Foodies conditioned to heading to 31 Sunnyside for breakfast, brunch & lunch will be pleased, as Steven Choi, the San Francisco restaurateur whose lineup includes Fred’s Coffee Shop in Sausalito, says Kitchen Sunnyside is a breakfast-lunch spot that will feature many of Toast’s popular items – and many of the service and kitchen staffers who worked at Toast.
“It’s a similar menu to what is there now, but a little more upscale,” Choi says. “It will be new American cuisine rather than traditional American cuisine.”
Choi, a San Francisco resident originally from South Korea who plans to buy a house in Tiburon, has built himself something of a brunch mini-empire in recent years. In addition to Fred’s Coffee Shop in Sausalito, he owns Taylor Street Coffee Shop, Sweet Maple (opened in October 2010) and American-Thai fusion restaurant Blackwood (June 2012) in San Francisco. He also opened Kitchen Story, which serves up Asian-influenced California cuisine in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, in November 2012.
In doing so, according to the Wall Street Journal, Choi, originally a bioengineer, invented what he dubbed “millionaire’s bacon,” the “thick-sliced, slow-cooked, sugar-and-spice-coated delicacy has since attracted the attention of the Food Network and legions of brunch-goers.” As you’ll see from the photo above, “millionaire’s bacon” will indeed be on the menu (soon to be available on the restaurant’s website) at Kitchen Sunnyside.
Choi says he had been looking for a larger space in Mill Valley for a while but settled on 31 Sunnyside because of its proximity to downtown and the space’s longtime home as a community restaurant.
Feri Bijan took over ownership of Toast in 2012 from her son Shahram Bijan, the tech entrepreneur-turned-restaurateur who opened Toast in 2003 and in 2004 also opened the First Crush wine bar and restaurant across the street at 24 Sunnyside, the space that’s now home to Prabh Indian Kitchen. Bijam closed First Crush after two years and tried three more concepts in that same space. Shahram Bijan now runs Blink Design, an apparel design firm in Los Angeles.
The 411: Kitchen Sunnyside is open Mon.–Fri., 7am-2:30pm, Sat.–Sun 8am–3pm. Go here for more details.