Is SF’s food Siberia finally heating up?

This column originally ran in Wednesday’s Off Menu newsletter, where you’ll find restaurant news, gossip, tips, and hot takes every week. To sign up, visit the Standard’s newsletter page and select Off Menu.

Breadbelly’s opening at the end of June could be called the icing on the cake (or, in this case, the kaya on the toast) of the restaurant-ization of the city’s eastern side, from Mission Rock to Thrive City to, now, Pier 70. 

The cultish Asian bakery’s second location is ensconced in a massive renovated steel-frame structure once used for ship manufacturing. Pier 70 is both very cool and a total disconnect from the first Breadbelly, which is located in a quiet residential stretch of the Outer Richmond, complete with a parklet where char siu sando-obsessed patrons sportingly vie for tables.

In contrast, the 69-acre development, located just past Dogpatch off 22nd Street, gives both shipyard chic and end-of-world vibes. Right now, it’s mostly potential — a horizon of weedy, empty lots viewed through chain-link fences. Even though the pastries here are as good as Clement Street, the experience of eating them at Pier 70 is incomparable.

Developers here and elsewhere are leaning hard into filling their “mixed-use” spaces with the most popular restaurants, bars, and bakeries. But can you take a beloved concept born in a well-worn neighborhood and replicate it in a shiny new development? Will the results translate?

Take Mission Bay. Since 2020, when Dumpling Time expanded to the plaza outside of Chase Center, the waterfront neighborhood has seen a restaurant boom like never before. Today, if you find yourself in the the two-mile stretch between Oracle Park and 22nd Street, you will eat well. At Thrive City alone, there’s Gott’s Roadside, Che Fico Pizzeria, Señor Sisig, Fikscue Craft Barbecue, Kayah by Burma Love, and Splash, with a menu by the mixologists at Pacific Cocktail Haven. At Mission Rock, there’s Flour + Water Pizza Shop, Arsicault Bakery, and soon-to-open cocktail bar and weenie spot Quik Dog by Trick Dog. 

If you’re at a Giants or Valkyries game, it’s very convenient. But for day-to-day eating, it’s definitely mall-esque. From my POV, food — no matter how well executed — can be only as soulful as the environment in which it is served.

Breadbelly, which launched in 2018, is the first eatery at Pier 70’s Building 12. (Standard Deviant started slinging beers there in June.) It’s been three years in the making. The glassed-in, fishbowl of a kitchen is nearly 3,500 square feet — four times larger than the one at the original location. A shiny new Italian mixer is on display. There’s a four-door freezer. A dozen-ish employees mill about, rolling out racks of croissants and taking orders. The bakery is across from Bay Padel’s indoor courts and nextdoor to a scooter shop. When Dua Lipa plays on the speaker system, it echoes throughout the industrial communal eating space like an empty cathedral.

Clement Hsu, one of Breadbelly’s three chef-owners — all hailing from fine-dining backgrounds — is thrilled to have the space. It allows for a luxurious commissary kitchen, paving the way for smaller, satellite Breadbelly bakeries in the future, he hopes.

There is a good reason restaurants are trying out locations in new developments. Financial success in SF does not allow for thinking small. “Our first location has been growing for all these years, and we’ve tried to expand as much as we can, but there’s that point when you have to scale to have sustainability,” said Hsu. 

This week, Breadbelly sold out of pastries every day. But it’s hard to gauge the future when you’re part of a community in the making. For now, Hsu is waiting for the Pier 70 to fill up. “We’re excited for all the projects in the neighborhood,” said Hsu. “UCSF’s oncology build-out, residential buildings. And grass. We just want grass and waterfront access — and it’s all coming.” 

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