For the past 35 years, a beloved Indian restaurant has stood at 6127 Geary Blvd. between 25th and 26th avenues. Now, under new and changing leadership, Ocean Indian Cuisine is beginning a gradual transformation, one menu item at a time.
When Frank McGinn opened Amazing Fantasy in August 2000, he thought it would take weeks of painting, cleaning and stocking before the comics shop would open. But on the Sunday he took possession of the storefront, Irving Street neighbors poked their heads in to see what was replacing the old Comics and Comix location. They immediately dove into to help: cleaning and painting, whatever it took. One neighbor brought his truck to take away loads of rubbish. On the following Saturday, the shop opened. Community, it seems, has always mattered here.
Valeriya Romashchenko opened Cuprum Bakery in 2024, offering sourdough and other baked goods produced in her home kitchen in the Inner Richmond. The popularity of Romashchenko’s cottage bakery, like her sourdough bread, is rising in the Richmond District and beyond.
Walk up to a plum-colored house, just steps away from Golden Gate Park and you will find fresh sourdough bread stacked neatly on a white rack on the stoop, waiting to be bought. Here is where Inna Pak, a Richmond resident and full-time mom, operates her new microbakery, Plum Perfect.
Instead of waiting for their orders by the pick-up counter, customers of Constance Tea & Matcha often flock to the back of the studio, where three granite stone mills are actively grinding tencha leaves into the fine green powder that will fill their drinks. At most cafes in the U.S., this step is done thousands of miles away, but at Constance, it happens just 20 feet from the register.
A San Francisco restaurant owner closed his Richmond District business on July 28 after he was put in a chokehold outside of it in March, in what he said was a racially motivated attack, and after prosecutors declined to file charges.
The window of Yvonne’s Southern Sweets sat shattered after vandalism. For Yvonne Hines, the owner of the Bayview shop, this was not merely cosmetic; it was a threat to her business’s ability to operate. For many small businesses, a broken storefront can mean days or weeks without customers, repair bills and uncertainty about whether reopening is even possible.
There has been palpable excitement in the Richmond District ever since Rose Pizzeria, the popular Berkeley-based casual pizzeria opened in the neighborhood. The new San Francisco branch began serving lunch and dinner in late April, on the corner of Clement Street and Arguello Boulevard, in the former Village Pizzeria space.
A new Vietnamese sandwich shop, also offering coffee drinks and iced teas, has begun its soft-opening on Balboa Street near Fifth Avenue. Ghien Banh Mi & Cafe was started by Tuan Luu and Uyen Vu, who also own Luxury Spa.
After three years of operating out of a tiny pop-up booth at the Outer Sunset Farmer’s Market, Maillards, a Sunset staple known for smashburgers, opened its first location on Noriega Street in late April, joined with a taproom courtesy of Two Pitchers Brewing Company.
About four years ago, Chelsea Brown started setting up a small shelf of books in front of her garage on Saturdays. Naming it “The Celestial Library,” she said it felt like the perfect way to meet neighbors and share her overflowing book collection. Soon, lending and sharing books led to buying books and hosting story time events, which revealed the growing need for a neighborhood bookstore. With the community’s support of more than $30,000, she will fill that need by bringing a brick-and-mortar bookstore called Celestial Books to the Outer Richmond later this year.
Green Apple Books on Clement Street has been a cornerstone of the Richmond District since 1967. Known for its expansive rare book collection and homey atmosphere, the two-story building features eclectic themed rooms adorned with handwritten signs on the doorways and shelves.
Residents of the Richmond District got their first concrete sign of the local chain’s potential arrival when construction walls appeared around the site of a former corner store right next to the #1-California line bus stop on the corner of 22nd Avenue and California Street. The old shop, which had struggled to draw shoppers in recent years, has been the site of quiet speculation since it closed, and reports of Bi-Rite filing for permits in City Hall set of a wave of discussion in the neighborhood.
A dessert cafe has opened inside Abraham’s Farmers Market on Geary Boulevard and Fourth Avenue in the Richmond District, bringing the Oakland-born Zee’s Munchies franchise into the City for the first time.
As San Francisco residents are lured toward Ocean Beach to stroll along the Great Highway and enjoy the refreshing breeze, many find themselves stumbling upon a conspicuous, green building standing at the corner of Judah Street and 48th Avenue.
