Real Estate

How Many Restaurants Does Valencia Street Really Need?

All year we’ve been talking about the staggering number of new restaurants opening or soon to open in the Mission. Sunday’s Chronicle has a piece about Valencia Street in specific, and “1,000 new restaurant seats” that have appeared within three blocks, between 16th and 19th Streets, in the last two years. It stands to reason that not all of these sixteen new restaurants will survive the test of time, and it begs the question of how many restaurants one neighborhood really needs. But after speaking to a number of restaurateurs, including Chad Robertson of Bar Tartine, Charles Phan, and Dylan MacNiven of West of Pecos, the overall consensus is that it’s a good thing. The only person who sounds unhappy about the boom (and the rising rents) is Jose Ramos, the owner of the fledgling 780 Café that took over the former Summit space. He’s a Mission resident and has watched rents go from a dollar a square foot to five or six dollars. “It’s tough for business owners,” he says. “Being a mom-and-pop, and then you have a really fancy restaurant and you go in there and you feel out of place in your own neighborhood. You feel uncomfortable.” [Chron, Earlier]

How Many Restaurants Does Valencia Street Really Need?