This Week In Food: Hayes Valley Sees One Restaurant Open, Another On The Way

The Rich Table team is expanding once more, there's a new restaurant in the former Petit Crenn space that opened this week, and Daytrip Counter debuts next week in Oakland, all in This Week in Food.

Ms. Tablehopper broke the news this week that Rich Table owner-chefs Evan and Sarah Rich have snapped up the newly vacant O-toro Sushi space at 205 Oak Street, around the corner from Rich Table, and they've put in a liquor license application for something called Rich Table Bistro. This is an exciting development with no details so far, but this means the Riches will have three restaurants within a block of each other in Hayes Valley, including the original RT Rotisserie — and the pair has had plans for expanding that brand elsewhere as well.

Earlier this week we had the big news about the opening of Side A, the new American bistro with a DJ booth in the old Universal Cafe space in Potrero Hill. The menu is anchored by California twists on comfort food, including a bone marrow burger and a fried chicken cutlet with honey mustard sauce and chicories. They're still in soft-opening mode and reservations won't launch until May 15 on Resy.

And in the Lilah space on Chestnut Street in the Marina we will be seeing a new Jewish deli-inspired restaurant — with full bar — called Super Mensch, from the Causwells team, opening this summer.

North Beach's Chubby Noodle closed for good on Wednesday, after becoming best known for its $54 bottomless, all-you-can-eat brunch deal on the weekends. The closure comes about a year after Chubby Noodle relocated a block away, from Green Street to 510 Union Street. (The restaurant previously moved in 2019 from Grant Street.) The restaurant's website confirmed the closure, and it's not clear if owner Pete Mrabe is continuing to run his other location in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

The new restaurant that replaces Petit Crenn (in the Hayes Valley space that was also the longtime home of Bar Jules) opened Wednesday for dinner, and it is called KIS Cafe (609 Hayes Street). We first heard about it in March, Tablehopper now has some shots of the interior, and it looks both cozy and moody, with a new small lounge space up front. The kitchen is being led by Luke Sung of the nearby Domo Sushi, who has a classical French cooking background that will be on display here. The menu includes steamed mussels, chicken liver mousse, beef carpaccio, a daily changing braised meat, and an aged hangar steak served with chimichurri.

Over in Oakland, the much anticipated replacement for Daytrip, called Daytrip Counter, is set to open next week, on May 7. The restaurant tucked that date into an April 3 Instagram post that includes details about the salad options they'll be offering to go with their "juicy" roast chicken. These include a Basil Caesar, the Club Med (lemon tahini dressing, tender gigante beans, Castelvetrano olives, sheep’s milk feta, mint, and za’atar), and the Crispy Spicy (Red Boat fish sauce and birdseye chili vinaigrette, haricot verts, shredded carrot, red cabbage, mint, cilantro, and a savory shallot granola). Also, there will be "Hot Caesar" fries, and brown butter coconut cookies.

In more unfortunate Oakland news, well loved Piedmont Avenue Middle Eastern spot Pomella is set to close at the end of the month, on May 26, after five years in business. Owner Mica Talmor tells the Chronicle that rising costs and slowing business were to blame, and that the business is no longer sustainable.

Critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan this week extols the delights of Kukje Supermarket in Daly City, which has an in-house restaurant, describing it as the less glitzy, but far more delicious counterpart to the newer H Mart and Jagalchi that have been catching all the Korean market buzz. "I’ll choose Kukje nine times out of 10 if I’m looking for a meal," she writes, and she lauds the sundubu-jjigae or soft-tofu soups. She adds that that their large-format version of galbi-jjim is great too, and "it’s hard to argue with a heaping mound of fork-tender short ribs and veggies, smothered in melty cheese and bejeweled with jujubes."

Photo via Daytrip Counter/Instagram