The Mission District’s 24th Street is the top-growing business strip in the neighborhood post-pandemic, according to quarterly sales tax data released by the city.
Mission Local analyzed sales tax numbers from January 2018 to December 2025 for 24th Street, as well as three other commercial corridors in the Mission: Valencia Street, Mission Street and 16th Street.
The recovery of 16th, Valencia, and Mission streets has lagged behind 24th Street — sales are stubbornly flat on Valencia and Mission, and slightly up on 16th Street. Both 16th and 24th streets still have fewer total sales than either of the other two main corridors, however.
Locals and city officials from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and the Planning Department attributed the strength of 24th Street to its part in the Calle 24 Cultural District, which offers programming like Fiesta de las Americas, Dia de los Muertos and Lover’s Lane. Moreover, it generally serves neighborhood locals and is less dependent on tourism.
“When that happens, you are less prone to the effects of the economy because you’re not relying on other people coming in,” said Santiago Lerma, former legislative aide to former District 9 supervisor Hillary Ronen.
Erick Arguello, one of the founders of the Calle 24 Cultural District, said that 24th Street has always had smaller, cheaper storefronts that cater to the people who live around them. Mission Street, for example, has historically been a corridor with much larger spaces (theaters, furniture stores, and bigger restaurants) that are more difficult to fill with just locals.
“It is similar to what Grant Avenue and Stockton Street are in Chinatown,” said Arguello. “Grant Street caters more to tourists, and Stockton for the local community.”
Local businesses across the Mission say foot traffic has yet to reach pre-pandemic levels. They’ve also struggled with higher prices, an increase in online orders, less drinking by young consumers, uncertainty around tariffs and poor street conditions.
Ryen Motzek, a business owner in the Mission District for over 20 years and the president of the Mission Merchants Association, said street conditions at the BART plazas, and most recently, on Mission Street are not contributing to quicker, more balanced recovery.
“I hear from other people that have businesses throughout the neighborhood that are like ‘My team does not feel comfortable coming on and off this BART plaza,’” said Motzek. “Or my customers say ‘I really love coming here, but catching public transportation here and going to a bar and then being forced to go to a plaza that doesn’t feel safe is making me choose another neighborhood.’ That’s real.”
Bryan Tublin, the owner of Kitava at 2011 Mission St. near 16th Street, saw foot traffic to his health-food restaurant drop during and after the pandemic.
Kitava has been able to make up for the lack of foot traffic through the explosion of online orders, though they are less profitable for the business because of hefty platform fees. Also challenging, Tublin said, are the street conditions directly outside his establishment.
There is a bright spot: In the last year, Kitava has seen an increase in catering. And whereas in years prior catering orders came from downtown tech companies, nowadays, more are coming from the Mission.
“We’re seeing more office orders and catering orders from the Mission neighborhood as well,” Tublin said. “That’s been a pleasant surprise within the last year.”
Eileen Reinaldi, the owner of Ritual Coffee and the president of the Valencia Merchants Association, attributed the neighborhood’s challenges to a decrease in foot traffic, an increase in the use of delivery apps (Ritual Coffee is not on any of them) and the center bike lane, which is now gone.
But, like Tublin, Reinaldi said she is also starting to feel optimistic.
“We are not yet back to pre-pandemic levels, but I’ve seen some really promising indicators just in the first quarter of 2026 that have me really excited,” said Rinaldi, who said her sales in the Mission are 78 percent what they were pre-pandemic.
Joan Ruyle, a real estate agent and partner at the commercial real estate firm Maven, who currently has listings on both Valencia and Mission streets, is also feeling a shift.
“In terms of the spaces that I have available for lease, we’re definitely seeing an uptick of inquiries over the last four months or so compared to the last few years,” she said of commercial interest in the Mission.
“It definitely was a neighborhood that got hit pretty hard from the pandemic and has just been one of the slower ones to recover.”
Ruyle said that SoMa is another neighborhood she’s noticed lagging. Mission Local found that the South of Market area was a “tale of two neighborhoods” — while sales are strong and growing in Mission Bay, they are flat in SoMa proper. Mission Local’s analysis of city data also found that Bayview and the Tenderloin have experienced slower recoveries.
Ruyle, who has 10 years of experience working across the city, said she’s recently noticed operators with existing businesses showing some interest in the Mission District. Especially attractive, she said, is the stretch between 16th and 23rd streets on Valencia Street, a corridor she described as “hot” pre-pandemic.
Still, deals are taking longer to close than they did even two years ago, said Ruyle, given the laggard state of the economy and the high cost of goods and labor.
On top of it all, the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants has impacted some Latino businesses in the Mission.
Paula Tejeda, owner of Chile Lindo at 16th and Capp streets, said that, alongside increasing prices on ingredients and rent, it’s been harder to find reliable labor. Workers moved out of the city during the pandemic, she said, and continue to do so because of high living costs and fears of immigration enforcement.
Juana Laurel and Raul Tito, the owners of Cosqo Maky at 2525 Mission St. near 21 Street, said they’ve lost multiple customers who decided to move back to their home countries because of Trump’s immigration policies. Their business has dropped to just 30 to 50 percent of what it was pre-pandemic, they said.
“Ever since this government took over, people have been a little more cautious and not spending or going out as much,” Tito said. “A lot of our clientele was undocumented folks.”