A/C at Burning Man
Glen Ellen, A Mano, Reem’s, Saltwater Bakeshop, summer spritzes, MORE
Monday, we dropped the FOUND Summer ‘26 Report, a roundup of our favorite new SF restaurants, cultural finds, and getaways from the second quarter of 2026. Paid subscribers get access to Summer Reports across all FOUND cities (perfect travel cheat sheets). Here’s the full set:
ASK FOUND
Today, three PROMPTS for which we continue to seek your answers:
What’s your favorite specialty bookstore in the Bay Area?
What Bay Area store or service do you love to recommend?
I need a caterer for a casual summer party. Any ideas?
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RESTAURANTS • First Word
Roots revival
The Skinny: Last month, Reem’s Jack London Square opened in the space kitty-corner to Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon as the premier spot for waterfront picnic provisions. It’s a triumphant return for chef Reem Assil, whose acclaimed Arab street food business got its start in the town in 2017.
RESTAURANT LINKS: Tartine plots huge FiDi outpost • Burdell’s Geoff Davis to open Uncle’s in Rockridge • Local cafes make hay after Starbucks flees Bay Area.
WORK • Wednesday Routine
Out west
TANYA KOLLAR • food program director • Outside Lands Music Festival
Neighborhood you live in: NoPa
It’s Wednesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I get out to Golden Gate Park early this morning and dive right into doing layouts, which involves looking at tent placements. Particularly, we’re in the VIP area of the festival, looking at the placement of the A16 food vending tent. We’re doing something really cool and giving them a little front porch with bistro tables, making it a little more of a vibe. After that, I pop over to the operations trailer, get on my laptop, answer as many emails as I can pretty quickly. I then tie in with my team; I’ve got two on site with me right now. One is our refrigeration coordinator, dropping 43 refrigerated shipping containers all over the festival site. My other is overseeing the placement of the food vendor tents and getting their water totes ready, since we provide fresh water for all of the food vendors.
What’s on the agenda for today?
The operational part of my job takes up the first half of my day. Later, I’ll jump into liaising with our restaurants, especially our 18 new restaurant partners: a big part of my job is working with them on translating their operation from a brick-and-mortar location to a festival vending booth. It’s a big lift, and this is a time where they could potentially feel overwhelmed. So I try to talk to them as much as possible, make sure all their questions are answered, that they understand what’s gonna happen at Outside Lands.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
Tonight, I’m definitely in the mood for a martini to unwind, so I’ll probably go to Balboa Cafe or pop into Perry’s in Cow Hollow. They’ve been around forever and they’re really close to each other. Tomorrow I have a dinner reservation at Tiya. I’ve been there once before and I’m really excited to go back.
I went to Um.Ma last week, the Korean spot in the Inner Sunset, and had a killer meal with some friends. After the festival, I’m heading to Meski. Their blend of different types of cuisines that chef Nelson German works with is really complex. He’s melding Ethiopian flavors with Afro-Latin vibes (Dominican flavors specifically), and it’s such a brilliant marriage. There’s some intersection in the spices used by those two types of cuisines, and I can’t wait to see how he marries that fusion concept together. I’m also heading to Restaurant Naides. Chef Patrick is a genius; his work is so beautiful, and I’m pumped for the full experience there.
How about a little leisure or culture?
My favorite thing to do in my downtime is to go running in the Panhandle. I love experiencing nature and people-watching. When I’m running, I’m looking around at all the people picnicking, or playing games or working out, lots of kids… it’s this beautiful moment of feeling so lucky that I live in such a gorgeous city, with so much incredible culture and nature.
I also love cooking, and I have a bunch of cookbooks. Normally, on a weeknight, I’m cooking something quick, but on a weekend I’ll often open up one of my cookbooks. I’ve got Melissa King’s Cook Like a King, and I’ve cooked almost every recipe out of that book because they’re so easy to follow and I have a pantry filled with all of those ingredients. Reem Assil recently gave me her cookbook, Arabyya, and the Lion Dance Cafe book as well. Their recipes are really involved vegan recipes. Also, I love shopping at H Mart, the Korean grocery store down in Oceanview. I’ll go and get the five things that I need and then buy 20 things that I didn’t really need, because I love Asian grocery stores so much.
Any weekend getaways?
Almost every weekend I go to Walnut Creek to my gym, Lifetime, which has a spa with a hot tub, cold plunge, a steam room, dry sauna and then they’ve got a rooftop pool with lounge chairs, a bar, and another hot tub, too. My friends laugh at me and ask why I’m driving an hour to the gym. But it’s a gorgeous facility, and there’s something about the pilgrimage, going out there… I’m taking time for myself.
What was your last great vacation?
Japan is my favorite place on Earth. I go there at least once a year and I’ve been there twice in the past six months. On one of those trips, I went to the Snow Machine Festival in Hakuba. I don’t often go to music festivals for fun, so this was definitely out of the norm for me. There are seven resorts you have access to with your festival ticket, so you go snowboarding during the day, there are après-ski parties at the bottom of the mountain, and then there’s a main arena venue with larger electronic music shows at night. It was probably one of my favorite trips of my life.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
I just bought a new Shiftpod and a Waykar portable camping air conditioner to bring to Burning Man, because I haven’t been in seven years, and I can’t camp the way I did in my 20s. The Shift Pod is a dome-shaped tent that’s big and has plenty of room for all my stuff. So I can put a queen mattress in there and make my own little sanctuary. I also got a Jackery solar battery, to try and be as sustainable as possible.
What store or service do you always recommend?
I love Falletti Foods near my house. They’re a higher-end grocery store, and they have a super high quality fresh meat and seafood section, as well as beautiful produce and a fun international food section. I can find any type of international ingredient I need without having to go to another specialty store. I also find that their pricing for one of the more boutique high-end grocery stores is actually very reasonable.
Where are you donating your time or money?
I donate every year to SF SPCA on my dad’s birthday. He passed away in 2012 and he loved animals. I had lambs, pigs, and chickens growing up, and I’ve always been an animal lover too, so I donate to them every year in his honor.
WORK LINKS: How workplace instability benefits women • Gen-Z workers’ micro-breaks just might boost productivity • Inside the $4K midlife retreat for burned-out execs • Helicopter parents are invading the workplace.
BARS • The Nines
Summer spritzes
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best in the Bay Area and surrounds. Paid subscribers have access to the complete Nines archive.
Alembic (Upper Haight), sparkling Arnold Palmer made w/ or sans booze, eye-opening espresso tonic