The Cassava team is back with a new downtown cafe, Smoke Soul Kitchen debuts next week in the Bayview, and a new bar and restaurant has moved into the former Starline Social Club in Oakland, all in This Week in Food.

The Cassava team is back, in smaller form, with a tiny cafe in a courtyard (see above) near Jackson Square, serving Japanese konbini-inspired sandwiches, soups, and onigirazu, which are like open-faced onigiri served with or without egg. As Eater reports, chef Kris Toliao is expanding the menu, with more to come in the next few weeks. It's all takeout for now, but a few courtyard tables may be coming soon. The cafe is open 8 am to 3:30 pm, Monday through Friday, at 633 Battery Street.

Tablehopper reports on the opening of Smoke Soul Kitchen, which is debuting February 15 in the former Auntie April's Chicken-N-Waffles space at 4618 Third Street. Chef and Bayview native Vanessa Lee started Smoke Soul Kitchen as a pop-up, and now will be bringing favorite dishes to the restaurant menu like cheesy grits with shrimp and gravy, biscuit sandwiches, and Cajun-style pasta, as well as barbecue from her pitmaster dad, whose nickname is Smoke.

Longtime downtown SF media hangout Grumpy's, the bar at 125 Vallejo Street, is reopening under new ownership after closing back in 2020. It's in what some refer to as "Media Gulch" because of its proximity to two TV station headquarters, ABC 7/KGO and CBS 5/KPIX. As KPIX's Liam Mayclem tells SFGate, "We referred to it as Channel 6, as it’s sandwiched between Channels 5 and 7." The new owner is Tod Alsman, who also owns Old Ship Saloon and R Bar, and Grumpy's famous burger is back on the menu, along with "grandma-style" pizzas, a chopped salad, and a meatball sub.

We reported Thursday on the opening of Splash at Thrive City, next to the Chase Center, and it's a great big, 20,000-square-foot, two-level sports bar and restaurant, with 10,000-square feet of patio space also on two levels. It's open today and tomorrow, and for limited hours on Super Bowl Sunday, but it's booked up with private events for all of next week due to the All Star Game.

Popular Chinatown spot Taishan Cuisine (781 Broadway) has just expanded with a second location across town. As the Chronicle reports, Taishan Cuisine is now also open at 1155 Ocean Avenue in Ingleside, specializing in dishes from Taishan, a coastal city in Guangdong Province in southern China, near Macao. These include beef bone soup, yellow eel claypot rice, five-flavor goose, and braised lamb with beancurd sticks.

ICYMI, Vietnamese favorite Turtle Tower is indeed making a comeback in a new downtown location, in the former Barbacco space at 220 California Street, and in the form of Turtle Tower Bistro, as we noted in this column in December. The restaurant group behind Novela, Dahlia Lounge, and Madarae partnered with the Pham family, who had closed the last Turtle Tower location in 2023, and the new spot is set to open in these nice new digs by next week or soon thereafter, with a full liquor license. Expect prices to be, well, pricier than the original locations.

And we reported earlier on the new Ethiopian-Dominican fusion restaurant Meski, which is co-owned by Warriors player Draymond Green and led by Oakland chef Nelson German (Sobre Mesa, alaMar Kitchen & Bar). It's opening March 7 in the former Saratoga/Members Only space at 1000 Larkin Street.

The former Starline Social Club space at West Grand Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland is back in action and opened this week as A Capella. As KQED reports, it's a speakeasy-style cocktail lounge and restaurant with a clubbier vibe and DJs on weekends, and it's having a grand opening tonight (February 7). Owners Hindustry Bar Group, who also own East Bay Spice Company in Berkeley and Lemon Drop in Alameda, are renovating the side room to turn it into a lounge with live music, and the big ballroom space upstairs will reopen next year for larger events.

Chronicle Associate Critic Cesar Hernandez reviewed a taco operation with multiple outposts this week called Taqueria El Chacho. Specializing in al pastor tacos, it has popped up with stands in San Leandro (1925 Marina Blvd), San Mateo, and Berkeley (1429 Delaware Street), with the al pastor and condiments superior at the latter location, according to Hernandez. The man behind the operation is 19-year-old Miguel Angel Lopez Gascon, who is the eldest son of a famed taco-making family in Los Angeles, who run Tacos La Guera.

Photo courtesy of Cassava