Two years ago, chef Dontaye Ball of Gumbo Social got on the elevator at San Francisco City Hall, and Aaron Peskin, at the time the president of the Board of Supervisors, asked someone to hit the button “G.” According to Ball, people in the elevator asked, “What’s G? Don’t you mean the basement?” Peskin quipped: “No! G is for gumbo, baby!”
Ball’s gumbo has been enticing people to the basement of City Hall since Café Mélange opened there in 2024, but now he’s taking over ownership of the business, which will reopen on March 18. He’s not planning any major changes, but it marks the next iteration for this under-the-radar café, hidden inside the elegant Beaux-Arts building, which has become a hangout for City Hall insiders.
Originally, Café Mélange was part of a shared project created by the New Community Leadership Foundation, a San Francisco organization dedicated to supporting small businesses in historically marginalized neighborhoods. Five Black-owned businesses from the Bayview revived the vacant basement space: Customers could get gumbo from Gumbo Social, jambalaya from Radio Africa & Kitchen, pecan pie from Yvonne’s Southern Sweets, banana pudding from Yes Pudding or ginger brew from Tallios Coffee. Unfortunately, Ball said, while the project had great intentions, many of the other businesses eventually dropped out…