Belgian-inspired brasserie Belga opened in Cow Hollow in May in the former Cafe Des Amis space. Restaurateur Adriano Paganini’s eatery includes bright red booths, blond wood, and charming, Old World light fixtures. The dining room seats 80, the bar seats 40, and a private dining room seats 40. There’s also seating for 25 in an outdoor dining space.
Chef Sachin Chopra and wife Shoshana Wolf opened All Spice San Francisco in March. It is the second location of the couple’s Michelin-starred San Mateo restaurant, also named All Spice. The restaurant boasts a wine room that seats 12 for private events. There are 60 seats in the dining room, eight seats at the bar, and 14 seats in the cocktail lounge. The decor includes white tablecloths, a leather banquette, and a striking striped accent wall.
Davidson Hotels & Resorts completed a revamp of the Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf this spring, transforming the waterfront hotel into an upscale property called Hotel Zephyr. With 361 waterfront guest quarters, the hotel’s redesign by Dawson Design Associates includes unexpected materials like recycled corrugated metal, cargo containers, upcycled nautical materials, and shipping crates. The meeting space, known as the Yard, also received an upgrade. The event space holds 350 people for receptions or seats 230. A game room can be used for meetings of about 50 seated guests. The Yard combined with the game room and a new covered lobby space is about 11,600 square feet.
Highly anticipated venue Dirty Water is slated to open in early June at the Twitter building’s ground floor. The 6,252-square-foot restaurant and bar from restaurateur Kristian Cosentino will include distinct bar, lounge, and dining areas, designed by Arcsine. The menu will include paleo-style cuisine with rare game and foraged vegetables, as well as an extensive selection of wine and whiskey with 52 beers on tap, including five ales brewed on site. A wood-burning stove is a focal point of the space, while materials featured in the design include leather, dark wood, and colorful glass. Dirty Water will have about 250 seats.
At St. Helena’s Harvest Inn by Charlie Palmer, the celebrity chef opened Harvest Table in May. Chef Charlie Palmer’s wine country kitchen incorporates locally sourced Napa Valley ingredients in an airy space flanked by alfresco dining terraces. The 110-seat restaurant accommodates groups both small and large for dinner parties and cocktail receptions, with seated events for as many as 100 or receptions for 250 guests. The two outdoor terraces can each hold 25 for receptions or seat 20. Harvest Table offers a private dining room called the Vineyard View Room, which is elegantly decorated with beamed ceilings, oak plank flooring, a large central stone fireplace, and panoramic views of Whitehall Lane’s Leonardini Vineyard and the Mayacamas Mountains. Vineyard View holds 100 guests for receptions or seats 80. This event space opens directly onto the Vineyard View Terrace for a more expansive indoor-outdoor venue. The Vineyard View Terrace holds 200 guests for receptions or seats 125.
Oakland-based restaurateur Chris Pastena partnered with restaurateurs Michael Iglesias and Jessica Sackler to open a new Mexican restaurant called Calavera in Oakland’s mixed-use facility the Hive. Designed by Arcsine, the 4,000-square-foot bar and restaurant highlights the building’s existing brick walls and concrete floors along with reclaimed asher oak wood tables and handcrafted light fixtures. Artwork based on Mayan ruins runs along the back of the bar, which is a focal point along with an extensive selection of tequila and mezcals. The patio is lit with string lights and located behind oversize glass doors. The restaurant seats 150, including in the dining room, at the bar, and in an outdoor seating area. It opens today.
Chef Tim Archuleta and Erin Archuleta, owners of Ichi Sushi & Ni Bar, opened a 21-seat intimate Japanese oyster shop and raw bar Ichi Kakiya in April with Shasta Olarte as restaurant manager and beverage director. The cheery space in Bernal Heights includes a large-scale mural by artist Erik Marinovich and a corresponding blue and gray color palette. The decor is influenced by the strong presence and feminine tradition of Japanese Ama divers, in contrast to the more masculine design of Ichi Sushi across the street. The space is available for buyout.
The Starline Social Club is a performance venue, bar, and restaurant housed in a historic building in Oakland. The venue is a restoration of the original saloon built in 1893, and the space features pressed tin ceilings and a curved bar as a focal point. An airy ballroom space upstairs can be used for live performances. It features an original wood floor, a stage, booth seating, and a bar.The ballroom seats 200 seated guests or holds 400 for receptions. The downstairs bar holds as many as 100 guests. The venue opened in April.
In May, the PlumpJack Group opened neighborhood cocktail bar Forgery in San Francisco’s Mid-Market district. The 2,000-square-foot space with 15-foot floor-to-ceiling windows was once home to a glass-blowing studio and a historic printing press. Designed by Napa-based ShopWorks, Forgery’s new look includes a dark mahogany bar as a focal point. Concrete floors and exposed brick walls are complemented by leather banquettes. Forgery holds 100 for receptions.
Empire Room, an 8,000-square-foot bar and lounge, opened in May and is available for corporate and private events. Located a few blocks from City Hall, the ballroom-style cocktail venue holds about 500 receptions or seats about 400. Decor includes chandeliers and plush lounge seating. In addition to the main bar, the venue includes a separate candlelit room where guests can order craft cocktails.
Graton Resort & Casino in Sonoma County's Rohnert Park will debut its new six-story hotel tower in November. The $175 million, 342,000-square-foot expansion will boast 200 guest rooms and more than 20,000 square feet of flexible meeting space. A divisible ballroom can host as many as 1,600 guests for receptions. Three other meeting rooms can host as many as 40 guests for receptions, and Graton Meeting Room 1 & 2 can be combined to host as many as 90 guests reception-style. The hotel’s decor is based on a theme of “California casual elegance” inspiration, with natural elements and vivid accent colors. The hotel also offers three restaurants with private dining options. The Daily Grill’s private dining room can host 40 seated guests or 60 for standing receptions, and is equipped with a flat-screen television with A/V input and an attached patio. The Daily Grill’s chef table seats as many as 24 guests, while the restaurant’s semiprivate balcony can host 25 seated guests or 40 for receptions and the patio can seat 75 guests or host 100 guests for receptions, with heaters available. For private dining rooms, Graton’s 630 Park Steakhouse seats 14, and Tony’s of North Beach seats 12.
Covo, a co-working space that includes a public cafe, opened in San Francisco’s Mid-Market neighborhood in August. The 8,000-square-foot main space is available for booking for holiday parties via Peerspace. For a full space rental, Covo can host 500 standing guests. Groups can also rent Covo’s private room, which can host 35 standing guests. Â
Italian restaurant Fiorella in the Richmond district opened up its heated patio for buyouts in September. The 40-seat restaurant, which opened in January, is offering up the patio for private parties. It will host 30 seated guests or 40 standing guests.
In October, Claremont Club & Spa’s restaurant Limewood will become available for private events. The Berkeley hotel introduced Limewood in August. Led by chef Joseph Humphrey, Limewood offers California cuisine with local, seasonal ingredients. The restaurant has two private dining rooms. The first room is separated from the main dining room by a floor-length curtain, and can seat as many as 12 guests at one table and 14 guests at separate tables. The second room features a longer conference table that can accommodate as many as 14 guests. These rooms combined can hold 26 guests at one long table.
Buffalo Theory, a new restaurant and craft beer bar located on Polk Street in San Francisco, opened in August. Chef Tim Luym’s bar fare is tapas-inspired with a global focus. Ted Kim is helming the beer program, which features 30 craft beers on tap. Buffalo Theory’s private room is set to open later this fall and will accommodate as many as 15 seated guests. The restaurant is available for full buyouts with a seated capacity of approximately 80 guest and standing capacity of 110 guests.
Loma Brewing Company, which opened in Los Gatos in August, serves pub fare and craft beer, including a handful of their own house-brewed beers with more to come in the near future. A private room will open in mid-to-late October and will hold 40 seated guests and 50 standing guests. The private room with have its own full bar. For buyouts, the restaurant holds 150 seated guests and 200 standing guests.
Chef Kim Alter’s restaurant Nightbird in San Francisco's Hayes Valley opened in August, offering a $125-per-person tasting menu of Californian cuisine with local produce. The intimate 38-seat, 1,400 square-foot restaurant is decorated with accents like blue velvet chairs, a mural by Caroline Lizarraga, and a carved owl—the restaurant’s namesake. Nightbird is available for full buyouts, and can host 38 seated guests or as many as 60 standing guests.
Nightbird isn’t Kim Alter’s only new venue in Hayes Valley. The chef also opened Linden Room in August, a 1930s-themed cocktail lounge adjacent to her restaurant Nightbird. Decorated in the style of a Depression-era New York City bar, Linden Room’s interior includes ceiling murals, thick carpet, vintage glassware, and a record player. Linden Room can accommodate six seated guests and around 20 standing guests.
Barebottle Brew Co. hosts full buyouts of its expansive brewery for parties and events. The brewery, which opened in June in the Bernal Heights neighborhood, can accommodate as many as 250 standing guests or 120 seated guests. The brewery also has a warehouse space that can accommodate as many as 150. Barebottle Brew Co. can easily host mid-day events during the week, but evenings can also be available depending on the size of the party and budget.
Black Cat. a retro supper club and lounge, opened in the Tenderloin District in July. The two-level Black Cat serves modern American cuisine, and jazz and cabaret acts perform on a small stage. The downstairs level can hold 64 seated or 130 standing guests. The full venue can accommodate 88 seated guests or 200 standing guests.
The much-anticipated China Live, a 30,000-square-foot culinary and cultural concept two years in the making, is slated to open on March 1. Located in Chinatown, the four-story venue from restaurateurs George Chen and Cindy Wong-Chen offers everything from a 14,000-square-foot retail marketplace to a tea emporium. The complex boasts a 160-seat main dining room, and can host intimate parties of 10 seated guests at fine dining restaurant 8 Tables or groups of 30 in the Gold Mountain speakeasy bar and lounge. China Live has also designed a staging-event space on the third level, which will accommodate 200 people. Groups can also take over all three floors of China Live, which has room for 602 seated guests or 825 standing guests.
Hat Trick Hospitality opened Rambler in October, a restaurant and bar within Union Square’s new Hotel Zeppelin. The eatery serves California-meets-Italian fare in a space that was once home to Wolfgang Puck’s iconic Postrio restaurant. Designed by Lori Yeomans, the restaurant is designed into two spaces: a 48-seat brasserie and a 64-seat dining room. Design details in the brasserie include patterned concrete tiles, warm woods, custom metal work, and bubble glass chandeliers, while the dining room is outfitted with gray flannel banquettes, exposed brick, custom metal screens, and the four-seat Zinc Bar.
AccorHotels opened Pullman San Francisco Bay in January in Redwood City. This marks the second Pullman location of the upscale brand in North America, and the 421-room hotel (formerly a Sofitel) offers 17,000 square feet of meeting space with 19 meeting rooms. The largest space, the Grand Ballroom, can hold 700 guests for theater-style events. The Bordeaux Room and the Champagne Room each hold 350 guests for theater-style events, and guests can mingle in the hotel’s two-story, natural light-filled pre-function area.
Onsen, a stylish Japanese bathhouse and restaurant, opened in the Tenderloin in November and debuted a private event room this month. The new space offers seating for 12 via Japanese-inspired tatami chairs placed on the floor. Groups can host events in the bath space with its communal soaking tub, steam room, sauna, and cold plunge shower, or combine a trip to the baths with small bites, teas, and sake in the event room.
Kenzo Estates winery owners Kenzo and Natsuko Tsujimoto sought to opening the most authentic sushi and kaiseki experience in the United States with their new prix-fixe Napa restaurant Kenzo. Three years in the making, the restaurant opened in the end of November with a menu developed by Michelin-starred chef Hiroyuki Kanda. Almost all of the fish for sushi prepared by head chef Eiji Onoyama is delivered from the Tsukiji market in Tokyo. Natsuko Tsujimoto designed the 1,600-square-foot space with Japanese teak, cypress, and maple along with Japanese bowls, dishware, and serving pieces. The main dining room has seating for 20 at a sushi bar and tables but can accommodate more for private events. A private room seats seven guests, and the entrance to the restaurant’s interior covered courtyard could be used for cocktails or a pre-dinner reception​.
New to San Mateo is Pausa, an Italian restaurant and bar. Led by Steve Ugur and chef Andrea Giuliani, the restaurant showcases its large open kitchen with charcuterie cured onsite, a wood-burning oven, and an exhibition dough room with housemade pastas and breads. The restaurant offers numerous semiprivate dining options with menu options ranging from tasting dinners to cocktail receptions. A full buyout seats 90 guests or holds 125 for receptions, while the Bolle Room holds 32 seated guests or 50 standing guests. There’s also a 10-seat Communal Table and a Chef’s Table that seats eight guests.
Hayes Valley’s champagne bar the Riddler is devoted to all things bubbly, with glam decor like a gold-leaf ceiling, leather banquettes, and a marble topped bar. The 500-square-foot bar can accommodate 40 guests for a standing reception, with food offerings like a serve-yourself caviar station, tater tot waffles, a spread of cheese and charcuterie and desserts. Other group-friendly options include vintages of champagne and a selection of large format wines. The bar, which opened in January, is available for partial and full buyouts.
East Brother Beer Co. opened its brewery and taproom in December in Richmond, with five beers on tap (and more on the way) and food trucks making the rounds out front at the spacious warehouse. East Brother Beer Co. is open to booking private events on Monday or Tuesday, when the brewery is closed, or full buyouts on another day on a case-by-case basis. The taproom holds 200 standing guests for buyouts or groups of as many as 50 guests on days the space is open to the public.
Hyatt Place Emeryville/San Francisco Bay Area opened in November—the first new hotel to be built in Emeryville in 15 years. The 175-room hotel offers flexible meeting space with its 1,440-square-foot Ohlone Room. The meeting room seats 90 guests for theater-style events. In other configurations, it seats 48 guests in a classroom-style set-up, 80 guests at rounds, or 36 guests in a U-shape set-up.
Finn Town opened in November in the Castro, serving up American comfort food with new takes on San Francisco classics. This is the newest restaurant from executive chef and co-owner Ryan Scott, who is an alum of Top Chef. The tavern’s chic look includes tufted leather seating and warm wood tones. At the 3,000-square foot restaurant, a buyout can accommodate 50 seated or 150 standing. The back bar offers a semiprivate space—separated from the restaurant with privacy curtains—for a reception of 60 guests.
After cocktails, the event’s 2,500 attendees split off to four concurrent dinners. The largest dinner was the colorful, elegant patron’s dinner, which was housed in a 12,000-square-foot tent erected next to Davies Symphony Hall. The Blueprint Studios-designed space was inspired by modern chinoiserie art and fashion. Overhead was an intricate ceiling chandelier that was designed for the event.
Blueprint used soft yet bold colors, brushed velvet, and silk textiles juxtaposed with modern metals and custom-forged wall sculptures. McCalls Catering catered the dinner for 700 guests.
Once the patron’s dinner ended and guests went inside the symphony hall for the performance, organizers had 90 minutes to remove the dining tables and chairs, and load in banquettes, chaises, and lounge seating.
While the concert didn’t technically end up 10 p.m., organizers needed to get the spaces party-ready by 9:30. “We of course want people to stay for the end of the concert, but we know that there are some people who come more for the overall experience, and they want to make sure they get their lounge seating or are first in line at the bar,” Lobre explained.
The bar served wine from Pine Ridge Vineyards, Seghesio Family Vineyards, Domaine Carneros, and OneHope.
Inside the tent, guests danced to Top 40 hits by the band Wonder Bread 5.
During the 90-minute window, workers—including more than 100 staffers from Blueprint alone—also transformed the outdoor area that had previously held the red carpet. Heat lamps and bar seating were set up, and centerpieces were exchanged. Lounge seating featured blue velvet chairs and gold details, and organizers provided blankets to keep guests warm.Â
The outdoor after-party featured a performance by DJL. Disco balls overhead added to the late-night vibe.
Additional lounge seating featured mirrored installations by Blueprint, which proved to be a popular spot for photo ops.
Twenty restaurants set up food and dessert stations for after-party guests, including Alta, Cliff House, Mark Hopkins San Francisco, Johnny Doughnuts, and Salt & Straw.
Blueprint Studios created an additional after-party space at Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall at the San Francisco War Memorial & Performing Arts Center, located across from Davies Symphony Hall. Decor featured luxe white and gold furnishings, strands of lights, and plenty of candles.Â
