A neighbor texted me last month asking if the new Cheesecake Factory at Serramonte was open yet. She'd seen the headlines all year: Koi Palace moving into a 20,000 square foot space with a koi pond, Fogo de Chão bringing Brazilian steak to the mall, a hot pot chain, an udon spot, a Japanese katsu concept nobody in the Bay Area had tried yet. She drove over on a Saturday expecting a ribbon cutting. What she found was drywall behind a "Coming Soon" sign and a parking lot that looked exactly like it did in 2025.
She's not wrong to be confused. Serramonte Center has been the subject of the same restaurant announcement, recycled with new dates, for close to a year and a half now. If you live in Daly City and you're trying to figure out where to actually eat this week, the gap between what's been reported and what's actually behind a working door matters more than any single headline.
The One That Actually Opened
Here's the number that cuts through the noise: since this "Serramonte is becoming a food destination" story started making the rounds, exactly one new food concept has opened its doors at the mall. That's Jagalchi, the 75,000 square foot Korean supermarket that filled the space sitting empty since JCPenney closed in 2019. It opened March 28, 2025, with long lines and wall to wall local coverage, and it's been running ever since.
Everything else you've read about, the dim sum institution, the steakhouse, the hot pot chain, is still a permit, a rendering, or a stretch of unfinished retail space.
The Six Still Under Construction
Koi Palace is the name anchoring every one of these headlines, and it's also the clearest example of how far an announced timeline can drift from reality. Palo Alto Online first reported the relocation in January 2025, quoting co-owner Willy Ng, who said the new flagship at 3 Serramonte Center, taking over a space that used to hold a Wet Seal, a Subway, and a Starbucks, would open that December. The new space is roughly double the size of the original Gellert Boulevard restaurant, at 20,000 square feet with room for 760 to 800 guests.
December came and went. KRON4 later reported that Regency Centers, the company that owns the mall, had pushed the date to the first quarter of 2026. The Chronicle's own roundup of the year's most anticipated Bay Area restaurant openings, published this summer, still listed Koi Palace as an upcoming arrival, complete with Chinese art, LED projections, and a koi pond.
None of that has happened yet. Serramonte's own store directory still lists the Koi Palace listing as "Coming Soon." The original restaurant on Gellert Boulevard, the one Willy Ng said would close the same day the new location opened, is still running on its regular hours this month. If you've been holding off on a reservation for the new location, the dining room you actually want is still the one that's been there since 1996.
The other five names in this story haven't fared any better. Peninsula Buzz reported in August that Cheesecake Factory, Fogo de Chão, Haidilao, Marugame Udon, and Kin No Katsu are all still described as "in the works" for the mall, with Cheesecake Factory targeting the former Buffalo Wild Wings space this winter and Haidilao aiming for early next year. None of the six have opened.
If you're deciding where to eat this week rather than where to eat sometime next year, treat every one of these names as still theoretical until you see a working door.
The Opening Nobody Was Chasing
While the mall's headline tenants kept slipping their own dates, a much smaller story actually delivered. Kukje Supermarket, the Korean grocery on Junipero Serra Boulevard that's been a Daly City fixture for over three decades, opened a bakery across the street this spring. Owner Haesoo Park founded the original Kukje in San Francisco in 1990 before moving the store to its current Daly City location in 2002. His niece, Annie Kim, had told local reporters the bakery was something he'd wanted to do for years but hadn't been able to get permitted.
Kukje Bakery, at 2368 Junipero Serra Blvd, finally opened in April, offering a mix of Korean and French pastries: coffee buns, almond croissants, layer cakes topped with glazed fruit. It joins Jagalchi's own in-house bakery, Basquia, which specializes in rice flour breads like sulpang, in giving Daly City a real, working Korean bakery scene rather than a promised one.
The bakery had its own minor version of the Koi Palace pattern. It was first announced for a fall 2025 opening and didn't actually seat its first customer until spring 2026. The difference is that a five month slip on a 50-seat neighborhood bakery is a footnote. A year-and-counting slip on a 20,000 square foot flagship relocation is the story.
What The Calendar Actually Gives You This Fall
Serramonte isn't the only Daly City venue running behind on its own announcements, but the Cow Palace, a few minutes away on Geneva Avenue, has a fall calendar you can actually put on hold with a confirmed date. The Grand National Rodeo returns Friday, October 9 and Saturday, October 10, with Friday's program running from 5:30 to 10 p.m. The rodeo's annual Women of Rodeo showcase, an all-women competition in barrel racing and breakaway roping, runs as part of the same fall stretch, alongside the Jr. Livestock Show.
If you were at the Cow Palace back in May for FoodieLand Night Market, the outdoor food festival with its carnival games and two live music stages, that one's already come and gone for this year. The rodeo is the venue's next real draw, and unlike the Serramonte restaurant announcements, it has a locked date you can actually plan around.
Daly City also runs a Saturday farmers market at Serramonte Center, starting around 9 a.m., which is worth knowing about if you'd rather build a weekend around produce and a coffee bun than a mall food court.
The Weekend This Actually Adds Up To
If you're mapping out a fall Saturday in Daly City, here's what's real right now, not what's been promised:
- Morning: the farmers market at Serramonte Center, then a coffee bun or almond croissant at Kukje Bakery on Junipero Serra Boulevard
- Afternoon: dim sum at the original Koi Palace on Gellert Boulevard, since the Serramonte location still isn't open
- A browse through Jagalchi if you want the Korean grocery and food hall experience that's actually up and running
- Evening on October 9 or 10: the Grand National Rodeo at the Cow Palace, if you want a night out that doesn't depend on a construction timeline
None of this requires waiting on a press release. It's what's already open, already scheduled, and already worth your time.
Daly City's retail story keeps getting written in the future tense. The neighborhood itself, the bakery that quietly opened, the grocery store that's been running for over three decades, the rodeo that's had the same October date for generations, is worth paying attention to in the present tense too. If you're thinking about what it actually means to live here, not just what's coming someday, Perry Kayasone can talk you through the neighborhood in more depth whenever you're ready. Call Perry.
