Why Fillmore Street Still Looks Half-Finished, Two Years Into Its Comeback

Walk Fillmore Street between Clay and Pine on any given Tuesday this September and you'll pass a storefront getting fitted for a Michelin-trained chef's next restaurant, a golf boutique mid-renovation, a jewelry shop that just opened its doors, and at least one window still covered in paper. That mix, half finished and half arrived, is not a construction delay. It's the visible result of a landlord who decided two years ago that filling vacancies fast was the wrong goal.

The building at 2035-2047 Fillmore sold again in August, this time to a group tied to venture capitalist Neil Mehta and his partner Cody Allen, for around $8.6 million. The block had been sitting empty since a shoe store, a pizza spot, and a clothing shop cleared out starting in 2022. Fillmore Merchants Association president Tim Omi told the SF Standard the mood on the street has shifted from anxious to relieved, saying the general sentiment now is that everyone's happy about what's going on. That's a notable turn from the neighborhood's reaction two years ago, when the same buying pattern was described as a hostile takeover.

What actually changed isn't the pace of construction. It's the math behind it.

The Landlord Who Doesn't Want Market Rent

Most commercial landlords buy a property, calculate the going cap rate, and lease at whatever the market will bear as fast as possible. Vacant storefronts cost money every month they sit empty, so speed matters more than fit.

Mehta's operation runs the opposite play. He's been acquiring Upper Fillmore buildings around a 5.25 percent capitalization rate and then releasing them to small, independent tenants at closer to 3 percent, covering tenant improvement costs himself rather than passing them to the incoming business. That gap between what the building could earn and what it actually charges only makes sense if profit isn't the point. It isn't, at least not in the traditional sense. The effort is structured as a nonprofit called the Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project, funded first by a $100 million raise through a vehicle called Aegis Reserve Partners LP in January 2024, then by an additional $50 million through a fund called Friends of Fillmore LP.

That structure explains the pace better than any construction timeline. A landlord chasing market rent fills a vacancy the moment someone with a check shows up. A landlord funding buildouts himself and picking tenants for fit can let a space sit dark for a year while the right chef finishes city permitting. That's exactly what's been happening on this block since 2022, and it's why a three-block stretch of one of San Francisco's best-known shopping streets has spent two years looking like a demolition site with better landscaping.

What's Actually Landing on the Block

The tenant roster that's emerging tells you what "the right chef" means to this landlord. It isn't formula retail.

Chef Pim Techamuanvivit, who runs the Michelin-starred Kin Khao downtown and Nari inside the Kabuki Hotel, is opening a Thai concept in the former Starbucks space at 2222 Fillmore, a location Starbucks vacated in 2024 after more than three decades on the street. A few doors down at 2001 Fillmore, chefs Junsoo and Hyunyoung Bae of the Michelin-starred SSAL are building out an upscale Korean barbecue restaurant called Monami, in a space that has cycled through the beloved Pacific Heights Bar & Grill, then Thai Stick, then Noosh since Mehta bought the building. At the corner of Fillmore and Sutter, a San Jose food truck called Jevikal, known for kimbap and crispy Korean fried chicken, is converting its first permanent location into the old Pride of the Mediterranean space.

The pattern holds beyond restaurants. Malbon Golf, a boutique built around golf apparel, is moving into the corner of Pine and Fillmore where the quirky office-supply mainstay Brown Bag operated for decades, most recently occupied by the fragrance brand Byredo. HYOU Fine Jewelry, an online brand based in India, chose Fillmore for its first physical store at 2029 Fillmore, specializing in lab-grown stones set in vermeil. Farther south, the block has also picked up more familiar names: Super Duper Burgers took over the old Burger King space at Post Street, and Tacos El Patrón, opening its third location after starting in Pleasant Hill and expanding to the Mission, is set for the storefront at 1325 Fillmore that most recently housed Black Bark BBQ and Scott's Chowder House.

The one clear break from the no-chains pattern is Nordstrom Local, which cleared San Francisco's Planning Commission to open a scaled-down concept store at 1919 Fillmore. Because the city's formula retail rules require commission approval for any chain business in this corridor, that approval alone signals how differently Nordstrom's concept had to be pitched to fit what the street is trying to become. It won't carry inventory. It exists mainly for pickup, returns, and alterations.

The Anchor Everyone's Actually Waiting For

None of the restaurant openings carry the weight of the Clay Theater, the single-screen movie house at 2261 Fillmore that's sat dark since 2020. Mehta bought it along with the adjacent building for $11 million in January 2024, and speculation about its future has run for two years.

The project cleared its first real hurdle on April 1, 2026, when San Francisco's Historic Preservation Commission unanimously approved a restoration that keeps the landmarked marquee and roughly 200-seat auditorium while modernizing projection and sound. Project director Cody Allen told the commission the theater will run seven days a week with more than 500 annual screenings once it's done, mixing first-run films, repertory programming, and 35mm presentation. When a commissioner asked the obvious question, when, Allen's answer was that the team hoped to have permits filed soon and construction finished in early 2027.

That timeline is worth sitting with. Earlier reporting in 2025 floated a possible 2026 reopening. By the time the Historic Preservation Commission actually signed off in April 2026, the target had already slid into next year. The same deliberate, non-market approach that's letting a Michelin chef take a full year to finish permitting on a noodle shop is also the reason the neighborhood's most anticipated reopening keeps moving a few months further out.

What Got Lost Along the Way

None of this reads as a clean rescue story, and it shouldn't. The corridor is still losing businesses even as new ones arrive.

Designer Jonathan Adler closed his longtime home furnishings store at 2133 Fillmore. Rocksbox, the jewelry retailer that opened its first permanent Fillmore storefront in late 2024 after starting as a pop-up, has since shuttered. Vic's Wine House, the intimate spot at 1870 Fillmore where owner Victoria Wasserman used to perform Amy Winehouse covers while pouring, closed quietly, though a sign in the window now points to a new wine bar operating under the name Flying Figs.

The legacy business that seemed most at risk when this all started has, so far, held on. La Méditerranée, which looked likely to be pushed out when Mehta's group bought its building, extended its lease through 2028 and is reportedly working on a longer-term deal.

What This Actually Looks Like This Fall

If you live on or near Fillmore, the practical takeaway isn't that the street has arrived or that it's failed. It's that you're watching a two-year experiment in patient capital play out in real time, block by block, and the next few months will fill in more of the picture than the last two years combined. Malbon Golf and Jevikal are both aiming for a debut this season. Tacos El Patrón is set to open at month's end. Monami and the Thai concept at 2222 Fillmore don't have confirmed opening dates yet, which tracks with a landlord who's never been in a hurry. The Clay won't reopen this year no matter what, but the permits Allen's team files this fall will be the next real signal on whether early 2027 holds.

Kevin Wong has watched plenty of San Francisco corridors go through slow, uneven stretches like this one, and the pattern usually says more about a street's next decade than any single opening does. If you're curious what a shift like this tends to mean for a block you live on or are watching closely, Kevin S. Wong is always glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.