Celebrity chef Tyler Florence says changes have to be made in San Francisco — and he is willing to be part of it.
The Food Network celebrity announced that he will be opening two cafes in Union Square, according to CBS.
That’s moving against the grain, with more than 39 retail stores having fled downtown San Francisco since 2020, according to CNN, citing research from Coresight, a market research company.
Florence referenced that as he said he hopes his actions will spur others.
“I think people need to just look in the mirror every day and realize that we can’t live like this any longer, right, with the crime, and car vandalizing, and theft and robbery,” he said. “I think on the other side of the coin is the positivity in the city.”
“We want this to be a cultural impact, make a big difference in the city of San Francisco, and really even from a citizen’s standpoint, lean in. We can’t complain about it, we can’t point fingers. I think it’s everyone’s collective responsibility – pick a neighborhood,” he added.
Florence, who operates the Miller & Lux Steakhouse at the Chase Center’s Thrive City, has dubbed his two cafes Miller & Lux Provisions.
“We’re actually baking products in-house,” Florence said. “The whole park’s going to smell like cookies.”
Florence said he wants to revive the city.
Do you agree with him?
Yes: 43% (37 Votes)
No: 57% (49 Votes)
“I want San Francisco to be the place I fell in love with when I moved here back in 2007,” said Florence. “We’re going to make it happen, we will make the city proud, I promise you. And this will be a spectacular location that the world will pay attention to.”
That won’t be easy. In 2021, the Hoover Institution wrote that San Francisco is more dangerous than 98 percent of American cities.
The site noted that in Presidio Heights, the neighborhood that includes Nancy Pelosi’s house, where a home could sell for $2.5. million, violent crime is twice as common as the U.S. average.
The site also noted that drugs are at the root of the city’s collapse, asserting, “There are now many more drug users in the city than high school students.”
As CNN reported, the San Francisco Centre, which until late August included a Nordstrom outlet, has seen sales plummet.
Sales there totaled $298 million in 2022, down from $455 million in 2019; while foot traffic dropped from 9.7 million shopper visits in 2019 to 5.6 million in 2022, according to Westfield, which operated the mall.
The company has said it will give up control of the site, focusing on what it said were “challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to declines in sales, occupancy and foot traffic.”
Google has also distanced itself from the city. In a first, next year’s Google Cloud Next conference will be held outside of San Francisco, according to SFGate.
