A longtime Italian stalwart in North Beach is calling it quits, a legendary Japanese yakitori shop is coming to Japantown, and more news from this week in the Bay Area food scene.
A longtime Italian stalwart in North Beach, North Beach Restaurant (1512 Stockton Street), is planning to close by the end of the year unless the owners can find a buyer to take it over. The Chronicle broke the news this week that Leo Petroni, the son of one of the original owners, plans to close the 50+-year-old, white-tablecloth spot by year-end unless someone wants to "carry our traditions forward."
Edomasa, a famed Tokyo yakitori shop that got its start as a cart in 1924, is being revived in SF's Japantown. The grilled chicken skewer specialist shop will open inside the Japantown mall (1581 Webster Street Ste. 270) next week, on October 18, as the Chronicle tells us. Unlike the original Edomasa, and unlike popular Berkeley yakitori place Ippuku, Edomasa will not be serving a signature dish of raw chicken.
A new daytime pop-up is coming from Ukranian chef Igor Teplitsky the team behind the Borsch Mobile food truck, called Iggy's Place. It will feature sandwiches, salads, housemade pirozhi, and of course, borsch, and it's opening next week (sometime between October 17 and 19) at Cassava's wine bar (3519 Balboa Street).
The wood-paneled outpost of Equator Coffee in the LinkedIn building in SoMa (222 Second Street) has reopened for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. As Eater reports, Equator Coffee CEO JP Lachance said he and his team have been "seeing the lines forming again" downtown. "We’re reading the tea leaves, all these signs, and now’s the time [to reopen]," Lachance said.
San Francisco is losing one of its Michelin-starred restaurants, as Avery (1552 Fillmore Street) is closing for good on November 4. Chef Rodney Wages recently fell in love with Edinburgh, Scotland, and he'll be relocating there, opening Avery Edinburgh in 2024, as Eater reports. Fans and those who want a last shot at sampling Wages's food should try to snag a res in the next couple weeks. The restaurant took its name from American painter Milton Avery, and the current menu takes its inspiration from "Incoming Tide," one of the artist's paintings from 1936.
Mission District Cuban sandwich spot Media Noche is also calling it quits after six years. As the Chronicle reports, its last day is October 28, and the owners say that business has been way down recently, even worse than at the start of the pandemic.
There is now weekend brunch being served on another SF rooftop: Rise Over Run, the rooftop bar/restaurant at the LINE hotel on mid-Market (entrance at 33 Turk Street). As Tablehopper tells us, offerings include scallion bacon scones, chilaquiles, and fried chicken, as well as fun cocktails.
And SFGate reported this week on the trend among a few Bay Area brunch spots of posting warnings to guests who drink too many bottomless mimosas and then need to puke. Kitchen Story in Oakland (and presumably the one in the Castro) has a notice in the bathroom that anybody who vomits has to pay a $50 cleanup fee — and apparently this happens right on the table sometimes too. The Marina's Home Plate has a similar policy with a $50 fee. One solution I'd suggest: Stop serving bottomless mimosas.
In some fun news, for National Pizza Month, WesBurger 'N' More is collaborating with Capo's and Tony's Pizza Napoletana on a pizza burger (at WesBurger) and a burger pizza (at Capo's and Tony's), and both look quite delicious.
Top photo: The WesBurger pizza at Capo's and Tony's, via Instagram
