Some of the Bay Areas most anticipated restaurants for 2020 are in COVID-19 limbo – San Francisco Chronicle

Oakland chefs Julya Shin and Steve Joo were biting their nails waiting for building permits so they could finally make their dream restaurant a reality.

It was March. The repeated delays were increasingly frustrating as theyd hoped to open Nokni, a modern Korean restaurant, in the summer. But when the pandemic hit, the chefs faced a brutal choice: Do they push forward, hoping they can make enough money when they open despite watching other restaurants fail? Do they give up on the restaurant and lose all the time and money they spent planning? Or do they try to wait as long as possible, hoping for a speedy vaccine and an improved economy?

Its a position many Bay Area chefs and restaurateurs found themselves in this spring. Between the planning, funding and construction, it can take years to open a restaurants doors. Some have optioned to put their restaurants on hold indefinitely, others are still trying despite new challenges. But the choice isnt always up to them if an investor or bank loan falls through.

For Shin and Joo, the permit delays were a saving grace. If the permits had arrived on time, they would have been in the throes of construction when shelter-in-place orders hit. Instead, they had the chance to think and ultimately walk away from the restaurant entirely.

We were on the edge of the river, not in the river, Shin said. If youre waist deep, youve started building, youve sunk this much money you just dont know. It could still work. To walk away from the money youve spent is really difficult.

The pandemic has already torn through the Bay Areas restaurants, but its impact on the future of the restaurant scene namely, all of the planned but yet-to-open restaurants is still unclear. Several projects slated to open this year, such as the Jamaican-Malaysian-Iranian combo Calabash in Oakland and the La Cocina Municipal Marketplace in the Tenderloin, still intend to open next year following construction delays. But after that batch opens, some in the industry wonder if months will pass before anything new arrives.

That may depend on how many chefs can afford to keep waiting. Benu chef Corey Lee secured a Mission District space for his highly anticipated Korean restaurant San Ho Won more than a year ago. Jasmine Peterlin, project director for Lees restaurants, said they have no idea when the restaurant might open now. Dominique Crenns casual Salesforce Tower restaurant Boutique Crenn was almost ready to open when the pandemic hit, but now its on hold indefinitely due to the lack of foot traffic downtown.

Fine dining chef Scott Nishiyama similarly hopes to wait out the pandemic, though he still hasnt started construction for his upcoming Palo Alto restaurant, Ethels Fancy. He feels lucky his building permits came late so he could hit the pause button without spending much more money.

He could walk away if he needed to without experiencing a crushing financial loss. But he spent two years hunting down the location in downtown Palo Alto and doesnt want to let it go.

I want to feel confident once we start construction that its a go and that restaurants are looking like theyll hopefully go back to being open for dine-in, he said. I think until we get a vaccine, theres no guarantee of anything.

Some would like to move ahead with their restaurants but feel forced to wait. Mike Fishman, who bought a space in the Mission District in 2018 for a new location of his popular Russian bakery Cinderella, was set to start construction this year. Now, he lacks the cash Fishmans bank stopped issuing loans to new restaurants because of the pandemic, he said.

Others, like Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski of State Bird Provisions fame, preferred to take a loss rather than invest more in a new restaurant during such an uncertain time. When the pandemic hit, they were plotting a yet-to-be-named vegetarian restaurant in the Lower Haight and nearly ready to open the Anchovy Bar, an intimate West Coast oyster bar in the Fillmore. But they refocused to save their existing two restaurants, State Bird and the Progress, before attempting to get the Anchovy Bar open, now slated to open in the fall. There simply werent the time or resources to also keep the vegetarian restaurant alive, so they vacated the space.

The pragmatic choice isnt always the easiest to make. Hanif Sadr had been slowly growing his Iranian pop-up Komaaj for five years in anticipation of opening multiple locations in 2020. One finally opened in September, but he had to say goodbye to a fully funded cafe in Menlo Park. In that case, he didnt even have a choice. His investors told him the project, which was also supposed to be an art gallery and events space, simply wasnt going to work.

Komaaj is really my child. I put my life in it, he said. It was really hard for me emotionally.

At the start of the pandemic, wondering if all his work would be for nothing, Sadr went on long hikes alone, foraging ingredients along the way. Those walks inspired a new idea, Komaaj Preservation Lab, which preserves foraged and donated ingredients using traditional Persian methods. It was a way to stay active without opening restaurants thats how you compromise, he said.

For other chefs, those compromises look like pop-ups and new companies touting specialty products. Even if the Bay Area continues to lose brick-and-mortar restaurants, the food scene will hum in different ways. While Noknis Joo is currently spending his time cooking for private clients instead of working on a restaurant, hes hopeful the future will bring unusual opportunities hes never considered before.

No matter what happens within the industry, even with all the unknowns, Joo said, one thing that remains true is there is a deep pool of talent and really creative, passionate people who want to be able to work in some way that involves food.

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker

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Some of the Bay Areas most anticipated restaurants for 2020 are in COVID-19 limbo - San Francisco Chronicle