Bi-Rite to open new market on Polk Street

For the primary time in a decade, Bi-Ceremony will open a brand new market in San Francisco — this time within the Russian Hill space.

What’s taking place: The favored specialty grocer introduced its plans final week to open a 3rd retailer within the metropolis, taking up the 2140 Polk St. location of Actual Meals Co., a neighborhood market that opened in 1976.

• Longtime Bi-Ceremony worker Steffan Morin, who will handle the brand new retailer, advised Axios the state of affairs was “mutually helpful,” since Actual Meals Co.’s house owners have been “able to promote.”

What they’re saying: “The neighborhood is thrilled,” District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin advised Axios. “The very last thing you need is any person saying, ‘Hey, I am getting out of the grocery retailer enterprise and you find yourself with a meals desert and a vacant house in a thriving, industrial district.

• “It’s the better of greatest circumstances,” Peskin mentioned, who confirmed it was a “whole keen vendor state of affairs” having met with the Actual Meals Co. and Bi-Ceremony house owners collectively.

Why it issues: Regardless of its fanatic following and demand from prospects for extra shops throughout San Francisco, the specialty grocer has been comparatively gradual to broaden, with its final, on Divisadero Avenue, opening in 2013.

• “We have been actually, actually methodical in our enlargement concepts,” Morin mentioned. “We have all the time simply form of maintained this very regular and form of gradual development mindset, actually wanting to emphasise high quality over amount.”
• Peskin mentioned Bi-Ceremony’s entrance into the neighborhood is particularly vital since native grocery store chain Mollie Stone’s plans to maneuver into the previous Lombardi Sports activities location a few blocks away “fell sufferer to the pandemic” and have fallen via.

Particulars: The brand new retailer shall be barely bigger than its Divisadero Avenue market’s 2,500-square-foot gross sales flooring, however Morin mentioned you possibly can nonetheless anticipate that quintessential Bi-Ceremony expertise of packed cabinets and tighter-than-average aisles, which he described as an deliberately “intimate affair.”

• Apart from transferring into 2140 Polk St., Bi-Ceremony may even occupy the adjoining storefront at 2134 Polk St., which beforehand sat empty.

Zoom in: Peskin mentioned beneath present “use dimension limits” within the metropolis’s planning code, Bi-Ceremony wouldn’t have been in a position to take over each areas.

• However the supervisor has launched an ordinance to make an exception for grocery shops within the Polk Avenue industrial district to exceed 4,000 sq. ft, which he mentioned he’s “fairly assured” will go the legislative course of by the top of this 12 months.

Of be aware: As a substitute of a serious, prolonged overhaul, Bi-Ceremony is planning a staggered renovation in order that the market shall be closed solely briefly.

• Morin additionally mentioned Bi-Ceremony hopes to retain as a lot of Actual Meals Co.’s present 35-40 workers as potential.

As for Bi-Ceremony’s well-known excessive costs, Morin mentioned “it’s undoubtedly a actuality that our pricing construction signifies that our market goes to be out of attain for some of us.”

• Morin reasoned that bigger grocers have extra leverage to barter decrease costs with distributors due to their increased quantity orders.
• He additionally mentioned Bi-Ceremony has “further overhead,” together with “a extremely strong wage and profit program for employees members that make it potential for them to dwell and work in San Francisco.”

What’s subsequent: Bi-Ceremony hopes to open on Polk Avenue within the first couple of months of 2023.