Hiep-Thanh Market storefront with a red sign, located between other businesses on a sunny street; two people walk past the entrance.
On Larkin Street, Hiep-Thanh Market specializes in ingredients from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.

The Tenderloin is home to one of San Francisco’s biggest immigrant populations. Two corridors of restaurants and shops in particular — a stretch of Larkin Street known as Little Saigon, and a collection of Indian-Pakistani restaurants on Jones Street — are popular with homesick locals, downtown workers, social media influencers, and anyone else in search of a good meal. 

Even after the lunch hour, these avenues bustle: A produce man parking his truck on Larkin and zig-zagging across sidewalks with deliveries of carrots and peppers as he stops into banh mi shops; a labor organizer grabbing a late lunch at a historical Pakistani restaurant, chatting with the chefs; women in hijabs gathering their children around a nearby table; an elderly couple inspecting cherries and mangos from a grocery market, checking for ripeness. 

Such scenes on Larkin and Jones streets showcase the diversity of the neighborhood, as well as its struggles: Business owners complain about persistent issues with street cleanliness, as well as missing customers in an area having difficulty improving its reputation.

But the streets also reveal a history of families dedicated to caring to their communities through food, often passing that commitment on to the next generation. Loyal regulars will support a business for decades, but it’s the food’s exceptionalism that keeps these restaurants alive and brings new customers in. 

“You can’t even have a normal-tasting restaurant here, because you’ll go out of business. You’ll be here for a couple weeks,” said Rene Colorado, president of the Tenderloin Merchants Association. Competition is fierce; storefronts aren’t always pretty. Something else has to bring customers in. “The reason the food here is so good is ’cause it has to be.”

Hiep-Thanh Market storefront with a red sign, located between other businesses on a sunny street; two people walk past the entrance.
On Larkin Street, Hiep-Thanh Market specializes in ingredients from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A yellow basket of quail eggs sits in a refrigerated display with tofu, packaged vegetables, greens, and containers of organic miso and fish roe.
A small selection of the food available in Hiep-Thanh Market’s produce section: Quail eggs, dried shrimp, miso, and kimchi. Coca-Cola products are shelved next to coconut water sodas imported from Thailand; heads of cabbage sit beside packages of vacuum-sealed bamboo. A shrine to the Buddha is built into the base of one shelf. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A smiling woman sits wearing gloves and a blue jacket, while a man in a black apron stands beside her in a cluttered store or kitchen.
Owner Linda Chaeng Tang immigrated first to Thailand in 1984, then to the United States in 1988 with her son, who was a small child at the time. Today, they run Hiep-Thanh Market together. Her favorite part is “serving the community.” Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A man stands inside a market near boxes of assorted fruits and vegetables; another person walks outside near the entrance.
A fully stocked grocery, Hiep-Thanh Market sells produce as well as packaged foods, fresh meat, and cigarettes. Its customers come in looking for flavors that remind them of home and ingredients that can’t be found in typical grocery stores. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
Street view of a restaurant entrance with a chalkboard sign advertising “ANY Coffee $1.50”, flyers on the window, and graffiti on the exterior wall and glass.
Down Larkin Street, L&G Vietnamese Sandwich is a favorite lunch spot for the city and federal workers who occupy the office building just south of Little Saigon. But like the rest of the neighborhood, the area has persistent issues with keeping streets clean and preventing graffiti. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A person in a floral shirt and black apron wraps a sandwich with vegetables in white paper on a kitchen counter.
Ki Giang, the owner of L&G Vietnamese Sandwich, prepared a bahn mi sandwich for a customer. Several shops in the area, including Saigon Sandwich and Lee’s Sandwiches, also serve bahn mi to hordes of workers on their lunch break each day. But at L&G, the sandwiches go for an impossibly low $6.
A woman behind a counter holds up a smartphone displaying photos of a baby, with various supplies and items visible in the background.
Giang opened her sandwich shop a decade ago. She raised three sons in San Francisco after immigrating from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She recently became a grandmother. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A person uses a knife to mix wet cement on pavement, holding a large purple plastic basin partially filled with water.
Outside Little Saigon Hair & Nails, a man fills in a hole in the sidewalk on Ellis Street with a homemade mixture of concrete and water. He’s seen wheelchair users get stuck in the crack. If he waits for the city to fix it, it will take too long, he said. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A green sign reads "Shalimar Restaurant, Indian & Pakistani Food, 928-0333" under an older vertical sign for "Shalimar" on a city street.
Shalimar Restaurant is one of a group of Indian-Pakistani restaurants on Jones Street. The restaurants claim both countries to distinguish their spicy, meat-heavy cuisine from that of southern India, which leans vegetarian. Including both countries, which have been involved in a number of geopolitical conflicts, in the name might avoid isolating either population, a customer explained. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
A man wearing an apron holds a skewer with grilled meat over a tandoor oven in a commercial kitchen.
Opened in 1994, Shalimar is one of the Bay Area’s original Indian-Pakistani restaurants and a favorite of Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. The restaurant serves exclusively halal food, catering to the neighborhood’s growing Muslim population. Chicken kebabs come bathed in spices and topped with fresh onions and herbs, adding freshness to the restaurant’s signature spice. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
Street view of the Chutney restaurant sign next to Jones Hotel, with a no parking sign and buildings visible under a clear blue sky.
Chutney, a 23-year-old Indian-Pakistani restaurant just across from Shalimar, has made headlines recently as a favorite of MMA fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov. Nurmagomedov — who has a net worth of $40 million — said in a podcast that he booked a budget Frontier Airlines flight from Las Vegas to make it to dinner at Chutney before closing time. The extra press has given the restaurant a lift, though its owner says it’s still low on customers. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 5, 2025.
A man in a black vest stands in front of a counter at a restaurant, with two staff behind him looking at papers. A sign above reads "ORDER PAY HERE.
Chutney’s owner, Mohammad Bajwa (left), is from Lahore, Pakistan, and previously co-owned a few Lyons Diner chain restaurants in Northern California. In 2002, he sold his segment of the diners because he wanted to open something that could be fully his. Food runs in the family: His son Ramiz (middle) helps him run Chutney and owns a Poke Bar franchise in the Financial District. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 5, 2025.
A basket of naan bread in the foreground, with plates of rice and grilled chicken on a restaurant table in the background.
Chutney’s menu features many of the same dishes as the other nearby Indian-Pakistani restaurants — there are five on the block alone. Here, a steaming basket of naan sits in front of a chicken leg fresh from the tandoor oven. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 5, 2025.
A person wearing gloves cleans the inside of a glass door at a restaurant, with a city street and buildings visible outside through the door.
A restaurant worker gets ready to open at Kinara Fusion Restaurant, at the top of the Tenderloin on Geary Street. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
Several skewers of marinated meat are being cooked inside a traditional tandoor oven, partially covered by a metal lid, in a restaurant kitchen setting.
Run by a crew of four young friends — three of them brothers — Kinara combines South Asian cuisine like Tandoori chicken, roasting here in a clay oven, with American classics like wings and burgers. Their menu is also halal and alcohol-free, though the restaurant has a mocktail bar. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.
Two people work in a commercial kitchen, preparing food at a counter with various containers, a metal bowl, and cooking equipment visible in the background.
Owners Sufiyan Patel, Rahil Patel, Shahil Patel, and Jafar Patel worked in restaurants together before deciding to open their own place. “We grew up deeply connected to our roots, and we’ve always wanted to create something that reflects that authenticity,” Sufiyan said. The team has been successful: In 2024, the restaurant expanded its dining room into the space next door. Photo by Jessica Blough on Aug. 1, 2025.

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Reporting from the Tenderloin. I'm a multimedia journalist based in San Francisco and getting my Master's degree in journalism at UC Berkeley. Earlier, I worked as an editor at Alta Journal and The Tufts Daily. I enjoy reading, reviewing books, teaching writing, hiking and rock climbing.

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2 Comments

  1. Thanks for reporting .

    It is beyond unfortunate that the city has neglected this street , Polk and the alleyways where wonderful businesses have been trying to survive .

    Most business is gone because of the city allowing the illegal drug dealers and addicts to openly destroy their lives and others.
    Hopefully , you will also report the horrific situation going on here and help get the city to assign law enforcement to be physically present 24/7 and actually walking around to help deter and removal criminals who use the sidewalks and neighborhood as a “crackhouse”.

    Seeing police coming only after calling , many hours later to help and seeing them drive by slowly is riduculous .

    They need to be there to protect citizens and businesses like those you reported on .

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  2. I like the rivalry between L&G and Saigon Sandwich. Same price, similar product on opposite corners. It’s like our version of Pat’s-Geno’s in Philly.

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