Ah, the buoyant Bay Area restaurant industry. Food costs may be rising, and hiring is still challenging, but optimistic chefs and entrepreneurs are forging ahead with plans for first-time ventures and expansions, which should make for a brisk summer and autumn of openings.
Here’s the scoop on nine hotly anticipated openings from Walnut Creek and Oakland to Santa Clara and Palo Alto, plus updates on others we know you’ve been eagerly awaiting.
Ethel’s Fancy, Palo Alto
Acclaimed chef Scott Nishiyama is getting back in the restaurant game, a decade after leaving the Michelin-starred Chez TJ in Mountain View. Although he has an all-high-end résumé that also includes the French Laundry and Daniel, he is looking this time to deliver what he calls a “a fun and less formal dining experience.”
His inspiration? His maternal grandmother and his mother. Nishiyama remembers their “comforting home cooking and warm sense of hospitality” from his childhood on Maui in the Hawaiian islands, and said he hopes to re-create that sense in Palo Alto. He and GM Jon Sloane (Quince, Chez TJ) are planning a menu of small plates for family-style dining, using seasonal ingredients from farmers markets and local purveyors.
And they’ll be doing so in a space that evokes warm memories for Peninsula residents — the former home of the beloved Prolific Oven.
Details: Opening in July at 550 Waverley St., Palo Alto. www.ethelsfancypa.com
Montesacro, Walnut Creek
The owners of 54 Mint Forno are transforming the Walnut Creek Italian bakery into a Roman comfort food restaurant named for that city’s working class neighborhood. Montesacro already has thriving locations in San Francisco and Brooklyn, where the farm-to-table eatery specializes in several culinary traditions of the region, most notably pinsa.
The ancient, pizza-like flatbread, made from soy, rice and heirloom wheat flour, gets dressed in seasonal ingredients from local farms and small producers in Italy. In San Francisco, the menu features 17 pinsas with toppers like smoked pancetta, grilled marinated artichokes and bottarga, a dried fish roe. They also offer paninis and 12 antipasti, including polpette al sugo, Puglian burrata with Cantabrian anchovy and a $30 prosciutto tasting.
Montesacro will serve wine, cocktails and housemade desserts, too. We’re pretty excited about the crostata del ghetto, a Roman “ghetto” tart made with sheep’s ricotta, chocolate and wild cherry.
Details: Opening this month at 1686 Locust St., Walnut Creek. https://montesacro.com
JAKS Authentic Indian & Modern Vibe, Santa Clara
With an intriguing restaurant name like that, you know there’s bound to be a fascinating traditional-meets-modern menu. Indeed, JAKS — an upscale concept from master chef Prakash Singh, originally from Mumbai, and owner Michael Agnel, raised in Chennai — intends to take diners on a “time and space” culinary tour of India.
Look for elevated and reimagined classics, plus regional dishes from all corners of the country, with an emphasis on the cuisine of Bengal, Maharashtra and Lucknow; fusion creations from Kerala and Chennai in the south; and spicy Indo-Chinese specialties. They plan to update the lunch menu (think bowls, kebabs) not just seasonally but weekly.
For Singh and Agnel, another emphasis will be providing diners with a wide variety of gluten-free, dairy-free and vegetarian options.
The restaurant’s PEG Gastropub will feature fun craft cocktails — edible bubbles! smoke! — along with microbrews on tap and a curated list of wines from around the world.
Details: Opening in August at Santa Clara Square Marketplace, 3333 Coronado Place, Santa Clara. www.jaksrestaurant.com
Poppy Bagels, Oakland
A key player in the Bay Area bagel revolution, Poppy Bagels of Oakland is taking its wildly popular Grand Lake farmers market enterprise to a permanent location in the Temescal District.
According to owner and bagel baker Reesa Kashuk, the former Doña Tomas space will be transformed into a bakery and shop where they make the dough and hand-shape, boil and bake the bagels on site in a large, revolving deck oven. Yes, fresh bagels all day long.
To pair with classic bagels like everything, sesame, poppy, garlic and onion, Kashuk will offer her signature cream cheeses. The base comes from a dairy in Willows, which Kashuk turns into delightful flavors like briny (pickles and capers), chivey, lemony lox and seasonal specials like roasted strawberry balsamic or beet and poppy seed. Don’t miss the bagel sandos, including a first-time egg and cheese and a tuna salad for the lunchtime crowd.
Details: A fall opening is in the works at 5004 Telegraph Ave., Oakland; www.poppybagelsca.com
Meyhouse, Palo Alto
What, you say? There’s already a jam-packed Meyhouse in Sunnyvale.
Yes, but that 55-seat restaurant simply isn’t large enough for all of the ambitious food and entertainment plans in the works, so — after whetting the appetites of patrons on Murphy Avenue — Meyhouse is moving into its long-planned new digs in Palo Alto.
In this 175-seat space (formerly Dan Gordon’s barbecue and beer restaurant), executive chef and co-owner Omer Artun and business partner Koray Altinsoy will offer an expanded and refined Turkish “meyhane” concept, with a large menu of mezes, grilled meats and fresh fish from the ice bar. Sunnyvale favorites making the move to the Palo Alto menu will include Alenazik (fire-roasted eggplant and tomatoes topped with grilled tenderloin) and Adana (grilled, knife-chopped local grass-fed lamb). New dishes will include fire-roasted Chilean sea bass seasoned with a modern version of murri, an ancient condiment with fig and ginger.
The owners are also transforming the area that used to house the beer tanks into a professionally designed, live music venue with a full sound system, lighting and stage. Stay tuned for news of their first jazz and international music concerts.
Details: Opening in July at 640 Emerson St., Palo Alto. www.meyhousefood.com
Raising Cane’s, Oakland
Bay Area chicken connoisseurs can finally put Raising Cane’s to the test without going on a wild goose chase to Sacramento or SoCal. We’re getting our first outpost of the popular chicken shack, which has more than 530 locations worldwide.
This fast-food juggernaut is set to make its Bay Area debut in Oakland — the first of many planned for this regional expansion.
The restaurants are known for their marinated, all-white-meat, hand-battered chicken fingers, the addictive Cane’s sauce, Texas toast, coleslaw, sweet tea, lemonade — and the long lines of customers. But the Cane’s folks say they are prepared for the onslaught at this location near Interstate 880 and Hegenberger Road with a multiple-lane drive-thru, double kitchen and patio.
Details: Opening July 14 at 8430 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. www.raisingcanes.com
Boichik Bagels, Berkeley and Palo Alto
The story has been told innumerable times, and yet it still gives us poppy-seed goosebumps.
Berkeley’s Boichik Bagels — and its self-taught bagel master Emily Winston — put California on the map for even-better-than New York-style bagels in 2017. But it will be Winston’s forthcoming West Berkeley location, an 18,000-square-foot factory and first for the Bay Area, that will make the history books.
Construction started June 2 on what Winston calls “the plant,” a destination-worthy factory that will also function as a cafe, taking pressure off Winston’s first brick-and-mortar, the 1,200-square-foot shop on College Avenue, which has been selling out of those perfectly-crusted, chewy and flavorful bagels since it opened in 2019.
At the factory, you’ll be able to order from the whole lineup of bagels, including Eggything (Egg-Everything) and Pumperthingel (Pumpernickel with Everything) as well as bagel sandwiches filled with lox, Hatch chile or horseradish-cheddar-scallion cream cheeses. You’ll find all the salads — tuna, whitefish and organic, pasture-raised egg — plus coffee and baked goods. The design will include a window into the production kitchen as well as a large patio.
The factory will also supply bagels to Boichik’s first brick-and-mortar outside the East Bay. Winston announced back in January that Boichik will be opening a bagel shop at the Town and Country Shopping Center in Palo Alto. The Peninsula location will be small but serve the same array of bagels and bagel sandwiches. It will be open every day into the late afternoon.
Details: A late fall opening is planned for the factory at 1225 Sixth St, Berkeley. Look for the Palo Alto shop opening in late summer at 855 El Camino Real, Palo Alto; https://boichikbagels.com
Canteen Next Door, Menlo Park
After drawing a loyal following to Menlo Park’s Camper for his seasonal entrees and fresh pasta, chef Greg Kuzia-Carmel (Quince, Cotogna, Per Se), will expand just about a mile away with not one but two culinary concepts at the upcoming Springline project.
For this dining/office/housing destination springing up along El Camino Real, he’ll be opening Canteen Next Door, a wine bar with small bites, along with the Canteen Cafe, which will cater to work-space employees with grab-and-go wraps, salads, sandwiches and Sightglass Coffee.
Look for surprising offerings from Kuzia-Carmel and his farm-to-table team, who don’t serve any dish without a seasonal fruit or vegetable accompaniment. We’re already putting in our request for the Warm Cast Iron Buttermilk Cornbread with Green Chili-Honey Butter.
Details: Opening later this year on Oak Grove Way (Canteen Next Door) and El Camino Real (Canteen Cafe). www.campermp.com
Popoca, Oakland
Anthony Salguero first gained notice for his progressive Salvadoran cuisine through Popoca, a pop-up at the Classic Cars West Beer Garden in Oakland, where plumes of smoke from the wood-fired oven producing the chef’s signature pupusas would rise up into the Uptown Arts District. This was after years of experience in fine dining kitchens, including Oakland’s Bardo Lounge & Supper Club and Saratoga’s Plumed Horse.
Salguero is still popping up — most recently at Oakland’s Low Bar — but he’s been quietly working on opening his first brick-and-mortar, too. While he’s not ready to disclose many details, he can confirm the location in the Old Oakland building formerly housing The Lede. He promises a strong bar program with inventive small bites and those same, enticing pupusas coming hot off the hearth. They’re made from fresh masa and filled with fresh ingredients like cultivated mushrooms, Fresno chiles, cauliflower and black beans.
Details: Expect an opening by year’s end at 906 Washington St., Oakland. www.popocaoakland.com
STILL COMING:
Cafe Ohlone, Berkeley: The world’s first restaurant dedicated to the foods and culinary traditions of the Ohlone people, which was scheduled to make its debut in the courtyard of UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology this spring, will be opening in August.
Giorgio’s Italian Grill & Pizzeria, Morgan Hill: The South Bay’s venerable D’Ambrosio family will open their first new place in years on the ever-expanding downtown Morgan Hill restaurant row. Look for a fall opening.
Momosan Ramen & Sake, San Jose: If you’re eager to try the ramen and yakitori restaurant that “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto is bringing to San Jose’s Santana Row, then update your calendar with this news: Yes, we’re told he is still on his way this year. But his PR team says it’s too soon to specify the opening date.
SanDai Nusantara Californian, Walnut Creek: Signage is up — yay — and staffing is in the works at chef Nora Haron’s Indonesian-meets-Cali cuisine restaurant, bar and coffee shop formerly known as SanDai Modern Indonesian and Kopi Bar. Opening is now slated for fall.