Three restaurants opened within blocks of each other in Foundry Row this month, the latest sign of how quickly the former factory district's dining scene has grown alongside its biotech offices and converted lofts.
The three openings — a wine bar called Cinder & Vine, a ramen counter called Nori Row, and a wood-fired pizza spot called Ember & Ash — all took over storefronts within a single block of Mill Street that sat vacant or under renovation for much of the past two years. Property manager Regina Alcaraz, who leases commercial space for the block’s owner, said all three units drew multiple competing offers before landing their current tenants. “Two years ago I was giving landlords a break on rent just to get anybody to sign,” Alcaraz said. “Now I’ve got restaurant groups from outside the city calling before a space is even listed.”
Rents that reflect the boom
Cinder & Vine co-owner Marcus Delvecchio, who previously ran a smaller wine bar in a different city before relocating to Bellwater, said he signed his lease at a rate roughly 40 percent higher per square foot than what he had paid at his previous location. He said he was willing to pay the premium because of the density of new biotech and startup workers within walking distance. “I looked at the foot traffic numbers and the income levels in this specific radius, and it made the higher rent worth it,” Delvecchio said. “I wouldn’t have opened here five years ago. I’m not sure there was a market for a wine bar here five years ago.”
Nori Row owner Haruki Sato, who previously worked as a sous chef at a downtown restaurant before opening his own place, said he chose Foundry Row specifically because of its concentration of younger biotech and tech workers, whom he described as his target customer for a fast-casual ramen concept. “I need volume and I need people who can afford to eat out on a weeknight,” Sato said. “This block has both right now in a way most of downtown doesn’t.”
I’ve run a hardware store on this street for twenty-two years. I’m glad these restaurants are opening instead of the storefronts sitting empty. I’m just not sure any of their customers are coming in to buy a hammer from me afterward.
Walt Prusinski, owner of Prusinski Hardware
Longtime businesses feel the shift
Walt Prusinski, whose hardware store has operated on the same block for more than two decades, said he has mixed feelings about the sudden concentration of new restaurants nearby. He said foot traffic on the block has clearly increased, but that the increase has not translated into new customers for his own business. “These aren’t people buying hardware,” Prusinski said. “They’re people buying a $16 bowl of ramen and then getting back in a rideshare.”
Omar Delacruz, who owns Ember & Ash along with a business partner, said the trio of openings happening at nearly the same time was coincidental rather than coordinated, though he acknowledged the timing has generated more attention than any single opening might have on its own. “We didn’t plan to open the same month as a wine bar and a ramen shop,” Delacruz said. “But I won’t pretend it hasn’t helped. People are treating this block like a destination now instead of just a street they pass through.”
Theresa Nakamura, executive director of the Bellwater Chamber of Commerce, said the cluster of openings is consistent with patterns the chamber has tracked across Foundry Row more broadly, where commercial rents have climbed as biotech firms compete for office and lab space nearby. “Restaurants follow office workers, and office workers have been flooding into this neighborhood for several years now,” Nakamura said. “The concentration of openings on one block is really just what happens when that growth finally catches up to a stretch of real estate that had lagged behind the rest of the neighborhood.”
Alcaraz said two additional storefronts on the same block are already under negotiation with prospective restaurant tenants, though she declined to name the concepts under discussion until leases are finalized. She said the pace of interest has been unlike anything she has seen since she began managing Foundry Row properties. “I used to spend six months finding a tenant for a space like this,” she said. “Now I’m fielding three calls a week.”
- Cinder & Vine, Nori Row, and Ember & Ash all opened within the same month on a single Foundry Row block.
- Lease rates on the block have risen roughly 40 percent per square foot compared with two years ago, according to the property’s leasing manager.
- Two additional storefronts on the same block are reportedly under negotiation with prospective restaurant tenants.
Sato said he is aware the wave of new restaurants could eventually saturate demand on the block, but said he is betting on continued growth from nearby employers to sustain multiple concepts at once. “If Kestrel Biologics and the startups at Forge Bellwater keep hiring the way they say they will, there’s room for all three of us and probably a few more,” he said. “If that hiring slows down, this block gets a lot more competitive a lot faster.”
Prusinski said he plans to stay on the block regardless of how the restaurant boom shakes out, in part because his lease predates the recent rent increases. “I’m grandfathered in on my rent for now,” he said. “When that changes, I don’t know what I do. But for the moment, I’m just watching this street turn into something I don’t fully recognize.”