The prominent corner at Noe and Market streets that for decades was home to Cafe Flore has a new tenant moving in, with hopes to bring some life back to this terrific space.

Castro neighborhood denizens may have noticed that one of those pop-up holiday cocktail things came to the former Cafe Flore during the holiday season. But the space has been otherwise pretty quiet for the last six months, since Fisch & Flore, the much-delayed replacement restaurant for Cafe Flore, closed last July after just over a year in business.

But thankfully the prominent corner spot won't stay dark much longer, and the handsome renovation that owner Serhat Zorlu did for Fisch & Flore won't go to waste. It will reopen, as the SF Standard is reporting, as Parasol at Flore, hopefully by June, with owner Jacob Paronyan saying he would like to get open in time for Pride Month.

Paronyan is the owner of Roaming Goat, the three-and-a-half-year-old wine bar in Cow Hollow with a unique focus on Armenian and Georgian wines — part of a trend of regionally specific international wine bars that the Chronicle highlighted in 2022.

With Parasol at Flore, Paronyan tells the Standard that he's looking to create more of a restaurant, and one leaning more toward California fare that has some Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influence — but no doubt some similarly unique wine pours. And he expects the place to have a lively daytime presence, especially for weekend brunch.

The Roaming Goat menu, if we're looking for clues, includes dips like hummus and mahammara, cheese plates, and some more filling items like meat and octopus kebabs, and kufta meatballs.

In terms of vibe and food quality, Paronyan tells the Standard, "I hope it will be somewhere in the realm of Starbelly across the street, which has been there for 15 years, or maybe a step or two below Zuni."

Hopefully, the menu at Parasol will be a bit more cravable and affordably priced than Fisch & Dlore, which seemed to suffer from an identity crisis from the get go — was it a bar? was it a restaurant? was it a fancy restaurant? While the cocktails were good, the food portions were notably stingy, given the price point.

Also, unlike at Roaming Goat, this space comes with a full liquor license, and Paronyan has not indicated what to expect in terms of cocktails.

The original Cafe Flore closed in 2020 after 47 years in business, following years of uncertainty around the space. One issue had always been its tiny, makeshift kitchen, which for many years was supplemented by an unpermitted prep kitchen across the street, in another building linked to the owners.

As SFGayHistory recounts, the original glass-enclosed cafe was built in 1973 by Alfred Finnila, an iron worker who had worked on the Golden Gate Bridge, on land owned by his family. The neighborhood had long been home to Scandinavian immigrants in the early 20th Century, and this had previously been the site of Finnila’s Finnish Baths — which also included part of the site where the Market & Noe Center (home of Barry's) now stands.

The property was purchased in 1977 by Mahmood and Ahmad Ghazi, who went on to run Cafe Flore for 25 years.

For decades, the place had been a reliable daytime cafe and go-to brunch spot, especially on sunny days, as well as an LGBTQ community gathering space.

Under Zorlu's ownership, as part of the extensive renovation that added an ADA bathroom and a more functional kitchen, the space also got a more finished patio with a fire pit and glass wind-blocks.

Stay tuned for more details as this opening gets closer.