SFist reported that, for a few months this spring, the newest storefront on Union Street was run entirely by a machine. A local startup called Andon Labs signed a three-year lease at Union and Webster and handed an AI agent named Luna a corporate card, a budget under $100,000, and one instruction: build a working retail store and turn a profit. Luna got the shop open by launch day, stocked and staffed. It also forgot to schedule anyone to show up for shifts.
That small, specific failure offers a glimpse of the practical work behind a new storefront. Luna's store put an AI agent to work on the unglamorous mechanics of running a business, the kind of thing that never makes it into a highlight reel. It is one example among several new businesses on Union Street this year.
A Different Training Format
Union Street has fitness studios offering group classes. The Yard Strength Training is opening with a different training format.
The company signed a lease this June for 4,300 square feet at 1906 Union Street, its third Bay Area location, and is scheduled to open this September. The model is reservation-based squat rack pods, 8 to 12 of them, booked by the hour, built for people who want to train alone or with their own trainer rather than sweat through a group format. The site was picked after a multi-year search for a location between the company's existing San Francisco and Mill Valley studios, and founder Joseph Cicero said Cow Hollow sits squarely between the two communities the company already serves, with demand from both members and trainers pointing to this corridor.
That approach gives members a way to fit strength training around their own schedules.
Left Door Reworks Cocktail Classics
A block away, the most talked-about bar relaunch of the year is reworking familiar drinks. Left Door sits on the second floor at Union and Laguna, above the Bus Stop Saloon, a sports bar that has poured beer on that corner for over a hundred years. Left Door reopened this February after a month-long renovation under new bar director Tabatha Mohn, and her menu centers on reworked classic cocktails.
The San Francisco Standard's February feature on the relaunch describes a $22 list built around reworking drinks that fell out of fashion, including a daiquiri finished with salted honey, a sidecar built on fermented guava, and a margarita using citrus sherbet instead of triple sec. Martini drinkers get an Original Joe's-style blue cheese olive or an absinthe-soaked pickled onion. Mohn's stated approach is to fix classics she thinks most bars get wrong, starting with the Negroni.
The San Francisco Standard writes: "Her recipes, in contrast, aren't meant to intimidate, nor were they constructed with social media in mind."
Left Door earned San Francisco Magazine's Best New Bar recognition in 2024 under its original concept. Its current menu takes a different direction from that original concept.
The Union Street Festival Brings a Summer Crowd
None of this means Cow Hollow has gone quiet. The Union Street Festival still shuts the corridor down for two days every summer, and this year's ran June 6 and 7, closing Union between Gough and Fillmore from 11am to 7pm both days, free to attend, with the annual Waiter Relay Race as one of its long-running fixtures. It remains one of the largest street fairs in the city, offering a public gathering alongside the everyday businesses on the corridor.
The festival brings a crowd for two days each year. The newer businesses described here offer services designed for regular use throughout the year.
Longtime Union Street Businesses
The businesses that have anchored daily life on this stretch for years already run on that same logic, which may be why the newest arrivals fit in so easily rather than sticking out.
- Turtle Tower is the Cow Hollow outpost of the Vietnamese spot known citywide for its phở gà.
- Cheminé functions as much as a workspace as a cafe, the kind of place where the pastries are good enough that nobody minds you camping out with a laptop.
- Mama's Luncheonette is a counter-service halal spot best known for a chicken caesar wrap that regulars will tell you is one of the better versions in the city.
- Motoring Coffee doubles as a vintage car garage, with an actual Porsche parked in the middle of the shop while you wait on a latte.
- Roaming Goat, the Mediterranean wine bar on Union Street, is known for its Armenian and Georgian pours and as a neighborhood date spot.
These longtime businesses and the newer arrivals contribute to Union Street's everyday mix. Balboa Cafe, a block over, adds the see-and-be-seen energy the street is also known for citywide. Together, old fixtures and new leases give the corridor a range of businesses.
What This Means for Union Street
If you live within a few blocks of Union Street, this season brings several changes to the corridor: a gym scheduled to open in September with private training pods, a cocktail bar that reopened with a menu of reworked classics, and a festival that closes the street for one weekend a year.
Together, these businesses add to the mix of places people can use along Union Street.
If you are thinking about what a home in this part of the city is actually worth, given how the block itself is evolving, Lauren Fraser can walk you through it block by block. Let's Connect.
