Empire Building

Mission Street Food Seeks Many, Many Investors

It’s so San Francisco, this: two-night-a-week nonrestaurant Mission Street Food is negotiating for some permanent digs, and they want to create a co-op of 100 investors at $500 apiece to pull it off. Despite a crap economy, the MSF kids drew steady crowds to their borrowed tables at Lung Shan restaurant, and even with way cheap prices per plate managed to donate a $20,000 profit to charity. They want to continue in this idealistic vein, donating up to $90,000 a year, and investors can choose between annual dividends or cashing in for $1,000 in gift certificates for meals as soon as the restaurant opens.

We don’t want to sound like naysayers or jaded bitches, but coming up with so much spare change to give away each year, in a city where the economics of restaurant ownership are iffy as it is, might be a touch optimistic. Part of the place’s success, apart from being a new kid on the block, probably had something to do with not having much overhead and never having to pay their workers on slow nights in the early part of the week. But hey, if they can pull this off and still give $90,000 to charity in a year, then kudos.

Full-Time Charitable Restaurant? [Mission Street Food]
Earlier: S.F. Restaurant Staffs Are Costliest in the Country [Grub Street]

Mission Street Food Seeks Many, Many Investors