For 46 years, the same family has worked behind the same counter at 1668 Union Street. On Friday, October 2, Corsagna Deli will serve its last Mr. Italiano, the sandwich stacked with salami, coppa, mortadella, and provolone. Three weeks earlier and about two blocks west, a restaurant that left Cow Hollow two years ago came back.
Taken together, the two stories show how Union Street is changing this fall. The departures trace to one family's timing and one building's new owner. The arrivals are an operator who already knew the block and landlords re-cutting space that sat empty for years. The street is being rebuilt one lease at a time, and the clearest way to see it is to walk it by address.
1668 Union: A Family Decides It Is Time
The Corsagna storefront is older than the deli. The wood-frame building was finished in December 1950 by contractor Leo Dal Bon, and through the 1950s it held Theodore Pezzolo's school of music. The Accordion House sign came down in 1961. Egidio Giampaoli later took over the space and opened an Italian bakery. In 1980, his daughter Elvira Giampaoli left a corporate job at Bank of America and turned the bakery into a delicatessen to keep up with demand for sandwiches.
Her daughters, Angie Denardo and Paola Berdichevsky, grew up behind that counter and kept the shop open on weekdays only, daytime hours, while they raised their own families. The pesto chicken panini became as well known as the Mr. Italiano.
Denardo has called the closure a "perfect storm." Family timing, a shift in the neighborhood's clientele, pressure on small shops from the economy, and San Francisco's high operating costs all came together. After three generations, the family reached a point where it was time to move on.
It is not the only long-running shop to go this year. Sherman Market, a corner store on nearby Franklin Street, closed in the spring after 39 years.
Down the Street: The Shoe Boutique With 60 Days
Dantone Milano is closing for a different reason. The shoe boutique, which a 2024 7x7 guide to Union Street shopping still listed on the corridor, is closing after about four decades. The San Francisco Business Times reported on September 30 that the building's new owner gave the boutique 60 days to vacate.
The accessible reporting does not name the new owner or say what is planned for the building. It does make clear that the timeline came from the change in ownership. A 40-year tenancy can end on a two-month clock when a building gets a new owner, however steady the business inside it has been.
So the two oldest names leaving Union Street this fall are leaving for opposite reasons. One family chose its own date. The other business had its date set by an ownership change upstairs. Neither story is about shoppers giving up on the street.
1838 Union: The Restaurant That Came Back
Kaiyō Handroll Bar opened at 1838 Union Street on Friday, September 11. For anyone who has lived in Cow Hollow since 2018, the name will be familiar.
Restaurateur John Park opened the first Kaiyo, a Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei restaurant, in Cow Hollow in 2018. Kaiyo Rooftop followed in 2022 at the Hyatt Place San Francisco, and a third Kaiyo opened on the ground floor of the same hotel in 2024. While those hotel projects and sister restaurant Cavaña were getting started, Park closed the original Cow Hollow location. His reasoning, as he told Eater SF, was that the city was not yet busy enough for two similar restaurants while San Francisco was still recovering from the pandemic.
Eater SF reported that Park's Brick by Brick Hospitality Group turned back to Union Street as office workers returned. The two Kaiyo openings frame this fall's turnover. The same operator judged the street too quiet two years ago and busy enough again now, and voted with a new lease.
The kitchen team is familiar too. Kaiyo chef Alex Reccio and chef de cuisine Kenji Sawada lead the kitchen, and hospitality veteran Danny Louie runs the bar. The menu centers on hand rolls, carrying over and expanding what the Hyatt Place location serves, alongside a few favorites from the other Kaiyo menus and new cocktails.
"We want our food to be approachable… and hand rolls certainly are that fun element," Park told Eater SF.
2240 Union: A Room Dark Since 2020, Cut in Half
West of Fillmore, the largest change on the street is happening behind construction paper. Sue Perichon, a Pacific Heights parent who worked in tech before moving into interior design, is building Little Maison, which The Standard describes as San Francisco's first play cafe. It is meant for adults and young children together: a contained room where parents can finish a conversation over coffee while toddlers play. Perichon has compared it to an indoor version of the Presidio's Tunnel Tops.
The address has its own history. The space is a 7,000-square-foot former Sur La Table that had been vacant since 2020. To lease it, the landlords split the building into two smaller parts, and Little Maison took the smaller one. The Standard reported in August that construction began in July and that the cafe expects to open in late 2026. The other half of the old Sur La Table is still a space to watch.
This is the landlord side of the turnover. A format that fit Union Street a decade ago sat empty for years until the owners redrew the floor plan to suit the tenants who are looking now.
Still on Paper: 2071 and 2223 Union
Two more arrivals have been announced but have no confirmed opening dates in the reporting so far.
- 2071 Union St. In May, KRON4 reported that Alo had filed paperwork to take over the 3,485-square-foot space now occupied by outdoor apparel retailer KÜHL. At that time the SF Planning Department listed the proposal as "pending review," and there was no word on an opening date. It would be the brand's first San Francisco store, after five Bay Area locations in Burlingame, Walnut Creek, Corte Madera, Santa Clara, and Palo Alto.
- 2223 Union St. Hoodline reported in April that Breakfast Little, owned by Andrew Martinez-Perez, planned its second San Francisco storefront in the former Gamine space. No opening date had been announced.
Neither has confirmed a date publicly. Both fit the same pattern as Kaiyo and Little Maison: operators with businesses elsewhere choosing Union Street for their next address, often in rooms that once held something else.
The October Calendar Around the Corridor
October's biggest weekend lands just as these new rooms are finding their footing. Fleet Week's Parade of Ships is Friday, October 9, and the air shows run over Marina Green October 9 through 11.
For residents running errands on Union Street that weekend, the Presidio's guidance covers the details that matter most:
- From noon on Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11, cars, including rideshare and autonomous vehicles, are barred from several park streets and eastern entrances. These include Mason Street from Marina Boulevard, Anza Street from Lincoln to Graham, Montgomery Street, and Halleck Street.
- Waterfront parking is expected to be very limited. The free Presidio GO Downtown shuttle is scheduled every 15 minutes from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on both days.
- SFMTA notes that its Fleet Week advisory may change as new information comes in, so check the live SFMTA page before heading out.
Corsagna will already have closed by the time the jets are over the Marina. Kaiyō Handroll Bar will have been open for four weeks, and Little Maison at 2240 Union is still expected to open in late 2026.
If you own a home on the blocks above Union Street, Meagan Levitan follows this corridor storefront by storefront and can talk you through what this fall's turnover means for your property. Reach out to Meagan Levitan to Request a Confidential Home Valuation.
