South San Francisco, while it’s close in proximity, has a completely different air than San Francisco. Its past is much more industrial, for one. So when acclaimed architect Stephen Francis Jones was tapped to create a welcoming social space for dining and relaxation, he was a little stumped at first.
“I didn’t have anything to hinge this on,” says Jones, whose design credits include Spago in Beverly Hills, La Brea Bakery’s flagship, the Lucky Strike Bowling Chain and Japan’s Mister Donut franchise. “I went to look at the site for the first time, and it was barren.”
Jones is known for creating a backstory that informs his designs. With little to go on, his “aha” moment came when Jones was reading the Los Angeles Times’ Saturday section, which is “all about food and fun,” he says, adding that suddenly, “My mind was really going with the possibilities of what this could be.”
So the feel of Saturday began to inform the design for a mixed-use space that could bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and San Francisco, a “Google-like” place where work, play, dining and entertainment intersect. He was able to create just that, all with a rough-hewn quality that pays tribute to the industrial city’s past in steel working and manufacturing.