April Spears was born and raised in the Bayview, riding her bike up and down Third Street and making mud pies behind her godparents’ restaurant, J&M’s Soul Food, at the corner of Third and Palou. Her godparents lived above J&M, and every morning, her godmother, Margine Miller, woke up at 5 a.m. to go downstairs and fry pork chops, runny eggs and grits for sanitation workers and mail carriers. Miller was known for soul food and southern cakes, especially her pineapple-coconut cake. “A lot of my recipes are inspired by my grandparents and godparents who migrated from the south here to San Francisco to actually work in the shipyard,” Spears said, referring to the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, where many Black workers found jobs during World War II. “So I’m deeply connected to the Southern roots in San Francisco.”
Those family food traditions inspired Spears to eventually open her own restaurants in the Bayview, most famously Auntie April’s, which served fried chicken and waffles for 15 years, followed by cocktail spot Cafe Envy. But both closed in the wake of the pandemic, which exacerbated concerns about preservation of the historically Black neighborhood, one of the few bastions left of San Francisco’s declining Black population. The Bayview has struggled with vacant storefronts and an uneven economic recovery; from 2019 to 2025, the neighborhood saw a 31 percent decline in sales tax revenue. A new injection of city funding hopes to spur activity in the Bayview and is fueling a restaurant revival in the neighborhood, including a comeback for Spears.
In September, Spears will open Bayview Oyster Bar at 5114 Third St., a fresh seafood restaurant weaving together her Bay Area and Louisiana roots. It’s one of nine new Bayview businesses that received funding through the Office of Economic and Workforce Development’s Storefront Opportunity Grants program, an initiative from Mayor Daniel Lurie that has allocated $3 million to fill empty commercial spaces throughout the city. The program is giving small businesses $50,000 to $100,000 to cover startup costs, including renovations, equipment and permits. The city recently announced 39 new recipients, with those in the Bayview receiving a total of $800,000, second only to the city’s investment downtown. Seven are food-and-drink businesses: In addition to Bayview Oyster Bar, there will be Panamanian fusion restaurant Properly Seasoned Kitchen, Ethiopian fast casual Moya Bayview, smoked meat specialist Phatwood Smokehouse Deli, breakfast spot Bayside Café, a café and listening lounge from Third House Coffee and a bookstore-wine bar called Chapter 3.
With Bayview Oyster Bar, Spears hopes to “bring Fisherman’s Wharf to the Bayview,” featuring Northern California’s holy trinity of Dungeness crab, king salmon and oysters, but chargrilled New Orleans style over open flames. Spears’ grandfather is from Shreveport, Louisiana, and she said she has 48 first cousins in Memphis, Tennessee — the oyster cook-offs at the family reunions get competitive. “In cultural neighborhoods, we’re always going to have the soul food, the yummy fried catfish and chicken, the scrumptious oxtails and turkey wings, all of those wonderful things,” Spears said. “But we have to go outside of the community to get fresh seafood, so I wanted to bring something different to the corridor.”
Expect three variations on chargrilled oysters: stuffed with crawfish, crab and bay shrimp; filled with chopped greens, fontina and smoked gouda; and topped with sweet chili and scallions. A raw bar will serve local oysters on the half shell, shrimp cocktails and Louie salads. A crab melt will come with broiled Cheddar and Colby cheeses on top of garlic sourdough toast. For clam chowder, Spears smokes the clams over coals before sinking them into the broth. During Dungeness season, she’ll cook whole crabs over the flames, served with several sauce options and fettuccine alfredo or garlic noodles…