Previews

Sparrow Bar & Kitchen Coming to Former Bia’s in Upper Haight [Updated]

The new deck.
The new deck. Photo: Uppercasing

That mystery restaurant we mentioned taking over the former Bia’s at 1640 Haight appears to have a name: Sparrow Bar & Kitchen. The word comes to us as the liquor license is coming through, and the landlord had previously told Uppercasing that this place would open in February, complete with new back deck. That is all for now. [Earlier] Update: Uppercasing finds out more details, and we now see they have a website set up with sample menus and everything. As it happens, the couple opening, Marc and Veronica, it have been tenants upstairs for eight years, and they’ve enlisted chef Ola Fendert (from Oola) to consult on the menu.

They write, “From the very first day we moved into our building we have had fantasies of one day opening [the downstairs restaurant] as our own. One man that Steve Jobs admits to being inspired by, Edwin Land once said, ‘You always start with a fantasy. Part of the fantasy technique is to visualize something as perfect. Then with experiments you work back from the fantasy to reality hacking away at the components.’”

The food, they say, will be “modern American cuisine that celebrates the social values, cultural diversity and wild history of the Haight-Ashbury; food that is comforting yet intelligent in substance.”

They’re now aiming for a March opening. Stay tuned for more.

Sparrow Bar & Kitchen Coming to Former Bia’s in Upper Haight [Updated]