Beachgoers and park strollers already have a slew of top-notch dining options near Ocean Beach and the new Sunset Dunes park. But later this summer, they’ll gain a family-friendly destination for tacos, salads, and frosty margaritas from the pros behind Mission Bay’s favorite waterfront hangout, Mission Rock Resort.
Ruby’s will open in late summer on the corner of 48th Avenue and Judah Street, taking over the space formerly occupied by vegan restaurant Beach’n. Owners Nick and Monique Osborne named the restaurant after the youngest of their three kids. “We’re calling Ruby’s ‘California beach fare,’” Nick says. “We want to serve food that can be enjoyed in the environment, which is, of course, on the doorstep of Ocean Beach.”
To that end, they’re R&D-ing a menu of tacos, wraps, soups, and salads — fresh, casual food that can easily be toted over the dunes and onto the sand for a picnic. A dinner menu will include “more substantial stuff,” and the restaurant will have a selection of beer, natural wine, and sangria. They’re most excited about a cocktail they’re planning to call the Mellow Marg, which will be made with a low-ABV agave spirit — essentially, tequila that won’t get you too messed up to wrangle three kids.
They’ll spend the coming weeks finishing a light renovation of the building and have already given the turquoise-and-lime-green facade a new coat of paint. Monique took inspiration from the rainbow array of homes in the Outer Sunset, choosing a bold green that’s “playful but not silly.” “We want it to be for the people who live in the Sunset,” she says. “To almost to feel like they’re eating at a friend’s house in their living room.”
Though Ruby’s will be the first restaurant the couple has opened together, they’re coming to the project with years of experience — and, in Nick’s case, a family history in the industry. Until the 1960s, Nick’s great-grandfather operated a restaurant called Gallagher’s on Market Street, and his parents opened and operated a number of popular, casual spots around the city, including Buchanan Grill and Washington Square Bar and Grill, both now closed, and MoMo’s, which they sold in 2019. His folks met while studying hospitality at City College and bought Mission Rock Resort in 2011, when the original owner, Jim Kelly, filed for bankruptcy.
“They have an amazing little love story where they were partnered up on a school project, and they had to come up with a restaurant concept together,” Nick says. “That’s where the spark started to fly. They fell in love, and then they opened up a handful of restaurants.”
Nick and Monique have been running “The Rock,” as they call it, for a few years after deciding to give up their first careers — him with San Francisco Fire Department, her in tech — in favor of ones that would allow them more flexibility. As their family has grown, they’ve been on the hunt for the right location to expand their restaurant footprint and fell in love with the Outer Sunset — biking along the dunes, playing at the beach, and eating at neighborhood staples like Hook Fish Co. and Java Beach Cafe — when they were living in the area for six months while doing home renovations.
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When the Beach’n space became available, they jumped at the chance to become a part of the neighborhood. “We have achieved such great balance at Mission Rock, sometimes we’d ask ourselves, do we really want to disrupt the rhythm that we’re in by throwing in another restaurant?” Monique says. “But I think when this chance fell in our lap, it really did feel like fate.”