How Foreign Cinema Became an Iconic Restaurant and Arts Enclave 

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Walking into Foreign Cinema isn’t like walking into any other restaurant. Here, a dark and narrow hallway opens into a flood of light. You enter, and there’s the fireplace-warmed dining room on the right, and the patio flickering with movies and twinkle lights on the left. The interior combines five different spaces, including a projector room, balcony, art gallery, and DJ bar. All together, it makes for one of the city’s most memorable and iconic restaurants.

But the restaurant you know and love didn’t start out that way. Twenty years ago, two investors named Jon Varnedoe and Michael Hecht took over several storefronts on a seedy stretch of Mission Street. Varnedoe had just sold his interest in two pioneering music venues, Bruno’s and Cafe du Nord. And Hecht had recently completed his MBA at Stanford. Laying down a $1.3 million investment and some big ambition, they completed a daunting build-out. Foreign Cinema opened as a movie theater with a bistro menu thrown in the mix. They hoped to expand into a six-outlet chain across the U.S., which would have been an entirely different story.

Source: How Foreign Cinema Became an Iconic Restaurant and Arts Enclave – Eater SF