Divisadero Street in San Francisco is packed with some of the liveliest restaurants in the city. The busy corridor is a main thoroughfare going north-south in the heart of the city and is always bustling. But there’s one under-the-radar restaurant that is quite literally almost hidden because the facade is blocked by a giant tree. The restaurant is only open three days a week and serves one of the most underrated brunches in the city. To boot, it has a unique story of resilience: Its chef lost his leg in a horrific accident. But that didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dream of opening a restaurant.
That’s My Jam, at 324 Divisadero St. on the border of the Upper and Lower Haight, is the Friday, Saturday and Sunday-only restaurant from couple Mark Sethi and Nadia Wit. Wit, a former actress and comedian, works the front of the house, making the most colorful lattes that are spiced with turmeric or beet juice, and lays her dry sense of humor on customers. Sethi, meanwhile, is in the kitchen whipping up croissant breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast topped with the same New Zealand salmon used at Michelin-starred restaurants, and a riff on French toast that will make your inner child jump with joy.
The restaurant is the true embodiment of the two proprietors. A wall of flower arrangements hangs on the right that match the lavender shirt that Wit and her staff usually wear, and several kaleidoscopes, handmade by her parents, sit on tables for customers to admire. The tables and chairs are salvaged from interior design stores that couldn’t put them on their showroom floors because of small defects. The rest of the interior, like the polished reclaimed wood opposite the flowers, as well as the parklet out in front and the kitchen in the back, was built entirely by Sethi. It’s a joint effort, and the couple’s love seeps through every inch of the restaurant.
“Everything was very shoestring budget, but I think that’s also what gives it the San Francisco charm,” Wit told SFGATE in an interview. “We’re only open three days a week, but we put our heart and soul into all of it.”…