Daniel Patterson Won’t Open an Alta at Mid-Market’s Yotel After All

After years of delays comes news that Daniel Patterson won’t be opening a location of his restaurant Alta at the Yotel, the mid-Market business hotel with micro rooms. However, Alta Group still owns the lease for the restaurant and rooftop bar at Yotel and “has plans to move forward with that relationship,” according to a representative for the restaurant group.

When plans for Alta in the Yotel were announced in 2017, it would have been the third location of the restaurant, catering to the patrons of a hotel in what was intended to be a “tech corridor.” The project blew through the opening timeline of fall 2017, and few updates have been available since then.

In that time, the original location of Alta on Market Street has become Caribbean restaurant Kaya, a partnership with chef Nigel Jones — despite Patterson’s original plans to sell that space before opening Alta a few blocks away. (“You can’t have two [of the same] restaurants three blocks away from each other. That’s crazy,” Patterson told Eater in 2017.)

The second Alta location at the Minnesota Street Project in Dogpatch has become Besharam, a partnership that was recently bought out by chef-owner Heena Patel. The only Patterson restaurant currently operating as Alta is Alta West Adams in Los Angeles.

In addition to the Alta switch-ups, Patterson’s restaurant group has become somewhat of an advanced incubator for restaurateurs, many of whom are alums from La Cocina. Haven (also slotted to become an Alta at one point) in Oakland’s Jack London Square is now Dyafa through a partnership with Reem Assil of Reem’s California Bakery; Michelin-starred Aster, which closed after chef Brett Cooper departed, will become the home of Guamanian restaurant Prubechu.

The relationship with Yotel was originally designed to treat the hotel as a partner and Alta as a free-standing restaurant with a lease, not as a service or license contract. So while there are no details on what will take the place of Alta, it’s very possible that another restaurateur could be taking on a partnership with the group to operate in the space; if the pattern continues, it could very well be another La Cocina alum, or other up-and-comer in need of a mentor (and a restaurant group). Stay tuned for more details on the project at 1095 Market Street.