The windows at 1011 Veterans Boulevard sat dark for years. The building had been a Sizzler, a big-box chain restaurant. By early summer, the glass was covered in paper and a hiring sign had gone up. By late June, the lights were back on, the parking lot was full on a Tuesday night, and the smell coming off the grill had nothing to do with a salad bar.
That single corner would be enough for a story on its own, but it's not the only one. Three of downtown Redwood City's most visible empty storefronts changed hands in the same stretch of months this year, and the pattern connecting them isn't about cuisine. It's that none of the businesses filling those spaces already had this figured out somewhere else. Two are first-time bets on this exact address. The third is a chef's first permanent restaurant after two years of proving the idea in a park and a tent. One of the three storefront stories is a handoff. Dasbierhauz, an established Mountain View brand, closed its Redwood City location in June after a business partner moved away, and its space passed to a newcomer within weeks.
The Sizzler Finally Went Somewhere
The new tenant at 1011 Veterans Boulevard is Reef Zaman, a flame-grilled Mediterranean restaurant that soft-opened June 29 and held its grand opening on July 19 with an open buffet, a Jordanian dance performance, and a DJ. The restaurant comes from Los Angeles-based restaurateur Faris Alqabass, who grew up in Yemen, came to the United States at 15, and built his career from making sandwiches at a New York City deli up through opening Yemeni Restaurant in NYC and Mandi House in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He had originally planned to bring this new concept to New York City. He pivoted to Redwood City after finding the space on Veterans Boulevard, according to Redwood City Pulse.
Leading the kitchen is Chef Mohammed Al-Omari, who previously worked at Mazra, the wood-fired Mediterranean spot on Broadway whose own chefs, Jordan and Saif Makableh, were 2025 James Beard Award semifinalists. Alqabass has said he knew Al-Omari was the right fit for the job the moment he tasted his lamb chops.
The room itself is not a modest bet. It seats about 280 people inside, with plans for a roughly 2,000-square-foot patio that would add another 300 seats, bringing the total closer to 580 once it's finished. The menu runs mid-casual: a falafel veggie platter with hummus and baba ghanoush at $24, wraps stuffed with shawarma, falafel, or kofta kebab at $13 to $15, plates of shawarma or lamb shank at $22 to $32, and baklava or warbat for $5 to $9. There's no alcohol on the menu, just mint and raspberry lemonade at $6 each. The dining room leans into greenery and dark-washed wood tabletops, a nod to the restaurant's name, which translates to "countryside of the past."
Dasbierhauz Closes, Gangsan Steps In
A few blocks away at 830 Middlefield Road, a different kind of turnover played out. Dasbierhauz, the German beer garden, poured its final pint on June 30. The brand had started in Mountain View in 2020, when co-owner Mehmet Vural and his brother merged the concept with their Olympus Caffe & Bakery. Vural later expanded into Redwood City in 2024 with help from Savas Basumli, owner of Cobani Gyro & Kebab. So this wasn't a startup testing an idea. It was an established brand's second location, arriving with help from a partner who already ran a restaurant.
The Redwood City location ran for about two years. Vural told the Mountain View Voice the closure came down to his business partner moving away, and that the final night of service turned out to be one of the busiest shifts the team ever had. With Dasbierhauz gone, downtown Redwood City is down to a single German restaurant, Gourmet Haus Staudt.
The replacement moved fast. Within about a month of the closure, the Middlefield Road space had a new name on the window: Gangsan, described in its own hiring materials as a debut concept serving contemporary Korean food, including galbijjim, seolleongtang, kalguksu, and sizzling bibimbap. Appetizers run $15 to $24, beef soups $19 to $32, kalguksu $25 to $35, and shareable plates for two or three people $65 to $85, according to reporting in the Almanac. Gangsan is open now, serving lunch and dinner most days of the week. It is a first-time concept from a new operator.
A Backyard Grill Earns a Building
The third storefront tells the slowest version of the same story, as Redwood City Pulse reported. Bay Burgers now occupies 976 Woodside Road, the former site of 5th Quarter Pizza, but it didn't start there. Chef-owner Xavier Pereznegron, a Redwood City native, began grilling smashburgers on a single Blackstone at Hoover Park, then ran a two-day-a-week pop-up in a North Fair Oaks parking lot on Spring Street near Douglas Avenue, then moved into a tent in an industrial part of town in the summer of 2024.
Pereznegron's path to the grill wasn't a straight line either. He started as a dishwasher at 14, spent three years flipping burgers at In-N-Out, and by 18 had broken into fine dining, eventually working his way up to chef de cuisine at La Mar, an upscale Peruvian restaurant in San Francisco. Back surgery and a year of recovery pushed him to reconsider his career, and it was his now-wife Kathy who suggested the pop-up in the first place. "I thought, it's small, it's good, and I hope people come," he told Redwood City Pulse. "And then next thing you know, we're packed every weekend, we're selling out."
Only after two years of that did the brick-and-mortar happen, with the couple targeting a late-July opening once permits and inspections cleared. The menu stayed close to its roots: short-rib smashburgers on Hawaiian bread buns with grilled onions, banana peppers, and homemade pickles, served with triple-cooked fries, a technique Pereznegron picked up while studying in France. A quarter-pound burger runs $9.50, a half-pound $11.50. "I don't want to charge $15 for a burger," he told Redwood City Pulse. "That's insane."
Three Storefronts, One Pattern
Line the three up and the throughline gets clearer. Alqabass had planned to open Reef Zaman in New York City and only landed in Redwood City because he found the right building. Gangsan is explicitly a first-time concept from its own hiring posts. Bay Burgers is Pereznegron's first permanent restaurant, arrived at only after two years of testing the idea in a park and a tent. All three are first bets on this specific form, in this specific city.
Dasbierhauz was the one business in this story with an established track record elsewhere, and its Redwood City run ended in June when a partner relocated. The three newcomers are placing their bets at these addresses without that history, and the storefronts they took over are open and serving again.
There's a smaller detail worth sitting with too. Al-Omari left Mazra to run Reef Zaman's kitchen, which means Redwood City's Mediterranean restaurants are now good enough to supply each other's chefs instead of importing them. That's not something a city can manufacture. It's something that shows up only after a few years of a food scene actually working.
For anyone keeping a mental map of the corridor between Veterans Boulevard and Middlefield Road, here's where things stand this fall:
- Reef Zaman, 1011 Veterans Blvd, open daily 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with a patio addition still to come
- Gangsan, 830 Middlefield Rd, open for lunch and dinner most days
- Bay Burgers, 976 Woodside Rd, smashburgers and shakes on a build-your-own-evening basis
None of this required a chain to show up and do what it had already done elsewhere. It required people willing to bet on Redwood City specifically, sometimes after years of proving it in a parking lot first.
Vision Real Estate keeps a close eye on downtown Redwood City, not just the listings but the storefronts, the openings, and the closures that shape what it actually feels like to live here. If you want the next update before it shows up on Nextdoor, Vision Real Estate is already watching the block.
