When construction crews broke ground in 1997 on the Giants’ future stadium in Mission Bay, the San Francisco neighborhood was not much more than a dilapidated former train yard, with vast swaths of land abandoned and disused by the end of the 20th century.
A year later, the city would adopt a redevelopment plan for the area, carving up the neighborhood block by block for different uses, and dedicating 30 percent of residential units to affordable housing.
It was a slow trickle at first, but in recent years — by some alchemy of housing, medicine, tech, sports and other business — the landscape has been transformed with plate-glass office buildings, mid-rise apartments, and a sprawling, state-of-the art medical center.
With the neighborhood’s rapid growth, it’s easy to spot another growing trend — not of big business, but small. Highly prized establishments, homegrown in other neighborhoods, are coming for the eastern waterfront.
Take Richmond district-born Arsicault Bakery. After it was dubbed best new bakery in 2016, the neighborhood croissanterie developed a reputation for drawing long lines down Arguello Boulevard, and later out the door of its second location on McAllister Street near Civic Center.
Now, those lines are sometimes at its newest location at Mission Bay.
Arsicault is just one example. Increasingly, it looks like someone cherry-picked the hippest bars, bakeries and restaurants from throughout San Francisco and plopped down outposts in fancier digs along the eastern waterfront.
Some of S.F.’s favorite eateries have headed to Mission Bay
A selection of neighborhood businesses with outposts in Mission Bay, May 2026.
Golden Gate Strait
Cafe Reveille
Che Fico/
Via Aurelia
Burma Superstar/
Burma Love
House of Tadu
Arsicault
San Francisco
Bay
Gus’s Community Market
Trick Dog/
Quick Dog
M I S S I O N
B A Y
Flour + Water
Golden Gate Strait
San Francisco
Bay
M I S S I O N
B A Y
Cafe Reveille
Arsicault
Che Fico/Via Aurelia
Gus’s Community Market
Trick Dog/Quick Dog
Flour + Water
House of Tadu Ethiopian Kitchen
Burma Superstar/Burma Love
Map by Iryna Humenyuk.
There’s a reason it looks that way: Those commercial tenants are, indeed, sometimes cherry-picked as part of a top-down curation by major developers. Residents don’t seem to mind.
Ten years ago, “None of this existed,” said one resident out walking her dog along the neighborhood’s waterfront walking trail on a recent weekday. “Now, I have a lot of friends who I’ve met because they’ve chosen Mission Bay.”
“I think what they’ve [the developers] planned has been good. I have a dog, so a lot of green space has been nice,” she added. “It has been nice having businesses that I love in San Francisco move to my neighborhood.”
The Arsicault team was approached in 2023, specifically by developers at Mission Rock, a 28-acre development project born out of a 2018 partnership between the Giants, global development conglomerate Tishman Speyer and the Port of San Francisco.
That development, just across McCovey Cove from the Giants stadium Oracle Park, is not yet complete, but contains perhaps the highest density of neighborhood-born outposts in the area.
Arsicault’s Mission Rock store sits on the ground floor of the “Verde” building, one of two residential high-rises so far built at the site. The 23-story building is clad with emerald-green ceramic tiles, a similar hue to the awning of Arsicault’s original location in the Richmond District.
“Complete coincidence,” said Arsicault’s owner, Armando Lacayo, with a laugh. Arsicault Mission Rock might be a tad more conspicuous than its sister on Arguello.
“It was really so expensive to have the entire building painted green,” he said he’ll sometimes joke. “But no, it was a coincidence. And obviously, it worked out pretty well.”
Arsicault is one of seven locally owned businesses to open at Mission Rock in the last two years.
To name a few others: Mission Rock is home to Flour + Water Pizza Shop and Quik Dog, both outposts of spots born in the Mission. The team behind Che Fico, which started on Divisadero, also recently opened up Via Aurelia at the site.
Berkeley-born Fieldwork Brewing operates a bar in Mission Rock’s China Basin Park, with outdoor seating and waterfront ballpark views. Fieldwork will soon open a full-fledged outpost in the adjacent building, which upstairs serves as Visa’s global headquarters.
Opening at Mission Rock “sounded attractive and, at the same time, risky,” Lacayo said, “because obviously, you know, a brand-new project.” Still, the bakery was three years into its second location and looking to expand again, and “the growth of the area was definitely a great factor.”
Another factor: Capital. Developers gave Arsicault “an allowance for tenant improvements,” which went toward construction, Lacayo said. Now, just over a year in, that outpost pushes about as many pastries as the original in the Richmond.
Lacayo called the agreement, which included that contribution for building out the bakery, “a fairly normal deal.”
Indeed, deals such as these are increasingly normal in new spaces owned by big developers.
“Institutional landlords tend to contribute more toward the infrastructure,” said Alex Sagues, Senior Vice President of CBRE, which leases space at Mission Rock and other sites in the area.
“If you own a large project … you’re incentivized to create a great place because that makes your office and multifamily more valuable. You’re incentivized to invest more in those deals, and that means more tenant improvement allowance or more landlord work.”
Which is all to say: They’re helping things along.
“That’s not that they’re more generous” than smaller landlords, Sagues added. “The incentives are different.”
CBRE also oversees leasing at the Warriors’ “Thrive City” retail complex, and Pier 70 farther south in the Dogpatch neighborhood, contiguous with Mission Bay along the eastern waterfront.
Pier 70 is still in its earlier phases, but is under a mixed-use development plan similar to Mission Rock.
Local businesses imported from other city zip codes have begun dotting the map at those projects as well — take Burma Love restaurant at Thrive City, or Pier 70’s Breadbelly, an Asian-American pastry and coffee spot. Both of those spawned from eateries first formed in the Richmond District.
They’re dotting the map in Dogpatch, too
A selection of neighborhood businesses with outposts in Dogpatch, May 2026.
Golden Gate Strait
Breadbelly
Souvla
Standard Deviant
San Francisco
Bay
CoffeeShop
D O G PATCH
Golden Gate Strait
San Francisco
Bay
D O G PATCH
Breadbelly
Souvla
Standard Deviant
CoffeeShop
Map by Iryna Humenyuk.
Even with help from developers, businesses need to be in good shape to expand. For Clement Hsu, co-founder of Breadbelly, it stands to reason that neighborhood eateries like his and Arsicault were well-poised.
“We have such strong support from our neighbors within the Richmond district that we would inevitably look for another space,” Hsu said.
Hsu did not comment on the terms of the agreement between Breadbelly and developers at Pier 70, but Sagues said “we did help them through the process of construction cost.”
Still, Sagues said, CBRE is interested in a diverse array of retailers. “People are seeking authentic neighborhood experiences. And that, I think, is oftentimes done with a good balance between local and national,” he said.
Jen San Juan, former manager of external affairs for the Giants, echoed that sentiment. “Overall, it is an intentional curated mix,” San Juan said of Mission Rock’s offerings.
In addition to the local gems, the developers at Mission Rock have also welcomed larger chains like Sweetgreen, and a Chipotle is coming soon. But they do often look for viable neighborhood spots, “recognizable names with deep connections and local ties.”
In urban design critic John King’s estimation, local joints like those have “helped Mission Rock be seen as a certain authentic place.”
Market-motivated as they may be, developers there “smartly realized,” King said, “‘if we’re going to get people out to this big development we’re doing, we need to have some aura of authenticity.’”
Even if the authenticity is calculated, the setup appears to work for the tenants and residents filling the area.
“I think they work enough of the local flavor into it that it doesn’t feel like we’re in a simulation,” said one of a couple who moved to Mission Bay five years ago from the suburbs.
Great Article! So glad that we are getting Bay Area/SF business and not multi-national corps moving in… but I think the authenticity still lacks. It seems like Mission Bay is becoming a dollhouse attraction representing the other neighborhoods of the city. Where are the Mission Bay locals and their bakeries/pizzerias/hot dog stands?
“What’s drawing them there? ”
um, the AI bubble, maybe?
liquefaction maps suggest that someday mother nature will revamp the area once again
The baseline for the Big One is to be able to get out alive, that’s it. The new construction has that in mind, but there is no expectation for a tenants’ return to any of the buildings. Just like the rest of the city BTW. You’re fooling yourself if you think your’ doing better than the people atop the ole rail yard in that regard.
One factor though that works against the area is a higher risk of failure of street, bridge and utility infrastructure. I.e. limited/no access for heavy equipment (fire trucks) and insufficient availability of water to put out a large fire.
Is nice and people want to go there. Who would have thought?
I will look into my crystal ball, summon the sight of the oracles, and predict that in a couple of years when the tax incentives run out you will write the article “Why Are So Many Businesses Leaving China Beach?”
That’ll be $450.