"That is our whole season," Pat Belding, manager and part-owner of Frankie's Java House, told SFGATE in a story published Oct. 2. "I mean, our season goes around the baseball season. It's not around the Warriors that are just a quarter mile away, or, you know, Fleet Week, or anything else along Embarcadero. It's just all about Giants or activities at Oracle Park."
If you live in South Beach, you know how quickly the streets around the ballpark go quiet once the season ends. What the shutters don't show is how lopsided the year is for the businesses behind them. For the spots facing the park, the year is mostly 81 home dates followed by a long stretch of waiting. The newer places on Second Street are run differently. They set hours for a weekday lunch crowd, a holiday pie order and a mezzanine table. In those months, the customers are the people who live nearby.
Eighty-one dates carry the year
MoMo's opened in 1998, two years before the Giants moved downtown, which makes it one of the few businesses near the park that predate it. In the same SFGATE story, owner Scott Morton gave the split: "Eighty percent of our annual revenue comes within the 81 home games that take place during a baseball season."
The other 20% has to cover every day without a home game. MoMo's adjusts by cutting hours and staff in the offseason. Morton said an offseason means "less foot traffic, less passerbys, just less juice in that China Basin, South Beach part of the city," and that it already runs six months when the Giants miss the playoffs.
MoMo's isn't the only business on that schedule. SFGATE counted more than a dozen restaurants and bars that depend on games in a two-block square between Second and Fourth streets and King and Howard streets, plus more food businesses along the Embarcadero. Frankie's Java House, Bar Via, Underdogs Cantina and Merkado were the ones it named.
The quiet on a November weeknight near Willie Mays Plaza is the normal low point of that calendar. A walk you take in July and the same walk in January pass different neighbors.
Dec. 1 hangs over this winter
This offseason has an extra wrinkle. SFGATE reported that Major League Baseball's collective bargaining agreement with the players association expires Dec. 1, and that the league and players have been far apart on a salary cap. The business owners it interviewed are watching the talks for one reason: a delayed start to the 2027 season would make their slowest stretch longer.
Morton described the math: "If you start tacking on weeks and months onto that, it becomes really a game of financial Russian roulette every single day that you're open." The story also pointed back to the last lockout, in 2022, when a deal arrived in early March. All the games were kept, but the first week of the season was moved to the end of the year.
That uncertainty explains why business owners near the park describe winter the way they do. It also explains why the newer restaurants on Second Street built their schedules around something other than baseball.
Casa Sofia's hours read like a weekday restaurant's
Carlos Altamirano and his wife, Shu, opened Casa Sofia at 701 Second St. on May 21, in the space that used to be the Brixton. Before it opened, he told SFGATE the room would have 120 seats in the main dining room and 52 more across two private dining areas. It's his ninth Bay Area concept and, according to Eater SF, his largest.
In that same pre-opening interview, Altamirano said he hoped to serve lunch when the Giants played day games and to stay open later after night games. The schedule now posted on its OpenTable page doesn't follow the game calendar. It's a fixed week:
| Service | Days | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Lunch | Monday to Saturday | 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
| Dinner | Monday to Thursday | 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Dinner | Friday and Saturday | 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. |
No Sunday hours are listed, and OpenTable puts the price range at $31 to $50. A Monday lunch slot across from an empty ballpark only makes sense if the restaurant expects customers from the offices and towers around it. With those posted hours, this is the first winter that will show how many come.
Eater SF describes Latin-inspired dishes with a Californian focus, such as Sofia's Meatballs topped with Mexican mole and grilled octopus with chimichurri and roasted garlic potatoes. The restaurant is named after Altamirano's daughter, and a mural of her by artist Letty Samonte hangs inside.
A little farther out, other recent arrivals also reach past the game crowd. Eater SF lists Saam at 415 Brannan St., the first U.S. restaurant from Thai chef Thitid "Ton" Tassanakajohn, which serves dishes like pla phao, a salt-crusted branzino with pla ra sauce, along with Thai beers and sato, a sticky rice wine. Facing the park at 185 Berry St. is Sergeant Ma, which the San Francisco Chronicle reported in August would include a daytime café called Water's Edge.
Second Street's next storefront is a bakery
Across the street from Casa Sofia's block, at 680A Second St., is the future home of La Kalidád. It's a Filipino-Californian café-bakery from Angelica Nulud and Paul Faraon, who spent two years searching the Bay Area for a permanent space before choosing South Beach, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in July. Nulud started the business in 2021 with holiday pies after baking at Vive la Tarte and Stonemill Matcha. Faraon, who cooked at Cotogna, joined full time in 2023. The Chronicle's October roundup of fall and winter openings lists the café for December.
The plan, as the Chronicle described it, is a café that doesn't depend on a scoreboard. It will start out open Wednesday to Sunday, with seating in a mezzanine. Planned pastries include a mango sago croissant tart, a calamansi blueberry cruffin, and a mais con yelo croissant filled with Brentwood corn pastry cream. Drinks include pandan matcha, salted latik coffee and a calamansi espresso tonic. Nulud said they eventually hope to open daily and add breakfast sandwiches.
You can already order the pies for this year. La Kalidád's Thanksgiving 2026 preorder lists four 10-inch pies at $60 each: Turon Brûlée, Calamansi Meringue, Ube Halaya Cheesecake and Champorado Cream. Pickup is Wednesday, Nov. 25, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the commissary kitchen, 1001 Howard Ave. in San Mateo, so this year's Thanksgiving pie still means a drive down the Peninsula.
The ballpark keeps a few dates on the calendar
Oracle Park doesn't go fully dark in winter, and its own holiday events are the dates when the surrounding blocks fill back up. After this week, two events are left on its calendar, spread across five dates:
- Holiday Photo Tours, Nov. 21, 22, 28 and 29. The Giants' tour page lists start times at 11, 11:15 and 11:30 a.m., and 12:15, 12:40 and 1 p.m. Each tour runs 50 minutes and costs $55 to $75. Groups meet at the Juan Marichal statue by the O'Doul Gate at Third and Berry, and take photos at four spots inside the park. Tour participants also get a discount at the Giants Dugout Store at Second and King.
- Holiday Heroes, Tuesday, Dec. 8. The Wender Weis Foundation for Children's event, presented by Zenni, runs 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at 24 Willie Mays Plaza, with VIP festivities from 4:30 p.m. The Eventbrite listing promises athlete appearances, mascots, cookie decorating and snow globes, with tickets from $77.49.
Both are useful dates to keep in mind even if you don't plan to go. A weekend late-morning tour sends people out through Second and King around lunch, and a Tuesday-evening event fills the plaza on a night that would otherwise be quiet.
Between those dates, the regulars are local
The business owners SFGATE interviewed described how they plan to get through the winter. Merkado's owner, Fabien Santos, said the key is "being an adaptable space because everything changes in the wind," and said he hoped to run community events, such as a semiregular day market. Several restaurants nearby have also done well with private events and buyouts from tech companies. Morton said MoMo's landlord has helped the bar through earlier hard stretches, including the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic.
Each of those plans counts on the offices and residential towers within walking distance to fill the room. In July, the blocks between Second and Fourth fill up on the Giants' schedule. From now through the holidays, they run on Casa Sofia's Monday lunch, La Kalidád's Wednesday-to-Sunday plan, two ballpark tour weekends and one Tuesday night in December.
South Beach is where Jeff Marples has done more condo business than anywhere else in San Francisco. Part of that work is knowing how the blocks around your building change between the season and the offseason, and what those changes mean for owners on Second, King and the Embarcadero. If you'd like that local read applied to your own building or block, request a personalized market consultation.
