The experience of picking up a cake from San Francisco-based Butter&’s commercial kitchen was less than stellar for both customers and employees, owner Amanda Nguyen admits. The shop’s popularity increased during the pandemic with the introduction of the brand’s “quarantine cakes” — smaller cakes that serve 1-2 people, emblazoned with PSAs like, “wash your hands” — but rather than stopping by a shop to pick up their orders , instead customers pulled up curbside at an industrial building to an “indiscreet” door, before texting the business of their arrival. Inside the commercial kitchen, employees would field texts, and trek down from the third floor via an unreliable freight elevator with cake in hand, to deliver the goods. It was an exhausting experience considering the bakery was receiving 100 orders a day. “It’s not really the most on-brand experience, it feels a little closer to a drug pickup if anything,” Nguyen says, jokingly.

This is all a long way to say a Butter& storefront has been a long time coming. After first launching the cake business from her South Potrero Hill home, then moving into the aforementioned commercial kitchen, Nguyen has finally landed the keys to the former Kin Khao spot at 690 Indiana Street in the Dogpatch. After almost two years of searching for a space, she’s found what she thinks is a suitable home for butter& cakes to shine. “A big reason for this space was that the Butter& team [said] it’d be really nice to be able to be on the first floor of a building, where we can create an experience for our amazing customers, who are just really caring people who really love what our brand stands for,” Nguyen says.

The new Butter& store will retain the same look and feel as the previous iterations of the space, since the design still fits within the brand’s aesthetic, Nguyen said on the Pastel blog. Instead, she told Eater SF the team will focus on outfitting the kitchen with baking equipment, such as upgrading their ovens and adding in mixers. As for offerings, Butter& will of course focus on cake and take advance orders for pickup at the shop, but will also have a limited amount of cakes on display for same-day pickup — at first. They’re also experimenting with cake sizes ahead of the opening, working on a single-serving cake that Nguyen says is not a cupcake, but a cake “in a format that is very in line with the Butter& aesthetic.” And while Nguyen says the storefront won’t be launching a coffee program, instead they’re considering a tea service for beverage offerings.

But beyond the cakes having a home, Nguyen is eager for the shop to also be a place for the Butter& team to shine. The space will be an “open production pastry kitchen” where customers can see the team at work making cakes, an experience she feels is lost by the faceless online ordering system. Nguyen’s proud of the company’s mission to be “people-centric” and strides to be “the best employer in the food industry,” pointing to the fact that the team has an ownership stake in the company, full time salaried folks have stock options, 100% company contributions to health care plans, and three months of company sponsored mental health therapy. “We really want to get to a point where everyone has a creative time so that we can continually innovate and push the Butter& company forward,” Nguyen says. “We have grand plans for Butter& — this is store one and we hope to be able to start looking into opening up store two in LA next year.”

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The post San Francisco-Based mostly Customized Cake Bakery Butter& to Open Storefront within the Dogpatch This Summer time appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The mixed-use Potrero Power Station project, a waterfront urban development in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, officially broke ground.

This project is located in a historic industrial area and provides for the revitalization of the decommissioned Potrero power plant, which was first built at the end of the 19th century. This development will open up much of the city’s central waterfront for the first time in 150 years. A new 29-acre mixed-use neighborhood with supposedly sustainable features will be created, accommodating 2,600 residents, 1.6 million square feet of work space, 100,000 square feet of storefronts and seven acres of green space. These include restaurants, hotels, cafes and childcare facilities, among others.

The development reportedly delivers over $ 860 million in community benefits, including hundreds of affordable housing, heritage protection, public infrastructure, and the expansion of Dogpatch’s streetscape. The original structures of the power plant will be preserved, including station A, the chimney structure and the power plant block 3, which was one of the oldest power plants still in operation in California at the time the plant was closed. The neighborhood will also prioritize active and public transportation, and all buildings are expected to meet or exceed LEED Gold standards.

In the heart of the area, Foster + Partners designed two residential mixed-use buildings with affordable residential units.

Armstrong Yakubu, Senior Partner at Foster + Partners, said: “This project is a unique opportunity to revitalize a former industrial district and to breathe new life into this part of San Francisco. Our proposals will deliver much-needed homes guided by a people, sustainability and community-borne design approach rooted in the site’s rich history. It is our goal to give Dogpatch an ideal urban framework in order to create a lively, healthy and integrative living and working community of the 21st century. “

Inspired by the traditional courtyards and alleys of the district, the buildings are grouped around a central, ground-level open space, lined with local shops and local supplies. Pedestrian and cycle paths lead through these spaces and create new connections with the environment. The lower floors of the buildings house several common social rooms and co-working areas, which are a focus of activity throughout the day.

The design is based on a series of interconnected two-story elements within a modular organizational grid that allows both spatial and programmatic flexibility. The buildings combine to form a dynamic arrangement of step blocks. In addition, the apartments have been carefully designed to maximize fresh air, natural light and access to the leafy terraces throughout the property. The new district park is visually and physically connected to the garden roof terraces with a view of the water.

The Potrero Power Station mixed-use project was unanimously approved by the San Francisco Planning Commission and the city’s board of directors early last year. Developer Associate Capital bought the property for $ 86 million in 2016, and Perkins and Will oversaw the development master plan. The project will be built in six phases and has an estimated duration of 16 years.

The post Combined-use redevelopment of former Dogpatch Energy Station in San Francisco breaks floor, that includes Foster + Companions-designed buildings | Information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.