Just off of the main drag of 18th on San Francisco’s Potrero Hill, Poboys Kitchen tells a story of resilience, reinvention, and unexpected opportunity. For more than a decade, chef Metin Yalcin and his brother ran Pera, a beloved Greek restaurant in the city. Their fine-dining approach to Mediterranean flavors won them loyal guests, but when the pandemic struck in 2020, the immense strain of keeping a sit-down restaurant afloat forced them to close its doors.
What could have been the end of a chapter became the start of something new. Around the same time, part of Metin’s family had moved to Louisiana, just outside New Orleans. That relocation opened a window into the world of Southern cuisine—Cajun and Creole in particular. At first, it was curiosity that drove him. Trained as a chef and rooted in Kurdish-American heritage, Metin began studying these traditions from a cultural and historical perspective. But quickly, passion overtook study. He trained, cooked, and immersed himself in Louisiana kitchens, never imagining this would one day inspire a restaurant of his own.
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