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A new pop-up Japanese café called The Wild Fox (123 Battery Street, San Francisco) from SPRO Coffee Lab owners Liza Otanes and Rich Lee softly opened on Nov. 12 as part of the city’s Vacant to Vibrant program. It’s a place to try teas and coffees from different regions of Japan, including roasters that they’ve made one-on-one relationships with to bring products here, as well as onigiri, sandos, salads, and pastries to grab and so or sit and savor.
“The food menu highlights the fact that we’re in California, but we also have the Japanese heritage side,” says executive chef Tsubasa Onozaki. He likens it to Japanese convenience store offerings. Here in San Francisco, it’s on the level of the quality of items served at Delica, the Japanese deli in the Ferry Building. The vegan takikomi onigiri, with shiitake mushroom, carrot, and soy-sauce cooked rice, is a marvel that’s proved to be the most memorable of anything I sampled.
“You might think of coffee and rice as mismatched,” he says, “but it’s a fairly common combo!”
Onozaki has had fun reaching out to different roasters in Japan, but he notes that it is a challenging time to do so. “Tariffs kind of scare people off because there’s a lot of additional extra steps you have to take from a business side that maybe they don’t want to deal with.”
SPRO customers will inherently understand the level of creativity expressed in the coffee and tea menus at The Wild Fox; pour-overs are also powerful options. Onozaki recommended that I try the current bestselling beverage, Matcha Mango Shizuku, which contains milk (plant milks can be subbed for free), mango powder, and “a delicate snowcap,” which was the most balanced and impressive matcha I’ve honestly ever tried.
Now I’m eager to return to check out coffee drinks such as Snow Fox (espresso, tonic water, housemade lychee-passionfruit syrup, and a citrus wheel) and Yaki-Imo Latte, a blend of roasted sweet potato, milk, and espresso. I am also interested in learning more about the three-course Competition Flight on The Wild Fox menu that is also served at SPRO, perhaps for a future column—the $25 experience is worthy of its own examination.
The Wild Fox is currently open from 7am. to 5pm on weekdays, but Onozaki says that there has been interest from neighbors for them to consider opening on the weekends. One idea would be to just offer beverage service on the weekends and invite in a pastry pop-up within the pop-up.
“Then we can pay it forward in terms of bringing on another operator.”
Tamara Palmer offers the complimentary Food Book Club and California Eating newsletters.
