Zareen opens fourth Bay Area restaurant

Zareen Khan has opened a fourth Bay Area restaurant, adding a new Redwood City location to the Peninsula Pakistani-Indian chain she started in Mountain View in 2014. The new site is listed at 2039 Broadway in downtown Redwood City on the company’s locations page. (zareensrestaurant.com) Khan’s expansion comes in the same year she was named a 2026 James Beard Award semifinalist in the Best Chef: California category. The opening gives Zareen’s another address in Redwood City, where the company had already expanded to Broadway in 2020, according to local reporting cited in the source material. The restaurant group’s website says the business grew from its first Mountain View outpost to a second restaurant in Palo Alto in October 2016 before adding more Peninsula locations. (amazon.com) ### Where is the new restaurant? The new Zareen’s is at 2039 Broadway in Redwood City, according to the company’s website. The listing includes a Redwood City phone number and identifies the site as one of the chain’s current Bay Area locations. (zareensrestaurant.com) Redwood City has been part of the company’s growth plans for several years. The source material says Zareen expanded to Broadway in Redwood City in 2020, making the latest opening the company’s fourth Bay Area restaurant. ### Who is Zareen Khan, and why is the opening getting attention? Zareen Khan was named a 2026 James Beard Award semifinalist in Best Chef: California, according to the James Beard Foundation’s semifinalist announcement published on January 21. (zareensrestaurant.com) The foundation said restaurant and chef nominees would be announced on March 31, with winners to be celebrated on June 15 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. (zareensrestaurant.com) The restaurant group says Khan and her husband, Umair Khan, opened the first Zareen’s in Mountain View in March 2014. The company describes the business as serving contemporary Pakistani and Indian dishes and says it later opened in Palo Alto in October 2016. (zareensrestaurant.com) ### How large is the restaurant group now? Zareen’s now operates four Bay Area restaurants, based on the reported opening and the company’s account of its earlier expansion. The business website describes the brand as a Bay Area restaurant group that began with a single Mountain View location and grew as customer demand increased. (jamesbeard.org) The company’s press page says the restaurants have become popular with tech workers, students and families on the Peninsula. That description appears in a quotation on the company site attributed to San Francisco Chronicle critic Soleil Ho. (zareensrestaurant.com) ### What else has Khan done recently besides expand? Zareen Khan and Umair Khan published “Zareen’s Pakistani Kitchen: Recipes from a Well-Fed Childhood” on March 18, 2025, according to the book’s publisher and retail listings. The cookbook is billed as a collection of Pakistani and Indian recipes drawn from restaurant dishes, home cooking and childhood food memories. (zareensrestaurant.com) The company’s own press materials also promoted the cookbook earlier this year. A January post on the restaurant website said readers could recreate signature dishes including chicken tikka masala from the book. (zareensrestaurant.com) ### What comes next for the James Beard process? The James Beard Foundation said nominees in the restaurant and chef categories were to be announced on March 31, and winners are scheduled to be honored on June 15, 2026, in Chicago. Khan’s semifinalist recognition places her in that annual awards cycle as Zareen’s adds its fourth Bay Area address. (amazon.com) (jamesbeard.org) (zareensrestaurant.com)