Build Founder and Principal, Loring Sagan, and his wife, Margherita, opened the original Piccino, a small restaurant dedicated to serving fresh, local products, in a storefront at the corner of 22nd and Tennessee streets in 2006. The restaurant was an immediate success and quickly became a hub of the neighborhood.
In 2009, Loring and Margherita decided to relocate the restaurant a block to the west, in a decrepit 150-year old building that formerly housed a coal and feed barn and carriage repair operation, as well as two residences in which the current owners had been born almost 70 years ago.
The resulting project now encompasses 100 seats and is rated as one of San Francisco’s top 100 restaurants by Michael Bauer of the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition, a coffee bar/bakery appears daily from behind a large sliding barn door. MAC, a high-end clothing retail store, and Dig, a boutique wine purveyor, are co-located with the restaurant as an example of how synergy creates critical mass. The “Yellow Building,” as it is called, is now a landmark building and heart of the neighborhood, as well as a destination for diners from around the Bay Area.