Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 5, 2021

San Francisco favorite Liholiho Yacht Club is gearing up to close its temporary Mission District pop-up and reopen as a different restaurant with an exciting new menu and an ambitious mission.

Good Good Culture Club will open on Jan. 11 at 3560 18th St. It will be distinct from Liholiho in several ways. The kitchen will be led not by owner Ravi Kapur but by co-chefs Kevin Keovanphang and Brett Shaw, who are cooking food inspired by the Asian diaspora, like taro leaf salad and adobo-spiced ribs.

The restaurant will be open 5-9 p.m. five days a week, with the shorter hours meant to create a healthier work-life balance for employees, Kapur said. Good Good will be a tipless restaurant, with a 20% service charge distributed equitably among workers. In addition, customers will order from QR codes to free up servers time, in part a response to the ongoing labor shortage.

Liholihos original Sutter Street space is still under construction and wont reopen until next year.

The new restaurant will be a casual spot, the more lively, rambunctious cousin to Liholiho, Kapur said. The menu, with a lot of small bites geared toward sharing, reflects Keovanphangs Laotian heritage, but also has Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Bay Area influences. Sashimi will be served with a tomatillo ponzu sauce, for example, while crispy pig ears are tossed in housemade ploy, a Thai sweet chili sauce. Liholiho fans will recognize the foundation of some dishes, like steamed poppyseed buns, filled at the original restaurant with beef tongue, but here with smoked beef belly rendang instead. A fried cornish game hen, meanwhile, will get glazed in achiote and honey instead of Liholihos combination of cashews and tamari. For dessert, theres Lao-style halo halo with fresh jackfruit and ube ice cream, plus pandan-flavored bibingkas (Filipino coconut rice cakes).

The drinks program will be overseen by Janice Bailon, Liholihos bar director, though that menu is still in the works.

Good Good Culture Club is founders Kapur and Jeff Hanaks effort to address longstanding issues in the restaurant industry, from wage inequity to mental health, concerns that came under renewed attention during the pandemic. They, like many Bay Area restaurateurs, seized the opportunity of Liholihos forced closure to retool the overall business.

The new business will join a growing wave of local restaurants getting rid of tips (a service charge has been in place at the Liholiho pop-up, too), but also points to another, still emerging trend of restaurateurs trying to make their businesses more equitable and fair places to work. Oaklands Daytrip, for example, was able to staff up amid the labor crisis because of what employees said was an unusual level of transparency about pay and benefits. Restaurants like Daytrip, though, are still in the early stages of testing these new models.

Even pre-pandemic we were like, We gotta look at how we operate. Maybe we need to change our model ... to provide sustainability and longevity, Kapur said. Nows the time to focus on whats next, whats in front of us not trying to rebuild something the way it was.

The 18th Street space is already colorful and airy with a sunny, plant-filled rooftop, but the restaurateurs plan to add more pops of bright color, neon touches and new artwork, including murals by local artists.

Kapur, whose name has been synonymous with Liholiho since it opened in 2015, purposefully took a step back on Good Goods menu to encourage other employees growth. Liholihos Hawaii-inspired fare, like house-made Spam with kimchi fried rice and tuna poke, was an immediate hit in the Bay Area and attracted national media attention.

Liholihos last day at 18th Street will be Dec. 31.

Good Good Culture Club. Opening Jan. 11, 2022. 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. 3560 18th St., San Francisco. goodgoodcultureclub.com

Elena Kadvany is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: elena.kadvany@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ekadvany

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Acclaimed Liholiho team is opening a new SF restaurant inspired by the Asian diaspora - San Francisco Chronicle

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