The San Francisco Street Food Festival had not happened since the COVID-19 lockdown, which meant there was so much pent-up food craving that Yoshiko Sato was there when the gates opened at 11 a.m. Sunday, though she had been dancing in nightclubs until 3 a.m. that morning.
Having driven from her Pleasanton home with husband Richard Kreis, she was able to hit the oyster shots at Las Guerreras before anyone else, but got caught in the morning’s first line at Gamucha’s Kitchen. Sato did not mind because as a street food veteran, she knows to go where the crowd is.
“You follow the people,” she said, having been guided by the flow of orders to the crunchy crab tacos with extra sauce. “I like to see people voting for things.”
Although more than half the vendors at the fair do not have brick and mortar outlets, what they all have in common is the support of La Cocina, the Mission District nonprofit food incubator that helps break down barriers to trade for women, immigrants and BIPOC entrepreneurs, and that also organizes the festival.
It was last held at Power Station in Dogpatch in 2019 and was brought back to coincide with La Cocina’s 20th anniversary. During the hiatus, the perfect location rose up out of the asphalt, China Basin Park, the new green space across McCovey Cove from Oracle Park.
San Francisco Street Food Festival at China Basin Park in San Francisco on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. The festival returns after a 5-year hiatus due to COVID-19. There are 30 vendors and 20 do not have a brick and mortar selling their specialities on the street. The event is put on by La Cocina, a woman run organization dedicated to empowering immigrant and BIPOC food professionals. (Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle)
“Our incubator is a shared-use commercial kitchen, but there is no place there for businesses to sell directly to customers,” said La Cocina Executive Director Leticia Landa. “The pandemic seems like a long time ago, but people still weren’t ready to come out until now. It feels different. It feels like there is this energy.”
Landa timed it right, especially with the weather, which was 75 degrees without any wind on the waterfront all weekend. The festival opened Saturday, with 6,000 to 7,000 people paying the admission fee of $12, not counting their food and drink. It featured specialties you can’t find anywhere except for some farmers markets and food truck events, such as the vegan or chicken bao banh mi buns at the Noodle Lady, which sold out by midafternoon Saturday. So did Mi Comedor, which specializes in quesabirria, cheese-griddled tacos.
“We were so busy yesterday that I had to finish early. We ran out of food,” said owner Olivia Mecalco. “There were more people than we expected, and today will be even more than yesterday.”
Daniel Morales Vallejo, who has a restaurant called Pacifico at SFJazz, sells his Colombian hot dogs topped with aioli, chiles and potato chips only at street fairs. On Saturday he sold out 200 of them, so he brought 400 on Sunday.
“Hot dogs, hot dogs,” he yelled, as if he were hawking them in the ballpark across the water. “It’s a street food item, so this is the perfect place to sell them.”
Pacifico’s Colombian hotdog during the San Francisco Street Food Festival at China Basin Park in San Francisco on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. The festival returns after a 5-year hiatus due to COVID-19. There are 30 vendors and 20 do not have a brick and mortar selling their specialities on the street. The event is put on by La Cocina, a woman run organization dedicated to empowering immigrant and BIPOC food professionals. (Brontë Wittpenn/S.F. Chronicle)
The festival had three full-service bars, including one near the lawn rolling down to a live music stage operated by Noise Pop. Tables were set up, but Christina Gerber, a vegan chef from San Rafael, brought her own camp chair and planned to go directly from breakfast to lunch.
“I’m always looking for new ideas,” Gerber said. “There’s music. It’s a beautiful day. What’s not to love?”
The consensus among the eaters was that you did not try to organize a meal in the typical order of appetizer, main course, dessert. It could be reversed, depending on the line and the whim.
Kim Grobe was seated with five friends, and each was onto something different. She was eating vegan Indonesian from Nusa, while her seatmate, Heather Andrews, was eating New York cheesecake from Crumble & Whisk. Andrews has a policy of ordering it whenever she sees it, regardless of time of day, and she saw the creamy rounds put forth by Charles Farrier before 11:30 a.m.
“There are healthier choices out there, but today is not a day for healthier choices,” she said. “New York cheesecake was my brunch. I’ll probably get the mac and cheese on my way out.”
Yoshiko Sato snaps a selfie with husband Richard Kreis and their oyster shots. (Courtesy of Yoshiko Sato)
Sato and Kreis were splitting a thick piece of cheesecake before heading to Pacifico for the Colombian hot dogs. But in between, Sato decided that “cocktails are the next thing.” Heading in that direction, they picked up a second round of oyster shots because they were too cute to resist.
“When you come to an event like this,” she explained while waiting in the oyster shot line, “you follow your instincts.”
The event was to run until 6 p.m. or until everything sold out, whichever came first.
This article originally published at Eat dessert first? S.F. Street Food Festival feeds five years of pent-up demand.