"The ugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole." That's how chef Peter Hemsley described the stretch of SoMa around Moscone Center in October 2024, the month he announced he was closing his Michelin-starred seafood restaurant Aphotic. He wasn't vague about why. The neighborhood couldn't support what he was trying to do.
A year later, Hemsley was back with a location, and it wasn't a hedge. He picked Polk Street.
That's the detail worth sitting with before you get to any single opening on this corridor. Hemsley had a Michelin star, a defined point of view, and by his own account a hard-won understanding of which San Francisco blocks can and can't carry a serious food and beverage concept. He could have looked anywhere in the city. He looked at Polk Street, and so did two other operators building their next projects this year. None of them needed to be here. All three chose to be.
The Corner He Chose Instead
Hemsley's new venture, Jupiter Room, is taking over the former Lord Stanley space at 2065 Polk Street, right at the corner of Broadway. His partner on the project is Trevin Hutchins, the bar director who won Michelin's 2024 Exceptional Cocktails Award while the two of them were still running Aphotic. Together they've formed a company called Jackson Square Hospitality, and Jupiter Room is its first bet.
The concept is a martini bar built around eight variations on the classic, with bar bites pulling from diner and steakhouse traditions rather than the seafood-forward tasting menu Hemsley was known for. Hutchins has said he wants the room to be fun rather than a place where bartenders "hit people over the head with knowledge or technique."
That's a pointed contrast to Aphotic, which built its reputation on fermented fish sauces and gin infused with seaweed. It's also a specific bet on what this particular stretch of Polk wants from a bar: something you can walk into after a shift, order a drink you already know, and not be quizzed on it.
Here's the part worth knowing if you're planning to actually go: the timeline has already moved once. When the project was first reported in November 2025, the target was summer 2026. By this past June, event listings for a Jupiter Room pop-up were describing the launch as fall 2026 instead. Buildouts that add a full bar to an existing space take longer than anyone plans for, and this one is no exception. If you've been checking the door on Polk and Broadway expecting it open, that's why it hasn't been.
Two Ways to Get a Handroll on the Same Block
A few blocks north, Polk Street is now home to two dedicated handroll bars within easy walking distance of each other, and they are not the same bet dressed up twice.
Saru Handroll Bar, at 2206 Polk, has been there since 2017, when it opened under the name Kinjo and earned a Michelin star for its traditional omakase. The team later converted it into a more casual handroll format, and it still runs on walk-ins only, no reservations, with a set of five rolls for $52. It fills up on a regular Tuesday night. That's the sit-down version of the format: edomae style, seasonal fish, a bar you wait for and then don't want to leave.
The new arrival is a different animal entirely. Handroll Hawker, going into a former boba shop at 2360 Polk, is opening this September from Melbourne native Romi Trower, her first restaurant. It's Australian-style sushi, which means uncut takeout rolls built for portability rather than a seat at the counter. Trower has said she was surprised such a common quick meal in Melbourne was nearly impossible to find in San Francisco, and she's building the entire menu, spicy tuna, tempura shrimp, salmon and avocado, around the idea that you'll take it with you rather than sit down for it.
Two handroll concepts landing steps apart could read as oversaturation. It's worth remembering that a similar concept, Handroll Project in the Mission, closed in 2025 after three years and pivoted into a burger spot, a reminder that execution and format matter more than the idea itself. But Saru and Handroll Hawker aren't competing for the same order. One is the occasion you plan for. The other is the one you grab on your way somewhere else. Polk Street getting both in the same year says less about handroll fatigue and more about a corridor with enough daytime and evening foot traffic to support two different versions of the same idea.
The Bagel Shop That Crossed Town for This Corner
The third bet is smaller in scale but tells the same story. Bageletto, the bagel shop that built its name in the Mission, is opening a second location at 2193 Polk, in a space a former Peet's Coffee vacated as part of a broader wave of chain coffee closures. Cofounder Kiki Theodorides confirmed the move in April 2026, and the coverage at the time made a point of calling Russian Hill "a true bagel desert" despite the neighborhood's food credentials otherwise.
The Polk Street version won't be a production facility the way the original 14th Street shop is. It's designed as a full sit-down cafe, with bagels delivered fresh from the Mission kitchen in small batches at least twice a day, alongside a sandwich menu that includes a muffuletta, roast beef, and a prosciutto cotto breakfast sandwich, all with meats made in-house. Theodorides described the freshness pitch simply: you're eating a bagel within one to four hours of it coming out of the oven, even though it crossed town to get to you.
Like Jupiter Room, this one has a timeline to watch rather than a confirmed open date. The April announcement pointed to a window of 60 to 90 days, putting a realistic target somewhere in early summer. Whether that held is worth checking before you make a special trip, but the decision itself is the point. A growing Mission brand chose Polk Street as its next expansion, specifically identifying the gap this corridor had that other neighborhoods didn't.
What Was Already Working Before Any of This
None of these three openings are happening in a vacuum, and it's worth remembering what was already anchoring Polk Street before this year's wave arrived. Bi-Rite signed a 26-year lease at 2140 Polk in 2024 and made the location its new headquarters, a bet on the corridor's staying power that predates every opening above. Bi-Rite's Sam Mogannam pointed out at the time that the store sits surrounded by locally owned businesses, a bookstore, coffee shops, bars, a bagel bakery, and said keeping that money circulating locally mattered to him.
Farther down Polk, Swan Oyster Depot has been serving seafood at 1517 Polk since the 1890s, when it opened as the Cable Car Oyster Depot. Anthony Bourdain once called it his happy place in the city. Swensen's, at 1999 Hyde since 1948, still makes its ice cream on-site the way founder Earl Swensen did, and its Swiss Orange Chip flavor even made it into Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. The Russian Hill Bookstore has sat at 2162 Polk since 1974.
That's the throughline. This isn't a neighborhood discovering foot traffic for the first time. It's a corridor that has quietly supported century-old institutions and mid-century ice cream parlors right alongside newer arrivals, and is now attracting operators who've already proven themselves elsewhere and are choosing to bet here again.
What This Actually Changes If You Live Here
If you're already walking Polk Street on a regular week, the practical version of all this is simple. Expect two more names in your sushi rotation by fall, one for a proper seat and one for a bag to carry home. Expect a bagel option that didn't exist before, assuming the summer timeline held or isn't far behind. And expect the corner at Broadway to stay quiet a little longer than promised, because a Michelin-pedigreed team is taking the time to get a new bar right rather than rush it open.
None of these are reasons to reconsider anything about where you live. They're reasons to keep an eye on a street that, three separate times this year, convinced operators who could have gone anywhere to come here instead.
If you're weighing what a home near this kind of corridor is actually worth, or thinking about what buying or selling here looks like once you factor in a street that keeps proving itself, Adelaida Mejia knows Russian Hill down to the block. Reach out to book a conversation or request a home valuation.
