Salesforce Transit Center Getting Rooftop Restaurant From Iyasare Chef

SF’s $2.2 billion dollar Salesforce Transit Center is finally getting a tenant for its rooftop restaurant space. The elevated park, which reopened in July after a surprise 10-month closure for repairs, will welcome an upscale Japanese restaurant from the chef behind Berkeley’s Iyasare, one of Eater’s 38 Essential East Bay restaurants. The SF Chronicle reported the news, with the SF Business Times also reporting that the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), which runs the Salesforce Transit Center, had to sweeten the deal to attract a tenant.

Iyasare chef Shotaro Kamio and partner Josh Sigel partnered with San Francisco-based investor Lasso Venture to fund the new restaurant, forming an LLC called JSSK One. Their restaurant doesn’t yet have a name or menu yet. It will occupy 9,600 square feet, but according to the Business Times, they’ll only have to pay for the 4,500 square feet that’s indoors: the rest is an outdoor terrace. TJPA will also cover the majority of improvement costs to the space (it’s currently just a shell) rather than split the cost, as is more common.

The TJSPA will reportedly vote to approve the lease this week, The first food tenants in the building, two Philz Coffee shops, are set to open in late October. More tenants have signed on, including the recent addition of a quick-service dim sum restaurant from a longtime Koi Palace chef. But whether the group of them can create a food destination — in particular, an dinner destination — of the newly christened “East Cut” remains to be seen.

• Transbay lands restaurant operator for upscale rooftop space [ESF]
• Rooftop restaurant coming to Salesforce Park in Transbay [ESF]