Published Aug. 12, 2026at6:00am
Off Menu is available exclusively for SF Standard members. Click here for a limited-time friends-and-fam offer starting at $1 for the first month (and the cost of a couple Arsicault croissants every month thereafter).
There’s the C-word, and then there’s the C-word.
If you’re a restaurant owner with a few locations, the latter is probably more offensive than the first. Especially if your business is based in San Francisco. Get your mind out of the gutter: It’s not the four-letter C-word. It’s “chain.”
Charles Bililies knows what I’m talking about. The founder of Souvla has six restaurants and wants to double that over the next seven years. So too does the king of croissants, Armando Lacayo of Arsicault, which is expanding from three to five bakeries, with openings soon in Palo Alto and Mission Bay. Then there are Thomas McNaughton and Ryan Pollnow, the duo behind Flour + Water, which has two pizzerias in San Francisco and starting slinging Hawaiian pies in Oakland in January.
The owners of these San Francisco-born brands would rather die a thousand deaths than have their reputation degraded by the C-slur.