Fog Bay Cafe owners Shireen and Fernando Fonseca
Outer Balboa Street is experiencing a bit of a renaissance with new cafes like Cassava opening and the Balboa Theater undergoing renovations. And now Fog Baby Cafe has made its way into the neighborhood at 3516 Balboa near 36th Avenue, offering tasty paninis, soups and warm beverages to help anyone weather the often chilly outer Richmond weather.
The cafe was started by Fernando and Shireen Fonseca, a husband and wife team whose background is in construction / property management and teaching dance to children, respectively. They are also filmmakers and recently screened their art house feature film Playground of Dreams at the Balboa Theater.
Shireen also has a special culinary connection to the very block on which Fog Baby Cafe is located. Her Russian immigrant grandmother’s home was on the corner and as a child, she used to play in the house and kitchen, where her grandmother cooked Russian delicacies for a restaurant on Union Street.
“I grew up on this very block,” Shireen said. “So it’s great to be back and be able to open our own business here.”
The couple saw an ad on Craigslist for the cafe, made an offer, and closed the deal a week later. The cafe was the former home of Crumbville.
Fog Baby’s menu is in keeping with the often foggy days we get in the outer Richmond. Favorites include the Playland panini sandwich – tuna salad with melted swiss cheese on rosemary focaccia ($7.75). Shireen’s favorite panini is the Windmill – chicken breast, cheddar pesto and sundried tomatoes on ciabatta ($8.25).
Fog Baby Cafe is open for breakfast every day at 7am, and features bagels from the House of Bagels and fresh coffee from Catahoula Coffee Company in Richmond, CA.
The cafe is also stocked with homemade desserts from Applebaum Bakery, including raspberry bars, lemon bars, and caramel apple crumble. Shireen came across their products at the Farmer’s Market at Stonestown and on Clement Street.
For lunch I chowed down on the Balboa panini with salami and provolone on rosemary focaccia ($7.50), along with a bowl of tomato red pepper bisque ($3.50). Shireen also sent me home with a homemade chocolate chip cookie that was fresh out of the oven – delicious! They also serve Strauss soft serve ice cream for those seeking a cooler treat.
Fog Baby Cafe has been open for about 5 weeks and aside from Shireen and Fernando, their 20 year old son, who is a student at City College, helps out with running the cafe.
Shireen still holds her job as a dance teacher and says that juggling the new cafe with her job has been the biggest challenge. Fernando worked in friends’ cafes in the Sunset, so he had a good handle on the operations required for running a cafe.
Fernando also handled the upgrades to the cafe’s interior, which includes a new front counter, freshly painted walls with Renaissance style murals of fog babies, cherubic angels floating on clouds. Those fog babies will soon learn a turtleneck is in order to make it out there. 😉
Fog Baby Cafe is open daily from 7am until 7pm. Stop in and welcome them to the neighborhood!
Sarah B.
That section of Balboa is getting really great.
Also – great call on House of Bagels.
I love to see Balboa street getting spruced up and attracting businesses. Hopefully the outer Balboa trend will spread to inner Balboa as well sometime soon. Kudos for Cinderalla Bakery for leading the way.Unfortunately its not clear if anyone is following.
It’s a desert near the Cinderella Bakery stretch. Just looking at the empty storefronts across from the Cinderella is pitiful.
Thats because the landlord (who owns the whole block) raised the rent significantly. No one could afford it; not Javaholics, not the laundry place… no one and nothing.
Straus makes soft-serve? out of my way!
Also, I find it inappropriately amusing that their coffee is from that OTHER Richmond…
Cem said: “Thats because the landlord (who owns the whole block) raised the rent significantly. No one could afford it; not Javaholics, not the laundry place… no one and nothing.”
This is just short of criminal. Why do commercial establishments have to put up with parasitical landlords who take that businesses share of new profits, as a business grows. This makes me sick.
Who is this landlord? Seriously, people who do stuff like this need to be named and shamed. I’m not talking about libel; I’m talking about simply letting everyone know what the landlord did, without any contextual backup. As in: “John Smith; landlord at “X” decided to raise the rent from “a” to “b”; therefore, ABC Bakery has decided to move because they cannot afford the rent hike”. Why isn’t this done? The commercial landlords in this town are able to get away with virtual business extortion, and more. Look at the Walgreen’s site; look at the Alexandria Theater site. These are disgraceful, and neither one of the landlords is held accountable. These landlords not only blight our neighborhoods and cause unnecessary retail churn, they are themselves the blight that they cause.
I want our Supervisors to address this problem, but they won’t. Why not impose a fine that is equal to the last paid commercial month’s rent for every month that a commercial space remains vacant over 6 months. That would force market reality on these “blightsters”. Something has to be done!
The landlord in question: http://www.yelp.com/biz/good-earth-realty-san-francisco.
Mr Mar is too busy being grumpy about Batkid, instead of helping the neighborhood actually develop & keep businesses!
I’ve had the pleasure of going and dining there a few times so far and I will keep going there! The owners are warm and friendly without it seeming forced or fake; the sandwiches are great; and the ambiance is warm, comfortable, and inviting. The other businesses that have occupied that space seemed to have had a hard time staying open. I really hope this place makes it because they’ve got a good thing going!