Elaichi opens San Francisco outpost

A chai shop is a small thing. But in San Francisco right now, a small thing opening at all — and opening with a very specific point of view — is real news. Elaichi Co., the Berkeley cafe built around Pakistani-style chai, has opened a second location at 360 Third Street in SoMa. The bigger idea is simple: no coffee compromise, no vague “tea latte” menu, just a shop betting that chai can be the main event, not the backup option. ### What actually opened? The new space is Elaichi Co.’s San Francisco outpost, launched by Muhammad “Mojo” Joyo and Zainab Joyo, the couple behind the Berkeley original. The shop sits in Yerba Buena near SoMa, and it joins the city through Vacant to Vibrant, the program that places small businesses into empty storefronts to help reactivate struggling commercial corridors. ### Why is the no-coffee part a big deal? Because most cafes treat chai like an add-on. Elaichi is doing the opposite. Coverage of the SF opening says the San Francisco shop is going all in on chai and leaving coffee off the menu entirely, even though the Berkeley location built its following with a broader cafe setup. That makes the new store feel less like a copy-paste expansion and more like a sharper test of the brand’s core idea. ### What kind of chai are they selling? Not the thin, oversweet version a lot of American cafes pour from concentrate. Elaichi’s pitch is house-brewed chai made directly with milk, which gives it a stronger tea body and a creamier finish. Recent coverage points to drinks like karak chai, oat chai, Kashmiri chai, specialty order. ### Why expand now? The Berkeley shop seems to have proved there is demand. Elaichi launched there in 2024 and built a loyal following near campus, where it stood out by centering South Asian flavors and culture instead of treating them as seasonal specials. Once a concept gets that kind of repeat traffic, a second store starts to look less like a gamble and more like the next obvious move. ### Why SoMa? Because SoMa is exactly the kind of neighborhood where a focused daytime concept can either click fast or fail fast. Office traffic is still uneven, storefront vacancies remain a problem, and the city has been trying to seed more reasons for people to stop, linger, and spend money downtown. A chai-only cafe is a pretty direct experiment in whether distinctive independent food businesses can help do that work. ### Is this just one cute opening? Not really. It fits a broader Bay Area shift where South Asian beverage and cafe culture is getting treated as a main category instead of a side note. Elaichi isn’t the only business in that lane, but it has become one of the clearer examples of a shop building identity around chai itself. The San Francisco visible downtown market. ### What’s the real test now? Repeat traffic. A grand opening can get buzz, but the hard part is turning a specialized drink shop into a habit for commuters, nearby workers, residents, and convention crowds. If Elaichi can do that without leaning on espresso drinks, it will have shown something bigger than “people liked a viral cafe” — it will have shown that chai can support a standalone urban retail concept in San Francisco. ### Bottom line Elaichi’s SF opening is really a bet on focus. In a city full of cafes trying to be everything, this one is trying to be one thing very clearly — and turns out that clarity may be the whole point.