Ask a longtime Noe Valley resident to name the neighborhood's dining anchor and you'll hear the same answer you would have heard a decade ago: Bi-Rite Market on 24th, with a supporting cast that runs from Saru Sushi Bar to Noe Valley Bakery to Taffi's for a diner breakfast. That answer is still correct. It is also newly incomplete.
Two things happened this spring that shift the shape of the corridor. A well-known Oakland operator crossed the Bay to plant its third location on the corner of 24th and Church. And a first-time Palestinian restaurateur, raised in the neighborhood, opened the room that the block had been waiting on for more than a year. Neither is a chain rollout. Both were placed here on purpose, by operators who could have opened almost anywhere in the Bay Area and chose this half-mile instead.
The Church Street corner that just changed hands
The most visible arrival is Grand Lake Kitchen, which soft-opened on a Saturday in March and held a ribbon-cutting with a lion-dance performance the following Friday.
