Gizela Ho opening Hong Kong café
- Former Rich Table chef de cuisine Gizela Ho is opening Good Morning 96, her first San Francisco restaurant, built around Hong Kong café traditions and California produce. - Ho told The San Francisco Standard she is targeting a mid-2027 debut and is still looking for a lease, with about 40% funding secured. - The opening adds to San Francisco’s chef-driven, personal-story restaurant wave. (sfstandard.com)
Gizela Ho, the former chef de cuisine at Rich Table, is opening her first restaurant in San Francisco: Good Morning 96, a Hong Kong café-inspired project. (sfstandard.com) Ho told The San Francisco Standard she is aiming for a mid-2027 opening and is still searching for a brick-and-mortar space. She said she has secured about 40% of the funding so far. (sfstandard.com) The restaurant’s name pulls from three family references: a Hong Kong kitchen-towel brand, Guam’s motto, and 1996, the year Ho’s grandfather opened a storefront. Ho grew up in Guam and spent summers in Hong Kong. (sfstandard.com) (blog.resy.com) Ho said the menu will draw on Hong Kong breakfast and café culture, but not lock itself into a single cuisine. Early dishes she discussed include cold glass noodle salad with spicy shiso vinaigrette, grilled Monterey squid, and a seasonal pizookie. (sfstandard.com) That approach tracks with Ho’s cooking history at Rich Table, where she became known for mixing Cantonese references with Northern California ingredients. In a 2022 Resy profile, she described growing up on Guam food at home while absorbing Hong Kong flavors through family. (blog.resy.com) (www.starchefs.com) Ho’s path to this opening has run through some of the Bay Area’s best-known kitchens. She first staged at Rich Table in 2014, returned in 2017, and worked her way up from line cook to chef de cuisine. (blog.resy.com) (sfstandard.com) Rich Table remains one of San Francisco’s marquee restaurants, with repeated Top 100 recognition from the San Francisco Chronicle and continued Michelin attention in the Bay Area dining scene. Ho is leaving that platform to build a smaller restaurant centered on her own story. (projects.sfchronicle.com) (sf.eater.com) Before the opening, Ho has already started testing the concept through pop-ups. In April, Good Morning 96 collaborated with baker Jessica Little Fu at On Waverly in Chinatown on items including cocktail sausage buns, black sesame cookies, and milk tea and berry cream puffs. (ma.to) For now, Good Morning 96 is still a plan without an address. But Ho has put a name, a menu direction, and a 2027 target on one of San Francisco’s next chef-led openings. (sfstandard.com)
