Dusty Buns Bringing Burgers, Sandwiches to SOMA Brick-and-Mortar

After five years developing a following for its duo of food trucks (not to mention opening a brick-and-mortar in Fresno), Dusty Buns is making its first SF brick-and-mortar play, moving into the Design District space recently vacated by vegan and vegetarian restaurant Source. Owned by Dustin "Dusty" Stewart and his wife Kristin, the concept specializes in sandwiches on freshly baked soft buns, ranging from their famed Fresno chili chicken to a "bistro burger" to grilled cheese. Sides include pan-fried snap peas and roasted fingerling potatoes. They use grass-fed beef, eschew fryers, and try to source from small local farms as much as possible; the new location will allow them to further expand their menu to soups, salads, and pastries, as well as vegan and vegetarian offerings designed to appeal to Source's former clientele.

Kristin, a trained artist, has been hard at work redesigning the space, replacing Source's plastic outdoor canopy with a wood facade and reusing and recycling as much of the decor as possible (including a vintage sign). But Dusty Buns' main goal is to get open as soon as possible to fill what Dusty calls "a hole in the neighborhood"; they should be ready to rock by next week, with initial hours Monday-Saturday, 11 am-7 pm. A beer and wine license, brunch, and later evening hours will follow over the next few months. Fans of their truck, which is a regular at the SOMA StrEat Food Park, will have to content themselves with the brick-and-mortar for a few weeks as things ramp up, but they eventually hope to bring it back to full operation once everything is up and running.