Truthfully, San Francisco never stopped being fun, but these four restaurants are next-level. Two are brand new, one is recently remodeled and reborn, the other opened January 2025. All are whimsical, even funky, sometimes brazenly colorful and daringly flavorful.
If Waffle House Were Gourmet: Chicken Fried Palace
Just open November 21, 2025, Chicken Fried Palace (CFP) is a new Southern/Midwest-style modern diner and all-day breakfast spot by way of San Francisco’s Mission District from none other than Texas-raised chef Seth Stowaway of the inspiring Same Sun Hospitality and recently-closed Michelin-starred restaurant Osito, which I sorely miss. He and his business partner, co-chef and Memphis native Cole Jeanes play with the likes of chicken fried steak, grits, buttermilk biscuits, eggs-all-day and glorified diner decadence. Former Thomas Keller Group pastry chef Gabrielle Pabonan bakes rotating pies and desserts like caramelized banana pudding and Matilda chocolate cake. It feels like a gourmand’s Waffle House.
I’ll always miss WesBurger ’N’ More formerly in this space, but as friends of Wes Rowe, as designer, Seth’s wife Danielle Stowaway kept Rowe’s 1970s-style back wall and counter, but imbued a fresh retro take with soft pinks, yellows, browns and blues brightening the space. There are brown pitchers, ‘70s glassware, diner plates, booths, terrazzo floors and a delightful playlist that veers from Randy Travis or Waylon Jennings to A Tribe Called Quest and En Vogue.
Currently open daily from 9am to 3pm, they’ll expand to dinner hours in January and an upcoming liquor-license transfer means stay tuned for cocktails and boozy milkshakes — currently, it’s NA (non-alcoholic) spritzes and drinks.
THE Dish (or Dishes) To Order: The “Chicken Fried” section centers the menu with steak, chicken, mushroom or trout as your breaded base for the classic cutlet that resembles Austrian Wiener schnitzel and Italian cotoletta alla Milanese. Instead of the traditional fry batter, they go gluten-free and Asian-influenced (nodding to SF’s biggest population after Caucasian) with a rice flour that imparts mochi-like stickiness to the chicken-fried dishes.
My birth state of Oklahoma made chicken fried steak a centerpiece of the official state meal in 1988, while neighboring Texas and other parts of the South also claim the dish. Heavily influenced by Bay Area legends — Alice Waters, Judy Rodgers, Russell Moore — Stowaway re-envisioned his Texas diner memories with Bay Area ethos. So there is a properly black-peppery classic white gravy option. But Jeanes nods to Memphis in a version with honey gold spicy yellow mustard sauce and “koolickles”: neon reddish-pink, sweet-and-sour Kool-Aid pickles that properly cut through the richness. “The Bay” is the local chicken fried option of basil, garlic and fried Fresno chiles with oyster sauce inspired by Taiwanese fried eggplant.
I enjoy the chicken fried platters and smoked ribeye and eggs with kimchi. But where I got excited was salt-cod cornmeal pancakes smothered in pimento cheese and a syrup of candied jalapenos dubbed “cowboy candy.” Sweet, salty, savory, it’s my dream Southern breakfast. Ditto the drowned buttermilk biscuit egg and cheese sandwich. The egg can be done any style, with the whole thing drowned in white pepper gravy, if you like. But the “cheese” is no simple slice of cheese. Rather, it’s a fluffy Miller Highlife beer and cheddar mousse so good I could drown in it.
A black garlic ceasar salad cuts the fatty richness with crisp umami lightness. The rice flour-fried bloomin’ onion — inspired by grocery store sushi rolls — is laden with fried garlic, kewpie mayo, chili crisp, scallions, chive blossoms and pickled onion powder. It vies for top dish alongside the salt cod pancake.
Pabonan’s pies comfort, especially the buttermilk-lemon meringue, a cross between the two pies, more like a creamy Southern buttermilk pie with a welcome tart hit of lemon. Her creamy-orange pumpkin pie is blessedly not too sweet with whispers of salt.
Caveats: Yeah, it’s heavy and rich. Thank God. As a “greasy spoon” or diner should be, but without the greasy.
Drinks: My dear friend Nora Furst, of West Bev Consulting, is creating the cocktail menu launching in the new year with approachable cocktail classics, boozy milkshakes, coconut slushies, house bitters and seasonal specials highlighting local producers.
// 2240 Mission Street, SF; www. chickenfriedpalace.co
Read the rest on Substack: Bay Area Dining Is Fun Again: 4 Playful Restaurants Having A Good Time