Two of downtown San Anselmo's best-known restaurant spaces reopened this year, fourteen street numbers apart. Tụ Tập opened at 625 San Anselmo Ave. at the end of July, in the 57-year-old former bakery building that Kientz Hall ran until late 2024. Tasty Delicious opened at 639 San Anselmo Ave. in late September, in the space Hilda's Coffee Shop left last fall. One is an upscale Vietnamese restaurant with a rooftop bar. The other is a burger counter that sells $6 shakes. Neither one cleared out its predecessor. Each kept physical pieces of what came before, and the next openings in the pipeline are reusing old buildings the same way.
Tụ Tập's Cocktail Bar Still Sits on Kientz Hall's Base
Tụ Tập's owners left the old Kientz Hall bar in place. The base is still clad in century-old wainscoting salvaged from a New York church. The new team topped it with copper and a heavy old-style bullnose edge. Out front, the parklet's retractable awning was taken off the Kientz Hall roof and reused.
Most other things here are new. A custom sapele double door by Adam Alspaugh of Black Crate Designs now anchors a facade painted black. Inside, the space is divided into separate rooms. The entry room has indigo velvet booths. The middle room has a walnut chef's counter facing the open kitchen, where chef Justine Kelly's team cooks in oversized woks over live fire. The back room is lit by skylights. Altogether the restaurant seats 114 downstairs and 48 on the roof. The rooftop is fully weatherized. Its glass panels and louvered roof open at the push of a button, facing Mount Tamalpais.
The people behind it have local ties. Adam Block runs a hospitality consulting firm. His investor, Bill Upson, co-founded Sausalito-based Real Restaurants, the group behind Buckeye Roadhouse and Bungalow 44. Kelly grew up in San Anselmo and worked with the late Charles Phan of the Slanted Door for 18 years. "From my early 20s, I did know that if I were to open one someday, it would be in San Anselmo because my heart is there," she told the Marin Independent Journal. Margaret Ruiz of Strand Design in San Anselmo worked on the interior. She also co-owns Bar Voyage, a few blocks down the Avenue. Lead bartender Steven Singleton came from Left Bank in Larkspur, which closed in June after nearly 32 years.
If you're ordering for the first time, Kelly's favorite is bò lá lốt. Whole rib-eye is hand-chopped, wrapped in betel leaf and grilled. She says the dish rarely appears on restaurant menus because it takes so much labor. Her duck fried rice uses five-spice rotisserie duck and aji amarillo, which she borrowed from the cooking of Chinese immigrants in Peru. The restaurant is mostly walk-in, with a limited number of back-room seats held for reservations.
Hilda's Sign Now Hangs by the Bathroom Door at Tasty Delicious
Fourteen doors up, Tasty Delicious follows a longer line of predecessors. San Anselmo's burger-and-shake tradition goes back to Jeep's Drive-In and Hilda's Coffee Shop in the late 1950s and early '60s. Bubba's Diner followed in the mid-'90s. The team says that history of nearly a century is the reason Tasty Delicious exists. Bubba's original clock hangs near the kitchen, and Hilda's old sign is mounted next to the bathroom door. One burger on the menu is named for Bubba's. It's a smash burger with grilled onions, fresh jalapeños and firecracker sauce.
Keeping those pieces took real construction. Hilda's had years of deferred maintenance, and the space needed substantial work to meet current building, health and accessibility codes. San Anselmo architect Bill O'Callaghan and Cookline, a San Francisco construction firm, handled the infrastructure. Local designer Ann Lowengart was asked to make it feel like a 1960s and '70s burger joint in Inverness. The result is a 12-foot-wide room seating about 34, with forest green tile from San Rafael's Clé on the counter and orange chrome diner chairs. There's also a mural of old San Anselmo by San Rafael artist Stella Prichard.
The team is local too. Managing partner Pat Townsley owns Creekside Pizza & Taproom across the street. Chef and general manager Jackson Palmer is a Mill Valley native who cooked at State Bird Provisions. Before the flat-top was installed, he spent months testing burger blends in a cast-iron skillet at Creekside and settled on a custom 80-20 Black Angus blend. The soft-serve is made with high-butterfat milk from Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery's Jersey herd. The team made a point of keeping prices low. Burgers cost $10 to $14, fries start at $5 and a 12-ounce shake is $6.
| Address | Previous tenant | What stayed | What's new |
|---|---|---|---|
| 625 San Anselmo Ave. | Kientz Hall, in a 57-year-old former bakery | Bar base with salvaged church wainscoting; the awning from the roof | Live-fire wok kitchen, a rooftop that opens and closes, Vietnamese menu |
| 639 San Anselmo Ave. | Hilda's Coffee Shop | Hilda's sign, Bubba's clock, the burger-and-shake format | Code-compliant rebuild, Valley Ford soft-serve, roughly 50-seat parklet |
Both Restaurants Put Permanent Seating on the Street
Both restaurants also built new parklets, and in San Anselmo a parklet is a significant commitment. Under the town's guidelines, a private parklet generally has to sit in front of the business that applies for it. Private parklets are limited to 5% of on-street public parking in commercial areas. Every parklet needs an encroachment permit. Under the fee schedule that took effect July 1, 2026, a private parklet costs $950 to apply for, plus $2,520 per parking space it uses.
Tasty Delicious built its parklet for roughly 50 people, with angled corners so drivers and pedestrians can see each other at the crosswalk. A retractable waterproof canopy is still on the way. Tụ Tập's parklet has a custom faux-bamboo steel railing under the reused Kientz Hall awning. That puts outdoor seating in front of both 625 and 639. Across the street, Creekside is where the Tasty Delicious burger was developed.
Dates on This Stretch Through Year-End
Both restaurants are still opening in stages, so what you find this month depends on when you go:
- Through Oct. 4: Tasty Delicious is open 4 to 9 p.m. daily.
- From Oct. 5: Tasty Delicious hours expand to 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, which adds lunch.
- Late October: Tasty Delicious adds the hand-cut, twice-fried fries listed on its menu. Until then, it serves thick twisted Sidewinder fries.
- Later this year: Tasty Delicious plans a coffee-shop-style breakfast that will include Hilda's pancakes.
- Ongoing at Tụ Tập: Dinner was announced as 5 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 5 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Bar hours were expected to run later on weekends. Takeout and family meal kits are being added at a pickup point behind the building. The restaurant's website doesn't agree with itself yet. The homepage describes family-style and à la carte takeout, while the menus page still lists brunch and takeout as coming soon. Call or check tutapmarin.com before you plan around either.
Hilda's pancakes are the one thing on that list where the old restaurant is coming back as food, not as a fixture.
The Next Long-Held Buildings in Line
The same kind of reuse is showing up a few blocks away. At 121 Tunstead Ave., Jack's Drug Store and Jack's Medical Supplies operated from 1962 until 2022. Maison Nico, a San Francisco pastry business, is turning the building into a bakery and cafe. On Sept. 21, the Planning Commission approved a permit for off-site wine sales there. The plan is a display about six feet wide and a wine club, featuring organic, biodynamic and small-production wines from California and France. The site already allows on-site beer and wine with a state license. Renovations are expected to wrap up in early November, but a spokesperson said no opening date has been set.
On Greenfield Avenue, Cafe Réveille was announced in late 2024 for 60 Greenfield Ave. It's a small chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch. The building is the old Java Hub, which was a Taco Bell long before that. As of late September, demolition and construction were still underway there. No opening date has been announced for either cafe.
The newest change already open on the Avenue follows the same pattern. Chef Marco Franceschini opened Marco's Gastronomia, an Italian deli, at 411 San Anselmo Ave. in October 2025. It took over the space D.G. Café left that July. In each case, a new owner signed on for a space with decades of local history. A cafe space at 411 went to a deli. A former bakery building is serving food again at 625. A pharmacy that operated for six decades at 121 Tunstead is set to become a bakery.
Openings like these change how a downtown block feels day to day, and that's part of what buyers notice when they visit a listing nearby. If you own near San Anselmo Avenue and want to know how this stretch fits into your home's current value, Aviva Kamler can walk you through it. Request a personalized home valuation, and we'll start with the blocks you walk.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
