Stonestown Galleria comes alive most during meal times, when the food courts swirl with photogenic hunks of Taiwanese fried chicken and taro-filled buns.
In recent years, the 66-year-old mall in the Outer Avenues has quickly and quietly become a top culinary destination in San Francisco, thanks to a flood of new restaurants that have brought crowds ready to line up for freshly made noodles, fruity boba tea and, most recently, Japanese souffle pancakes. As traditional retail struggles in the digital age, malls like Stonestown are turning more and more to food to get people off their laptops and through the doors.
Yi Fang is my wife’s most favorite milk tea. Technically it’s not really milk tea as there’s no milk in it:
Another recent attraction is Yi Fang Taiwan Fruit Tea, which opened in December and has just one other Bay Area location in Berkeley. The Taiwanese chain serves its popular brown sugar pearl lattes — generously packed with unusually soft, warm boba — just four times per day: 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. It’s similar to Gram’s system, where only 30 orders of souffle pancakes are served three times per day.
Rope barriers are always set up to manage the Yifang crowds. An employee said they generally sell out of the brown sugar drinks after 30 minutes, and on weekends, after 15 minutes.
Another great mall revival was that Target mall in Sunnyvale on Lawrence. They tore down the old structure and put in some Santana-Row like open air retail-residential mix. How’s that mall doing now?
There’s even an Indian-Chinese restaurant there. I didn’t know Indian-Chinese cuisine is a thing until I ate there…
