Late last year, celebrity chef Peter Hemsley announced in a scathing social media post that he was closing his Michelin-starred seafood restaurant in San Francisco, after just a year and a half in business.
He blamed the restaurant’s woes squarely on its location in the South of Market neighborhood near the Moscone convention center, an area of the city that’s been dogged by concerns over rising crime and disorder since the COVID-19 pandemic drained away local foot traffic.
"The fact that we all did this at the ugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole in the post-panny apocalypse, is nothing short of a small miracle," wrote Hemsley on Instagram. He added that "the smart and lucky [fine dining operators] in that pack are located in the right storefront, on the right block, and in the right part of this town."
It now appears that Hemley may have taken his own advice and moved his restaurant, Aphotic, to the proverbial greener pastures of Jackson Square. Public records indicate that the restaurateur plans to take over the space currently occupied by longtime tenant Kells Irish Restaurant and Bar at 530 Jackson St., according to an application to transfer the restaurant’s liquor license.
Hemsley is apparently partnering with San Francisco developer Brick & Timber Collective, which acquired the 15,615-square-foot property for $32.4 million, or $2,073 per square foot, according to CoStar data, a price tag that is on the high side even for ritzy Jackson Square, marking the priciest deal for the region in years on a per square foot basis. Such a deal would be unheard of in any other part of the city given the current bleak climate for San Francisco’s office real estate market, which still has the highest vacancy rates in the country at around 23%, according to CoStar.
But Jackson Square, a historic mini-neighborhood wedged between Chinatown and the Financial District, has become a magnet for wealthy creative tech types and investors in recent years.
Area that caters to high-end tastes
Undaunted by the post-pandemic market chill, Brick & Timber has taken a long view of the city’s investment prospects. Its founders, Glenn Gilmore and Jesse Feldman, revealed in 2023 that they had raised a fund of $500 million to buy up and renovate struggling office properties in the city in the hopes of attracting artificial intelligence startups and their backers.
Other tech-world luminaries have also staked out claims in the area. Well-known iPhone designer Jony Ive has quietly purchased millions of dollars’ worth of real estate in Jackson Square since 2020, according to CoStar data.
Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, is headquartered in the historic neighborhood, at 809 and 831 Montgomery St., buildings he purchased for $8.5 million and $10 million, respectively. In 2023, Ive shelled out $38 million for the roughly 10,000-square-foot office building at 807 Montgomery St., which breaks down to more than $3,600 per square foot. In early 2024, he paid nearly $60 million — which observers agreed was well over its fair market value — to buy the Little Fox Theater, according to CoStar data.
The neighborhood is already home to a number of other sought-after restaurants such as Quince and Cotogna as well as Villa Taverna, an invite-only establishment that bills itself as “one of America’s finest private dining clubs” in the micro-neighborhood, which sits in the shadow of the newly renovated iconic Transamerica Pyramid.
Other ventures have popped up to reflect the high-end tastes of tech luminaries. For example, Chief, a members-only society for women executives, opened a clubhouse in 2023 just down the street at 735 Montgomery St., and an old warehouse at 717 Battery St. is now a private social club called The Battery. In 2024, a showroom for Private Islands Worldwide opened a few blocks away at 724 Battery St., a service that offers to connect ultra-affluent clientele with “private islands, mega-yachts and floating villas” for sale or rent.