It's been nine months since the Halal Guys arrived in SF and started doing lunch delivery via Caviar. My personal experience with that lunch delivery wasn't that awesome, but it was OK, and plenty of former New Yorkers have attested via Yelp that the local version is a fair if not perfect approximation of the original minus the white sauce with real yogurt in it, and minus the street cart/freshly grilled meat. And now, as Inside Scoop reports, the storefront they've been operating out of at 340 O'Farrell Street (beneath that parking structure next to the former Naan & Curry, between Taylor and Mason) is finally ready for real-life lines. It is set to open to the public on January 27.
The local franchisee launched a crowdfunding campaign on EquityEats back in October, ostensibly to drum up interest in the business and turn customers into "equity investors."* From that came the video below, showing the active Las Vegas location of the franchise being run by the same guys, Binh Tran and Tom Nguyen, who are also behind the SF location and another getting ready to open at 2126 Center Street in Berkeley.
The Halal Guys started 25 years ago with a street cart serving falafel and gyros in Midtown Manhattan, and that later led to a couple of brick-and-mortar locations in New York, and then announcing in 2015 that they were going to begin franchising the operation, with as many as 30 locations, ultimately, around the Bay Area.
Unfortunately with the franchising came a packaged version of their white sauce, nicknamed "Angel Jizz" back in New York, that doesn't really hold a candle to the original, for which you can check out the recipe here. But maybe at the storefront they'll be squeezing the real thing out of squeeze bottles? One can only hope.
The Halal Guys - 340 O'Farrell Street between Mason and Taylor - Opening January 27 - Hours will be Sunday through Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Previously: The Halal Guys In SF: An Admittedly Early Review
* This post has been corrected to show that the EquityEats campaign was not created out of financial necessity.
