Salon Owner Has Plans for San Francisco’s Maiden Lane

The owner of a hair salon in San Francisco wants to bring back Maiden Lane — a daytime pedestrian street once filled with boutique shops and dining now lined with for-lease signs.

Blake McCall, owner of the Blake Charles Salon and member of the Union Square Alliance, aims to “curate” a handful of new restaurants and stores to draw foot traffic, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

A critical mass of eating and shopping is key to restoring narrow Maiden Lane, just off Union Square, and other parts of town.

“I’m really trying to curate four to five businesses, and within those four to five, have a cafe, a wine bar, potentially a restaurant and an art gallery,” McCall told the Business Times. “Pre-Covid, it wasn’t affordable for small businesses like that to be on Maiden Lane.

“And now it’s becoming more affordable to have that type of business.”

McCall, who sees few local choices for clients hoping for a sandwich or salad before their hair appointments, says he’s now talking to the owners of a couple of restaurants, and has interest from a wine bar owner, who’s considering opening a more upscale bar with outdoor seating.

Maiden Lane, which more than a century ago was home to the city’s red light district, was once praised by urban critic Jane Jacobs decades ago as “an oasis with an irresistible sense of intimacy, cheerfulness, and spontaneity.”

Only the once powerful Downtown magnet now has empty storefronts once filled by duds from some of the world’s top designers, its upper floors barren of their once promising startups.

McCall, who once considered closing up shop and leaving the two-block lane during the pandemic, instead sank $1 million last year into his 9,000-square-foot salon at 77 Maiden Lane, at Grant Avenue.

He points to signs of hope for Union Square and the opening this fall of Peruvian-Japanese restaurant Chotto Matte, in the former Macy’s men’s store at Stockton and O’Farrell streets.

He sees celebrity chef Tyler Florence’s plan to open two cafes in Union Square as another sign of promise.

“I think you have to give people a reason to want to come Downtown,” McCall told the Business Times. “We have to create a vibrant city again, and I think we’re starting to see that shift right now.”

— Dana Bartholomew