On 24th Street This Fall, the Openings Are Mostly Homecomings
November 5, 2026
November 5, 2026
At 3945 24th Street, the bar has moved forward. It now holds raw oysters on display and the ingredients for ceviche, with eight chairs pulled up to it. That's the most visible change inside Fresca, which reopened on Aug. 24 after six years dark. The restaurant itself is familiar to anyone who has been here a while.
The same pattern runs up and down the street this fall. The places opening, or about to reopen, mostly belong to people with a history here. The children's clothing store is heading back to the storefront where it first opened 34 years ago. A taqueria owner who used to run a location in the Castro has reopened on 24th Street. The kitchen staff from a Sanchez Street restaurant that closed this summer moved as a group to Church Street. The genuinely unknown pieces are two empty spaces.
Brothers Ivan and Jose Calvo-Perez run Fresca now. Their father opened the first Fresca in 1996, and the 24th Street location dates to 2004. The Noe Valley Voice's October Store Trek column tells the long version. The restaurant closed at the start of the pandemic in 2020, and the family let the lease go. In 2023 the space was still vacant, so they leased it again with plans to remodel and reopen. Over the next three years Fresca's three other locations closed while the Noe Valley refresh dragged on.
The brothers posted "The wait is over!" on Facebook in mid-August. A month after reopening, Jose Calvo-Perez, the head chef, told the Voice, "It's been amazing. Our clientele is super happy for us to be back."
The menu keeps the staples their father introduced, including the ceviches and a whole fried branzino, but the chef has reworked them with his own recipes and leans into Nikkei cooking, the meeting of Peruvian and Japanese cuisine. The happy hour is the easiest way in for anyone who hasn't been back yet. It started in early September and runs on weekdays from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Oysters are $2 each then, compared with $5 on the regular menu, and two of the ceviches are discounted.
According to the Voice, Fresca is open Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. It's closed on Tuesdays. Reservations are on Fresca's website.
Bonita Taqueria y Rotisserie opened July 8 at 4063 24th Street, between Noe and Castro, in the space Tacolicious left last October. It's the third San Francisco location for the family-owned chain, which started in 2014. The other two are on Chestnut Street in the Marina and on Polk Street near Russian Hill.
Owner Jawad "JJ" Sweidan has run a Bonita near here before. The Voice's September Store Trek notes that he oversaw turning a Castro location into a Bonita in 2020, and that one closed two years ago. The new location also changed the whole chain. With the Noe Valley opening, all three Bonitas now serve the "Bonita Brunch" menu every day from opening until 3 p.m., with chilaquiles, horchata pancakes and tres leches French toast priced from $17 to $28. "It came from popular demand. Everyone always was asking if it would be more than just weekends," Sweidan told the Voice.
The free-range rotisserie chicken is still the main draw. Bonita's site lists hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, so weekend brunch starts at 10.
This is the most literal homecoming on the street. Small Frys owner Carol Yenne told the Noe Valley Voice's September issue that the children's clothing store will leave its current storefront at 3985 24th Street, across from Just for Fun, and move back to 4066 24th Street, where it opened 34 years ago. Moonshot Studio, the candle and fragrance shop, had been in that space since 2018 and planned to leave at the end of September.
Yenne told the Voice why she wants the larger space:
"The remodel will be extensive and take a lot of work, and we hope to reoccupy and open in January with a larger variety of clothing for older kids too, and lots of sunlight coming through the front windows."
For now the store is still at 3985. Small Frys' website lists that address, with hours of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Yenne said she plans to leave the current space at the end of the year, and her landlord has already put a "For Lease" sign in the window. That means 3985 will be the next storefront to watch once the holidays are over.
Moonshot owner Teresa Fitzgerald told the Voice the shop would relocate "somewhere in the Bay Area" and keep making custom private-label candles for businesses and events in the meantime.
Some returns involve the same people at a different address. Alice's Restaurant, the Hunan and Mandarin spot at 1599 Sanchez and 29th Street, closed for good at the end of August when owners James and Sharon Sung retired after 30 years. According to the Voice's September issue, all of the Alice's staff moved to Eric's Restaurant at 1500 Church, which shares many of the same menu items.
Sharon Sung told a customer that a Vietnamese restaurant would open in the space "in about four months." Measured from late summer, that would land near the new year.
The newest thing on 24th Street is a vacancy. Pressed Juicery at 3901 24th Street, on the Sanchez corner, closed in mid-August. A Maven Commercial sign out front is seeking a tenant for the 1,000-square-foot space. The Voice's September issue described the closure as part of a broader corporate move by the brand away from storefronts and toward wholesale, delivery and grocery. Its juices are still sold at Safeway.
Farther up the street, the Voice's September issue followed up on a July report that a developer is planning a five-story apartment building at 4148 24th Street, above Persimmon Acupuncture. Owner Tina Pham wrote to the paper that she plans to relocate the practice "and hope to remain in Noe Valley or nearby if possible."
The open questions for the coming months are 3901, 3985 once Small Frys leaves, 1599 Sanchez and possibly 4148. The business owners themselves have mostly found their way back to the neighborhood.
The Town Square at 24th Street keeps the same rhythm all year. The Saturday Noe Valley Farmers Market runs from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. In June the Noe Valley Voice reported the market was full at 21 vendors. The Voice's September issue reported that one market regular, Herr Farms, got more than $12,000 from market customers to buy an electric cooler for the truck that brings its harvest every week. Town Square co-founder Chris Keene started the GoFundMe with a $1,000 donation.
Here's what's left on the calendar from the Noe Valley Town Square events page and the Night Market listings:
The Town Square says details can change and that events depend on the weather, so check the page the morning of.
If you're keeping an eye on which 24th Street storefronts are changing hands this winter, from the Pressed Juicery corner to the space Small Frys will leave behind, I'm always glad to talk about what's happening on the street. I'm Greg Mundia with Mundia Real Estate. Let's Connect.
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