Castro Market Hall Opens

A year behind schedule and minus a few of the marquee names mentioned as possible tenants, the Castro's new market hall, the Myriad, had its grand opening July 16.

Located in 4,000 square feet of ground floor space in the new apartment building at 2175 Market Street (between 15th and Church streets), 10 of the 13 available spaces are now leased. The mall is open seven days a week but opening and closing times vary.

The anchor tenant, owned by developer Jordan Langer and his partners, is a full service cocktail bar with a changing seasonal menu. The bar, Mrs. Jones, is described as the "little sister" of the developers' restaurant, Jones.

In kiosk spaces ranging from 75 to 200 square feet, the Myriad's tenants also offer craft beers, chocolate chip cookies and soft serve ice cream, coffee, juice, Filipino barbeque, poke, crepes, and sushi. There is also a flower shop and a cellphone repair store.

The most unique tenant is a self-service vending machine, built in France, that bakes loaves of baguettes around the clock, dispensing them warm within two hours of coming out of the oven.

The company, Le Bread Express, is owned by Benoit Herve, who moved to Silicon Valley 18 years ago to work in high tech. Herve told the Bay Area Reporter that he noticed the machines on a French television news station after it won first prize at the Concours Lepine International in Paris in 2014 as the best invention of the year.

The vending machine at the Myriad is the first in the U.S., said Benoit, who is planning to place one at Stonestown Mall and eventually throughout the state and the rest of the U.S., he said. There are currently over 700 machines in France.

Most of the tenants represent the owners' first brick and mortar stores, investor Matt Rosenberg said in an interview with the B.A.R. during the grand opening. Rosenberg said the developers hope to fill the three remaining stores with businesses that sell products other than food and beverages.

Long time coming

First announced last year, the Myriad has repeatedly fallen behind schedule to open. Rosenberg blamed the delays on "challenging city regulations."

When developer Langer presented his business plan to the Castro Merchants group last year, he said "more than 300" businesses had applied to lease space. On the Myriad's Facebook page, the developers also said that Top Chef alum Ryan Scott was in the process of "locking down" two spaces, but that never happened. The Myriad website had also said that businesses selling chocolates, bubble tea, puppy pate, bullet-inspired jewelry, and clothing made in Bangladesh were hoping to open in the mall. The developers had also planned to open a butcher shop.

Rosenberg said that the Myriad is "different" than other food halls in the city because they are hoping it will act as an incubator for entrepreneurs who cannot afford to open a brick and mortar store on their own. At rents between $15-$30 per square foot and spaces as small as 75 square feet, the new mall should give more people "a chance to get started in the Castro," he said.

Rosenberg said some of the other malls also charge business owners an additional fee, based on their revenues, which the Myriad doesn't do.

Elyse Thogerson moved her juice bar, Raw - A Juice Company, from the Second Act on Haight Street over to the Myriad. Thogerson, who is straight, has named half the raw juice drinks after gay bars in the city.

"I've been here a long time and feel like a part of the gay community," she said. Thogerson said she learned how to juice in her 24 years bartending in the city.

For Chris Joseph, Homestead Cookies was his first brick and mortar, after selling his chocolate chip cookies online, at several North Beach restaurants, and at music festivals. Joseph, who bakes the cookies at a commissary in Hunter's Point, is also selling soft serve ice cream and will team up with neighbor vender CRO to put together an affogato (espresso and ice cream). Joseph, who works full time as an event producer, developed the cookie recipe after years of experimentation.

"There's a mystery ingredient," he said.

For fans of craft beer, the San Francisco Brewing Company's Tap Room offers eight different beers on draft, which will be delivered daily from the brewery. It consists of their three flagship beers Broadway IPA, Marina Blonde, and Alcatraz Amber, with two others, the Marina Blond and Miner's Sourdough Sour. Two more draft beers will be featured from small independent breweries and there will also be a rotating cider.

Born and raised in the Philippines, husband and wife Jay and Claudine Dava decided in 2011 that they wanted to bring Filipino street food to the Bay Area.

Since then, Antonik's BBQ - named after their two children, Anton and Nikki - has served pork skewers, pork and chicken rice plates and barbecue sandwiches throughout the region. In addition to its booth at the Myriad, Antonik's sells at events throughout the Bay Area.