No. 1

Finding Neighborhood Market-Fit: How One Owner Revitalized a 100-Year Old SF Corner Store

Discover how one entrepreneur used Craigslist, old building records, and community feedback to design a retail experience that just clicks. 
by Square, Ramzi Budayr Jun 02, 2025 — 4 min read
Finding Neighborhood Market-Fit: How One Owner Revitalized a 100-Year Old SF Corner Store

About this series

Forever Neighbor
Explore the vibrant streets of San Francisco through the eyes of Ramzi Budayr, podcast host and the owner of the iconic 100-year-old corner store, Dolores Deluxe. In this companion series to Forever Neighbor's second season, Ramzi shares his expertise and insights, drawing from in-depth Q&A sessions reflecting on his interviews with five legendary business owners in the Mission District.
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Forever Neighbor was compensated for their time and participation by Square.

Ramzi Budayr opened Dolores Deluxe, a historic neighborhood market featuring made to orders sandwiches, homemade baked goods, fresh bread, prepared food, and over 200 wines in San Francisco’s Mission District in 2022. Prior to that, Ramzi held several hospitality leadership positions, including managing partner at Marlena, general manager of the NoMad Hotel in Los Angeles and head maître d’ at Eleven Madison Park in New York. In this exclusive interview with Square, Ramzi reveals how he breathed new life into Dolores Deluxe, transforming a piece of San Francisco history into a vibrant business and community hub.

Let’s start at the beginning. What was the moment when you decided you needed to take over a 100-year-old corner store in the Mission?

Ramzi Budayr: I’ve always been of the mind that a space will tell you what it wants to be. I’ve done a ton of openings in the past for other restaurant groups, and sometimes I’d be doing something on behalf of an owner, and you’d just feel that it’s not the right fit. I think part of that comes from the ownership not listening to what the building needs, and beyond that what the neighborhood needs.

I looked at, no joke, 42 different locations for my new bar/restaurant project, but none quite had that perfect mix of curb appeal, character, and history. I was about to put in a pin in it when I did a final search on Craigslist and spotted an ad for a corner store. So I sent the link to my dad. He used to live three blocks away, and we used to go there all the time. In some undeveloped disposable camera somewhere, there was a grainy picture of me inside that same store when I was 10 years old.

I knew that being in a residential neighborhood was really important to me. I always appreciated becoming a fixture in a local community, being part of the fabric, and building community. It’s much harder to do that in a very touristy, heavily trafficked area. A chef once told me to always check the Department of Buildings and pull old records, because you can find little gems. I took his advice and stumbled on a picture of the building from 1911. And it said “Dolores De Luxe Market.” It felt like the building was speaking to me to bring this name back. It just felt like, all right, whatever it is we do here should be adding to what existed before.

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Credit: Kalea Vandeventer

The Mission is deeply rooted in its diversity. How did you go about understanding the neighborhood as you got started? What did you learn from your research or conversations with the community that helped shape your offerings?

Ramzi Budayr: During the summer of 2022, I started refining what our initial offering would be. A lot of that was based on how much money we could put together before the opening. Then I did a lot of legwork and a lot of observing. I parked my car across the street probably 30 times. I would count foot traffic and notice the patterns.

So we started as this outwardly imperfect product, and that actually made it easier to listen to the community and adjust to what they wanted. For example, when we opened, we were much more spirit-heavy, because that’s what worked for the previous owners. Now, it’s our lowest-performing category, and instead we focus on a mix of homemade food, accessible grocery staples, and a curated wine selection. Things that I know and love and that I’ve developed a taste for during my career in restaurants. That openness to change has become a staple for us, and neighbors love to come in and check out what’s new. 

How has Square helped you manage the complexity of running a local business with a focus on innovation, especially during unexpected moments?

Ramzi Budayr: On day one, we started doing these cookies, and they were gangbusters. There were some weeks where it felt like we were just as much a grocery store at the cookie shop. I launched a wine club and included frozen cookie dough with the wines. Our wine club grew very fast, mostly because of the cookies. 

Credit: Kalea Vandeventer

We have some set menu items, but I change five sandwiches a week, because that’s our creative process. Sometimes the next wave will be informed by how difficult the last one was to execute, sometimes by customer feedback, and sometimes I’m noticing on the sales report on Square that one of these seasonal sandwiches was undeniably the rock star. I let the data come to me. I try to centralize as much of my software and my communication points as possible — payroll, scheduling, catering inquiries. Because we’re in a super old building and the internet invariably goes down, everyone on our team is able to ring people up on Square using their phones. That’s been a saving grace. 

What’s next for Dolores Deluxe and how do you continue to evolve while staying rooted in the community?

Ramzi Budayr: Eventually there are two things I’d like to do. First, I want to take our dips and our packaged, branded products to other markets in the Bay Area. I can’t always meet the demand, so we’re looking at a production space. I think that being able to increase our revenue that way will give me the opportunity to do the second thing. I want to leverage not just the space itself, but the community that we built, to find more opportunities for people to come together — whether it’s for cooking classes, social groups, or political groups. I’d love to have more free offerings, in addition to the Forever Neighbor podcast we produce, but I need to be able to get to a financial position where we can do that. I think that wholesaling the dips and pastries and expanding our catering operation is really what’s going to help us get there. That would be really cool.

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Ramzi Budayr
Ramzi Budayr is the owner of Dolores Deluxe, an historic corner store in San Francisco’s Mission District offering inventive sandwiches, natural wine, and house-made pastries and dips. A San Francisco native, Ramzi studied pastry in Paris and managed acclaimed restaurants including Eleven Madison Park, the NoMad LA, and Marlena. He’s also the host of the Forever Neighbor podcast, a platform highlighting local businesses and the people who shape San Francisco’s ever-evolving neighborhoods.

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