Bi-Rite is opening a fourth store in San Francisco, following its newest outpost in Russian Hill, pictured above in 2024.
Benjamin Fanjoy/Special to the Chronicle
For years, people who live on the west side of San Francisco have been clamoring for an outpost of cult favorite grocery store Bi-Rite.
Come 2027, they’ll get one.
Bi-Rite’s fourth store will open next year in the Outer Richmond at 6001 California St., co-CEO Patrick Mills said. It’s taking over the former 6001 California Market at the corner of California Street and 22nd Avenue. “We’ve been hearing for years, people have been wanting us to come out there,” Mills said. “I see this location as a chance to be stewards of a small, neighborhood grocery business that serves the immediate neighborhood.”
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Fans can expect “the Bi-Rite experience,” Mills said: pristine produce from local farms, along with groceries, prepared foods, housemade ice cream, meat and seafood counters, and more. The new Bi-Rite will be similar in size to the Divisadero Street store, with roughly 2,500 square feet of shopping space. It will offer the most outdoor seating of any location, thanks to the large sidewalks in front of the corner building. The store will sell new items that will roll out soon at other Bi-Rites, including housemade pastries and sushi.
Mills hopes the store will service the Outer and Inner Richmond, as well as Seacliff. “The Richmond just seems to be teeming with life,” he said, pointing to the nearby Sunday Clement Street Farmers Market and dining destinations such as Breadbelly and Pearl 1601. Neighborhood groups have long asked Bi-Rite to come to the area, even going so far as to send real estate listings. Interest in the new store has been feverish, including news reports of its arrival before the lease was finalized.
Bi-Rite has taken over the space previously occupied by the 6001 California Market in the Outer Richmond District.
Google Street View
The California Street building was built in 1917 and has a long history of operating as a family-run grocery store, Mills said, such as Appel & Dietrich Fine Food Market (whose red neon sign he hopes to preserve in some way). Bi-Rite is completely renovating the aging space, which has sat vacant for about two years, including building a full kitchen to fuel the store’s popular prepared and hot foods. Unlike the other Bi-Rite stores on major commercial corridors, this one is in a largely residential neighborhood.
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Bi-Rite, whose history reaches back to 1940 in the Mission District, is one of San Francisco’s most popular — and expensive — grocery stores, known for stocking artisan products, local produce and quality prepared foods. Joe and Bill Cordano built the original 18th Street market in 1940, and Jack and Ned Mogannam purchased it in 1964, according to a history on Bi-Rite’s website.
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Sam Mogannam, who grew up working with his father and uncle in the market and went on to become a chef, took over the 18th Street location in 1998 and added a kitchen, kicking off Bi-Rite’s transformation into the farm-to-table food destination it is today. Bi-Rite often partners with local chefs, including by selling their products.
Bi-Rite later expanded with nearby ice cream shop, Bi-Rite Creamery; a now-closed Civic Center café; and the second store, on Divisadero Street in the NoPa neighborhood, in 2013. In 2024, Bi-Rite opened its largest store yet, on Russian Hill, also in what had been a longtime neighborhood market, Real Food Co.
In 2024, Bi-Rite leadership wrote a 10-year vision for the business, including a goal to open two new stores in the Bay Area. The California Street store is the first phase; they’re still looking for another location and have considered cities in the East, North and South Bay, Mills said.
Bi-Rite is known for its curated selection of local food products and high-quality produce.
Benjamin Fanjoy/Special to the Chronicle
The vision also includes a future effort to address food insecurity in San Francisco. There are commitments to internal work culture and benefits, including promoting 90% of positions from within and offering staff an $2,200 educational stipend to learn English or Spanish. Bi-Rite currently employs 330 people — which will grow by 75 when the California Street store opens — and has low turnover rates, said co-CEO Brianne O’Leary Gagnon. Managers work there for about 11 years on average and cashiers, about three years, “which is in this industry a very long time,” O’Leary Gagnon said.
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As part of Bi-Rite’s vision plan, another major shift is underway: passing the family-run business to new hands. Over the last year, Mogannam and business partner Calvin Tsay have stepped away from the day-to-day operations, which are now overseen by Mills and Gagnon. (Mogannam remains an owner and is still involved in some parts of the business, including the opening of the new store.)
Gagnon worked in legal recruiting and human resources before joining Bi-Rite in 2018 as director of people and culture. Mills is a Bi-Rite lifer: He started working at the grocer’s deli, slicing meat and making sandwiches, nearly 20 years ago. Mogannam lured him to San Francisco from Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Mills was working at the time. They met at a seminar at Zingerman’s, another grocer with a storied past, about “businesses that choose to be great instead of big,” Mills said.
Bi-Rite’s expansion has followed that philosophy: They are committed to remaining independently owned, and have taken on no outside investments, Mills said.
“We’re not trying to move up and down the Pacific Coast,” he said. “We just want to do something great in the Bay Area.”
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