FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT
Fillmore’s restaurants are morphing into sidewalk dining and drinking spots as they find a way forward, with the eateries on one key block — between Pine and California — showing different recipes for creating the al fresco experience.
• At the corner of Pine and Fillmore, NOOSH has reinvented itself and opened a window counter with adjacent menus that spell out its new offerings. Patrons punch in their order on a computer terminal that feeds straight into the kitchen. Noosh will soon unveil a breakfast menu, a bakery with pastries and a deli-charcuterie with cured meats. In September, a small grocery will be added.
• To create a large outdoor cafe, Noosh has teamed up with its neighbors at BUN MEE, the popular Vietnamese restaurant two doors down, and jointly created a large area filled with socially distanced tables along Fillmore and wrapping around to Pine. It extends into the street, taking several parking spaces and guarded by a stylish protective barrier.
• A few doors up the block, APIZZA has set up sidewalk tables and the straight-from-Paris manager, Pierre Laugha, is pumping out amazing thin-crust 9-inch gluten-free pies made with organic dough and toppings for prices starting at $3.75. (Yes, the original insanely inexpensive $2.75 margherita pizza has gone up a buck.) Apizza now has interesting salads starting at $3.45, up to $7.75 for a large kale Caesar salad.
• At the corner of California and Fillmore, TACOBAR’s personable Guadalajara-born general manager Antonio Solano works the corner like a skilled maitre d’, with outdoor dining on both sidewalks and usually a line at the take-out window. Open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tacobar has its signature $4.85 tacos, $11 quesadillas, salads, burritos and sides, plus plenty of salsas. Brightly colored, both the decor and the food are authentically Mexican, with the menu items more gourmet than just to-go. For al fresco diners, service is swift.
• Around the corner, CURBSIDE CAFE owners Olivier and Gwyneth Perrier have perhaps the most authentic outdoor bistro setting, now with eight tables dressed in white properly spaced on California Street just east of Mollie Stone’s. Perrier promotes what he calls a “contactless menu” on his website, rather than handing out a paper menu. The tiny restaurant, a neighborhood fixture since 1978, serves a French-American breakfast, lunch and dinner, and soon will be adding a covered parklet that will allow two more tables.
• Elsewhere between California and Pine, HARRY’S BAR is getting an extensive upgrading, from new front awning to an up-to-date kitchen. THE GROVE still hopes to reopen, but has set no date. And the former ELITE CAFE is completely boarded up and quiet as a tomb.
Photographs by Jonathan Pontell
EARLIER: “Fillmore al Fresco” — Sidewalk tables have proliferated since 1993, when they were first blessed by the city.
Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging
