Telegraph Hill's Lost Rooms Are Coming Back, Except the Corner That Can't

Paul Scott likes to point at one corner of the main dining room ceiling at Julius' Castle. "When I first came here there was a big hole in the ceiling and water pouring down," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. The floor was so uneven from the building settling that "you couldn't functionally have a table on it without things sliding off." Today that hole is painted a dappled blue-gray and ringed by gold-tinted vintage chandeliers, and the hillside beside the entrance, where landslides used to be the problem, is an edible garden.

Julius' Castle is set to reopen at 302 Greenwich St. on Nov. 12. Down the hill on Union Street, a storefront that held a neighborhood market for more than 90 years is empty again. A well-known baker spent close to a year planning a cake shop there before she withdrew the plan.

Both buildings carry old changes that don't match what the city has on file. At the castle, one owner spent 14 years bringing the whole building into line, and the full three-story room is coming back. At 301 Union, the fix is to put the space back the way the records describe it, and that leaves a smaller storefront than the one the corner had for most of a century.

Three Rooms, Three Price Tags in Years

The castle and the bar both spent years closed so their owners could rebuild around what the old buildings needed. The Union Street corner is going through its own version now, and when it's done the room will be smaller.

What 14 Years Bought at 302 Greenwich

Scott is a lawyer. He bought the castle in 2012 because he wanted to keep a piece of San Francisco history, and he told the Chronicle that another bidder had wanted to convert it into condos. Then came a 2013 fire that destroyed one of the building's turrets, plus a neighbors' lawsuit over noise and crowds that a judge threw out in 2019.

The less visible work was paying off the building's permit history. Julius' Castle became a landmark in 1980 and was remodeled many times, sometimes without permits. Scott had to correct some of that work, including restoring part of the historic roofline above the south-facing facade. AFAR traces the original closure to a failed attempt by an earlier operator to get around the city's permitting process.

The restored castle spreads 130 seats over three floors. The ground floor is a dark, mahogany-paneled bar with a Joan of Arc statue at the entrance. Above it are two levels of dining rooms with walnut wainscoting, and on the third floor the round nook called the Mayor's Table, where former Mayor Willie Brown recently had a preview lunch. The top-floor dining room was once the private apartment of original owner Julius Roz, and a gold plaque at its entrance reads "Roz's Living Room."

Designer Jon de la Cruz, the designer behind Wayfare Tavern and Che Fico, kept as much of the original room as he could. That meant restoring the crown molding, reupholstering the Queen Anne chairs and polishing paneling that Roz is said to have brought from the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.

"I don't think there's a place you can sit in this restaurant other than the bar where the view isn't breathtaking." Paul Scott, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle

For decades, people went to the castle for the view and the social scene more than the food, and Scott wants to change that. His executive chef is Christopher Santopinto, who last led the kitchen at Park Tavern and has cooked at Aphotic, Pizzeria Delfina and State Bird Provisions. The planned menu nods to San Francisco classics, with versions of cioppino, Rice-a-Roni and Dungeness crab with garlic noodles. It also lists rockfish crudo with apple and saffron, Dixon lamb with corona beans and Merguez, and a mushroom raviolo. Scott told the SF Standard the approach is "garden-to-castle," adding, "We're not going to serve wagyu."

The garden is real and steep. According to AFAR, artichokes, peas, purple basil and rosemary grow on the terraced slope beside the restaurant, along a zigzag staircase toward Coit Tower. Beverage director Max Monroe uses that rosemary and the hillside lemons in his drinks, including a Pisco Punch and a Black Manhattan.

At 301 Union, the Fix Means a Smaller Storefront

The SF Standard reported that the 1,800-square-foot space is legally two units. One part is zoned commercial, and the other two-thirds is zoned residential. The two sections had been used as one store for decades, including at least part of the time Speedy's ran its market there, which lasted more than 90 years until 2008. Cadre, a frame shop, used the combined space starting in 2014 and moved to South Park in 2024.

Sophie Smith, the baker behind Butter & Crumble in North Beach, signed a lease for a cake shop and submitted her permit application in May. In July, the Department of Building Inspection found a record set signed off in 2017 showing a wall that divided the space. That wall is gone. Because the combined room doesn't meet safety and zoning codes, she couldn't go forward until the property was brought into compliance. Getting there would mean zoning changes, extra exits and a sprinkler system, on a timeline nobody could predict, so Smith withdrew the plan.

She worked with the Office of Small Business, the Planning Department, the Department of Building Inspection and Supervisor Danny Sauter to find a way through. She told the Standard, "this is such a complex situation where nobody is exactly to blame." A DBI spokesperson explained why problems like this can sit unnoticed for years. "San Francisco relies on complaints to identify potential building and housing code violations."

A complaint about the address was filed on Sept. 25, 2026, for "work done without the benefit of a building permit," and the city's public complaints dataset lists it as active. The property manager told the Standard that the owner "is in the process of restoring the space to its original condition." If that happens, the corner goes back to being a small commercial space next to residential square footage, which is a smaller storefront than the one Speedy's ran.

At the castle, getting the full building back took one owner 14 years of work on the fire damage, the landslides and the old roofline. At 301 Union, the work under way returns the corner to the layout in the city's records, a commercial storefront beside residential space.

At the Foot of the Hill, 15 Romolo Spent Two Years

Down on Romolo Place, the steep alley off Broadway, 15 Romolo shows the same pattern at a smaller scale. The bar sits in the 114-year-old Basque Hotel building, which was once a boarding house for shepherds and other migrants from Spain's Basque Country. Owner Jon Gasparini told the Chronicle he had spent years patching a "Whac-a-Mole of leaks," in a room with no air conditioning and dated plumbing, electrical and sound systems.

He and his wife and co-owner, Kelly Anne, closed for renovations in August 2024. They added air conditioning, upgraded the plumbing, sanded the mahogany walls, and replaced the long banquettes with rounded booths that seat up to seven. A 1951 Seeburg jukebox stocked with 45s now stands in the room. Their son Giovanni is writing a new Basque-inspired food menu. "We're rolling into 30 years of being open, which will give us legacy status with the city," Gasparini said. The reopening was targeted for mid-November after repeated delays, and he plans no big celebration. "We're just going to pop the doors open."

Getting a Table at the Castle Without Driving Up Greenwich

Julius' Castle sits at the end of a narrow dead-end street, and the opening will be gradual.

1. Watch Instagram. The Standard reports that Scott will release reservations slowly and that not all 130 seats will open at once.
2. Book through OpenTable. AFAR reports that the restaurant will take reservations there.
3. Walk up the Filbert Street Steps. AFAR calls them the ideal approach, and they are part of the crosstown Double Cross Trail.
4. Expect valet, but little parking. Valet will be offered, and Scott hopes many guests arrive on foot or by bike.

You'll know you've arrived when you see the black-and-white striped awning and a flag with a lime-green wild parrot on it. Updates are posted at juliuscastle.com.

On Telegraph Hill, the permit record of an older building decides what that building can become. If you're weighing a historic property on the hill, or wondering what your own building's record says about its future, Adelaida Mejia would be glad to walk through it with you over coffee, or over a Pisco Punch at the castle once the tables open. Book an appointment or request a home valuation to start that conversation.