Walk the 2100 block of Polk on a Saturday morning this September and you will pass a papered-over storefront at 2139, right across the street from the Bi-Rite Market that opened here in 2024. The paper has been up for months. Behind it, according to permits and press, a bakery called Lorella is finishing a gut renovation. It is one of several businesses that have opened, or are about to open, along Polk Street this year.
That is one story of Polk Street in 2026: a grocery store at 2140 Polk, alongside several new openings along the corridor. Looking at both the new businesses and longtime fixtures offers one way to understand this stretch of Russian Hill.
Bi-Rite at 2140 Polk
Before it was a grocery store, 2140 Polk was the last location of Real Food Co., a health-food chain that had occupied the space since 1976. When that closed, Bi-Rite signed a 26-year lease and turned it into something bigger than a neighborhood market. At roughly 4,000 square feet, it is Bi-Rite's largest store, about twice the size of its original Mission location and 50 percent bigger than its NoPa outpost, and it now doubles as the company's headquarters. Owner Sam Mogannam has said the goal was to make it an anchor for the busy block.
That is worth sitting with for a second. A grocery store, not a bar or a restaurant, is one part of the story of this stretch of Polk.
Lorella Across from Bi-Rite
Lorella comes from Melissa Perello, the chef-owner behind Frances and Octavia, and pastry chef Melissa Loar, who has run Octavia's kitchen since 2021. For more than two years, since the pop-ups began in spring 2024, the two of them have sold out weekly "Saturbake" events out of Octavia, testing sourdough loaves and seasonal croissants on a devoted following. When they decided to make it permanent, they filed the business under Polk Street Bakeshop Partners LLC and took the storefront directly across from Bi-Rite.
Perello has talked about dessert as inseparable from a full dining experience, and Lorella's menu reads like an extension of that idea rather than a departure from it: country levain, savory croissants filled with things like Chicago beef and giardiniera, a slice-or-whole lumberjack cake carried over from Frances, and eventually doughnuts finished in an ultraviolet glaze. Architect Seth Boor is handling the buildout, and some of the grain will come from the Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project.
A Bagel Desert, Filled From the Mission
A few blocks south, between Broadway and Vallejo, Bageletto opened this summer in a former Peet's Coffee that had been sitting empty since a wave of chain closures earlier in the year. Despite San Francisco's crowded bagel scene, Russian Hill had never had a dedicated bagel counter of its own. Bageletto had already proven its bagels in the Mission, batch-baked and delivered from its production kitchen on 14th Street, before cofounder Kiki Theodorides opened a second address on Polk Street. The company has said it is not looking to expand further beyond this one location.
Handroll Hawker and Sorella
Further up the hill, a restaurant called Handroll Hawker is opening this fall at 2360 Polk, just blocks from Kaiyō Handroll Bar in Cow Hollow. Sorella, an Italian restaurant at the crest of Polk with a kitchen led by chef Fernanda Baggio and overseen by the well-known Suzette Gresham, is another business along the corridor.
Here is a quick reference for what has landed, and what is still coming, along this run of Polk Street this year.
| Business | Address | What it is | Status this fall |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bi-Rite Market | 2140 Polk St | Full-scale grocery, company HQ | Open since 2024, the block's anchor |
| Lorella | 2139 Polk St | Bakery and cafe from Frances/Octavia team | Opening this fall |
| Bageletto | 2193 Polk St | Bagel and sandwich counter, Mission-based | Open |
| Handroll Hawker | 2360 Polk St | Handroll bar | Opening this fall |
| Sorella | Crest of Polk | Italian restaurant and bar | Open |
Experience Behind Polk's New Openings
Several businesses here have connections to other San Francisco locations. Perello and Loar are associated with Frances and Octavia, and Bageletto has a Mission location. The newer businesses also add to Polk Street's current mix.
That mix of longtime fixtures and newer openings is worth remembering the next time someone tells you a street is "having a moment." Polk Street already had its long-running fixtures doing the quiet, unglamorous work of keeping the block alive: the Russian Hill Bookstore, open since 1974, still stocking a shelf dedicated to San Francisco history; the Cinch, the last bar left from Polk's decades as the city's original gay commercial strip before that community moved toward the Castro; the New Spot on Polk, a family-owned diner that has served the same corner since 2017 and still lists its house potatoes on every plate. Those businesses were already part of Polk Street. Newer businesses have also opened at several points along the corridor.
What This Means If You Already Live Here
If your daily walk already runs down Polk, the businesses and longtime fixtures described here offer a snapshot of the corridor this fall.
For a closer look at how Russian Hill fits alongside San Francisco's other neighborhoods, from the Marina to Bernal Heights, Brandi Mayo keeps a running guide to the city's distinct pockets at brandimayo.com/neighborhoods. If Polk Street's evolution has you thinking about what a home in Russian Hill, or nearby, might be worth to you now or down the road, Work With Brandi for a conversation grounded in the same kind of block-by-block detail that shapes this street.
