a new set of "reimagined" restaurants and shops on Saturday. Among the reworked ideas: a simpler, cleaner tone to the place; easier entry; and stores that—get this—one can enter without having first to walk through a human maze. Which is to say, many retail stores will now be accessible from Fourth Street.

According to The Chronicle, new establishments will include, "Buckhorn Grill, SoGreen Yogurt and San Francisco Soup Co., to be followed in days or weeks by Cako Creamery, La Boulange Bakery, Massage Envy Spa, Brandy Ho's Hunan Food and many others."

We took a mini-tour of the new digs. While still in the incomplete stage as of Friday afternoon, the changes are impressive. Judge for yourself.

The Metreon will also house a new Target store, taking up the entire second floor. Target plans to open the mammoth store later this year.