A Mysterious New Fillmore Street Landlord Appears to Be Forcing Restaurants and Shops Out

The future of a handful of long-running restaurants and small businesses is up in the air, as a thorough report by the San Francisco Chronicle details the quiet purchases of buildings along a stretch of Fillmore Street. The purchases seem to be leading toward an upheaval in commercial businesses in that corridor, including some long-running restaurants. Here are three things to know about the businesses impacted, who’s suspected to be at the center of the buying spree, and what’s happening now.

Building purchases center on Fillmore Street, where businesses are being pushed out

Since January 2024 through April, a buyer purchased six buildings along Fillmore Street, between Pine and Clay streets. The deals were made through connected LLCs and total “upwards of $40 million,” according to the Chronicle report. Here’s a rundown of the known, purchased building locations, and the status of the attached businesses:

• 2001 Fillmore Street — White Birches LLC purchased this building for $5.5 million, which houses Mediterranean restaurant Noosh on the ground floor. The restaurant has been closed for “mechanical repairs” per signage at the business, since approximately June, according to Eater tipsters, and owner John Litz declined to discuss the building sale or a reopening date with the Chronicle.
• 2043 Fillmore Street — This building houses the restaurant Apizza, which is also currently closed due to repairs. The landlord told the news outlet that a buyer is lined up for the property but would not disclose who the purchaser is and the owner of Apizza says he will relocate the business to Divisadero Street.
• 2208-2216 Fillmore Street — Pointed Blue LLC purchased this 7,300-square-foot building for $9.7 million. Included are three ground-floor commercial spaces with two retail stores, as well as Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant La Mediterranee, a 45-year fixture of the Fillmore. Sources told the newspaper that it is among the businesses that will leave once its lease expires, though owner Vanick Der Bedrossian declined to comment pending negotiations with the landlord.
• 2235 Fillmore Street — Sushi restaurant Ten-Ichi — a mainstay of the Fillmore District since 1978 — is located at 2235 Fillmore Street. The building was purchased by Great Stage LLC, according to Ten-Ichi owner Steve Amano. He told the Chronicle that his current landlord has told him he must leave by September 30 and the building sale is in escrow.
• 2259 and 2261 Fillmore Street — Fillmore Reserve LLC purchased these neighboring properties, which house women’s clothing store Alice & Olivia and the Clay Theatre, a long-running movie house that first opened in 1913 and shut down in 2020. In a previous story, the Chronicle details that the LLC purchased both of these properties for a total of $11 million.

Venture Capitalist Neil Mehta is the purported buyer

All these LLC roads seem to lead to Neil Mehta, a managing partner at investment firm Greenoaks Capital and a resident of the Pacific Heights neighborhood. (Mehta did not comment or confirm his involvement to the newspaper.) The building purchases are also tied to Cody Allen, who the Chronicle describes as a “nightlife entrepreneur” who raised $100 million for a fund in January. Allen is alleged to be Mehta’s “man on the ground” and while there are no records tying the two, he is listed as the manager for Great Stage LLC, the buyer for 2235 Fillmore Street; Pointed Blue LLC, the buyer for 2208-2216 Fillmore Street; and White Birches LLC, which purchased 2201 Fillmore Street (although now a relative of Allen is now listed as manager).

Oh, and that $100 million fund? It was from a single, unidentified investor for a limited partnership fund dubbed Aegis Reserve Partners LP for a “pooled investment fund/private equity fund.”

Lease negotiations go nowhere

Since Allen and Mehta both did not comment to the Chronicle, not much is known about their plans, although there is some context provided by small business owners. The paper calls the buyouts “an apparent bid to ultimately bring more high-end retailers into the area” and that doesn’t seem to be far from the truth. Business owners who reported attempting to negotiate leases or buyouts with their new landlord say those discussions went nowhere. Although La Mediterranee owner Der Bedrossian did not speak with the Chronicle, he told KTVU that the new landlord says that when their lease expires they will perform seismic retrofitting on the building, but that “afterwards they were going to look for some high-end retail,” Der Bedrossian told the news outlet. “That struck me as disappointing.”

Other building owners in the area have reportedly been approached to sell by this group, but have not sold, and it’s unclear what will happen to the residential renters of those newly purchased properties. Fillmore District supervisor Catherine Stefani’s office issued a statement to KTVU stating that she is “deeply concerned about losing these legacy businesses and will continue to ensure that any decisions about Fillmore Street’s future involve the community.” Stefani’s office is in apparent communication with a representative for the buyer of these buildings.