"I really need the city on board, because I don't know if I'm catching a falling knife." That is the message T&T Supermarket CEO Tina Lee sent to then Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie in late 2024, as she told the San Francisco Chronicle. At the time she was weighing whether to put her family's Canadian grocery chain into the City Center shopping center on Geary Boulevard.
She went ahead. T&T opens its first San Francisco store at 2675 Geary Blvd. on Thursday, Nov. 5, at 9 a.m. That puts a large grocery store at the corner of Lone Mountain where many neighbors already pick up toilet paper at Target and frozen dumplings at Trader Joe's.
For years, the third floor of City Center has been the part of the corner nobody could fill. Starting Nov. 5 it becomes the part people may cross the city to visit.
Nine years of a dark third floor
The Chronicle's reporting lays them out:
- 2017. Best Buy closes, and the big third-floor space goes dark.
- 2019. Whole Foods signs a 20-year lease. Years of permitting delays follow, including an appeal of the planning commission's initial approval that led to an environmental review.
- January 2025. Whole Foods and the property owner, Acadia Realty Trust, agree to end the lease, according to an Acadia filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- March 2025. T&T signs a lease on the space.
- Nov. 5, 2026. T&T opens.
The stretch from the second item to the third ran close to six years. The stretch from the fourth to the fifth is about 20 months. Lee told the Chronicle it was the fastest permitting process she has been through anywhere T&T operates in the United States. She credits the Lurie administration, which has made faster permitting for small businesses a priority.
What fills the third floor
The founders opened T&T in Vancouver in 1993, and it grew into the largest Asian supermarket chain in Canada, with 37 stores. San Francisco will be its fourth U.S. store and its second in the Bay Area, after San Jose opened in June. The chain carries a broad mix of foods from China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, so it isn't built around a single cuisine.
Here is what the store will offer, based on the Chronicle and The Shelby Report:
- A café. No other T&T in the U.S. has one. It will serve specialty lattes in flavors such as black sesame and ube, along with housemade pastries like T&T's Portuguese egg tarts. You can also sit down there with food from the store's prepared counters.
- T&T Kitchen. Made-to-order fan tuan, the Taiwanese rice rolls that built a following in San Jose, plus Baby Bear Bao, a hot-food bar, a barbecue station and a sushi counter.
- Papa Chicken. A whole butterflied chicken, marinated for 24 hours and then battered and fried. Lee pitches it as an alternative to a store-bought rotisserie chicken.
- Produce. About 200 kinds of vegetables and 100 types of fruit. Lee calls Asian greens such as gai lan and yam leaf sprouts the store's "best collection."
- Bakery. More than 300 items, according to The Shelby Report. That includes a cake shaped like San Francisco City Hall, which follows the mango mousse replica of San Jose's city hall rotunda sold at that store.
- Counters and aisles. Live seafood, specialty meats including wagyu, private-label soup dumplings and green onion pancakes, and Asian beauty products and gifts.
Lee told the Chronicle the real test is whether T&T can "earn the hearts of all the legit chefs in San Francisco, and the home cooks that are trying to expand their repertoire." That is a pitch to the whole city, not only to the people who live nearby.
What San Jose suggests about opening week
The San Jose store drew 60,000 visitors on its opening weekend in June, according to the Chronicle. SFGATE reported that hundreds of people were already in line by 8 a.m. for a 9 a.m. opening, with police estimates ranging from more than 500 to about 1,000. A Chronicle account of that day, reposted in T&T's newsroom, says the company set up portable toilets and entertainment for the people waiting.
San Francisco has its own crowd draw, since this is the first U.S. T&T with a café. The store also shares a center with Target. Acadia lists Target and T&T as City Center's two anchors and promotes the center's surface-level parking. Chipotle, Bank of America and a Tesla Supercharger are also part of the center.
The corner's longer hours help if you'd rather skip the opening rush:
| Store | Address | Posted hours |
|---|---|---|
| T&T Supermarket | 2675 Geary Blvd., third floor of City Center | 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. |
| Trader Joe's | 3 Masonic Ave. | 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
T&T's 10 p.m. closing is an hour later than Trader Joe's across Masonic, so a late weeknight trip is one option for a calmer first look. T&T's San Francisco store number is (628) 291-0288.
The blocks around the corner filled in first
T&T is the biggest arrival, but the smaller ones on the streets around Lone Mountain came earlier this year. They show that this part of Geary has been gaining tenants, not just the mall.
East on Geary. Yumee Katsu, a Japanese-Korean katsu spot at 2340 Geary Blvd. at Broderick, showed up in late August. SFist, passing along Tablehopper's report, said $21 buys a hearty plate of fried chicken katsu with curry sauce, broth, rice and assorted banchan.
West at Arguello. Rose Pizzeria opened its Inner Richmond location at 1 Clement St. in April, according to Eater SF, and it was still on Eater's new-restaurants guide when that list was updated Sept. 3. A few doors down, MNT Studio is moving into 35 Clement St. It is a wellness studio and social club offering reformer and heated mat Pilates, a sauna, childcare and events. Its website lists a preview week starting Oct. 19 and a regular class schedule starting Oct. 26.
South and east on Divisadero. Esme, a French-style bistro inside the Metro Hotel at 311 Divisadero St., was also on Eater's September new-restaurants guide. Farther down the street, Che Fico at 838 Divisadero had been closed since a June 11 fire. Chef-owner David Nayfeld announced a reopening date of Oct. 18 and opened reservations, the Chronicle reported. On the next block, The Mill at 736 Divisadero closed indefinitely after a fire on June 29, according to SFGATE.
Put these on a map and they circle the hill. Clement is to the west, Broderick to the east and Divisadero to the southeast, with City Center filling the gap at Lone Mountain's northeast corner.
Geary itself is next
The boulevard that ties all of this together is about to change too. The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been replacing water and sewer lines under Geary between 32nd Avenue and Stanyan Street. Much of that pipe dates to the late 1800s. As of Oct. 9, 2026, the SFPUC reports the project is 100% complete, and its contractor has removed all equipment from the street. The work covered about 1.4 miles of sewer mains and 6.7 miles of water mains.
The next phase starts right at Lone Mountain's northwest edge. The SFMTA's Geary Boulevard Improvement Project covers Geary from Stanyan Street west to 34th Avenue. Its transit and safety work is planned to begin in late 2026 and run until early 2028. The plan includes:
- bus bulbs and pedestrian bulbs
- upgraded traffic signals
- repaving
- new street trees and sidewalk art
The project runs west from Stanyan, so the City Center blocks between Masonic and Stanyan sit just outside it. That means the corner gets its busiest new tenant at about the same time crews start working on Geary just to the west. The 38 Geary and 38R Geary Rapid run through both stretches.
If you're hosting relocating colleagues or family this winter, or living in a furnished home near Lone Mountain while your own place is remodeled, the Geary and Masonic corner is about to cover more of a week's errands than it has in years. Home 2 San Francisco places guests in furnished homes in this part of the city and helps owners lease them. We're happy to talk through how a nearby stay would work around your schedule, or what this busier corner could mean for your property.
