By the time the 56th annual Pride Parade marches up Market Street in late June, one of the Castro’s most beloved restaurant spaces will have reopened, ready to join the celebration.
This summer, the wedge-shaped space at the corner of Market and Noe that housed Cafe Flore for 45 years until its closure in late 2019 will reopen as Parasol at Flore, a California-Mediterranean bistro bar from local hospitality pro Jacob Paronyan.
In addition to being a partner and general manager at Boulevard, the 33-year-old fine-dining restaurant on the Embarcadero, Paronyan owns Union Street wine bar Roaming Goat, which is known for hard-to-find Armenian and Georgian varietals and a menu of Mediterranean cuisine. “Parasol will serve approachable, California cuisine with Mediterranean flair,” Paronyan says, “so it’s kind of the reverse of Roaming Goat, which is Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors with California ingredients.”
Paronyan hopes Parasol will fill the void left by the closure of Cafe Flore, which was the Castro’s unofficial neighborhood hangout. To that end, he plans for Parasol to offer a casual, counter-service experience by day; a buzzy, high-energy brunch on weekends; and a slowed-down, full-service dinner. And with the Castro Theatre reopening in March, Paronyon hopes to serve tourists visiting the neighborhood. “We’ll definitely not be leaning into a fine-dining aspect,” he says. “But I hope it will be somewhere in the realm of Starbelly across the street, which has been there for 15 years, or maybe a step or two below Zuni.”
The space was most recently occupied by Fisch & Flore, a seafood-focused restaurant and bar that opened in April 2024 and closed less than a year later. The owners did a substantial renovation, including installing a fire pit and glass windbreaks on the triangular patio, so Paronyan will make few design changes before reopening as Parasol. Over time, he plans to incorporate a Mediterranean-inspired palette of coral and deep pink and lean into the “greenhouse aspect” of the dining room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows.
The goal is to be open in time for Pride month. “I have to be open by June,” Paronyan says, “because Pride is going to be a marathon.”