Palm City Wines, the Bay Area Destination for Big, Fat Philly-Style Hoagies, Is Planning a Second Location

Since making a stunning mid-pandemic debut in 2020, Palm City Wines has been a beacon of San Francisco’s thriving westside dining scene. The wine bar and restaurant battled city officials just to get their permits in order back in 2019, then reached its opening just in time for the city’s COVID-induced shutdowns. Nevertheless, a winning combination of fun and funky wines and super-stacked hoagie sandwiches helped make Palm City not only a local favorite, but also a national media darling: in 2020, Esquire named it among the country’s best new restaurants, and in 2022, Food & Wine named it one of the city’s best wine bars while the New York Times cited it as a sign of San Francisco’s enduring shine.

And now it seems owners Dennis Cantwell and Monica Wong are looking to expand. A post on the business's Instagram on Thursday morning indicates the owners plan to open a second location specifically to highlight their popular sandwiches. “After three years of slinging hoagies out of our tiny little hoagie kitchen,” the post reads in part, “we’re moving forward with a new location to help our little pandemic pivot grow!”

To fund the expansion, the owners have turned to SMBX, a fundraising platform that’s become increasingly popular with Bay Area small businesses. Unlike platforms such as GoFundMe, SMBX allows small business owners to collect bonds from the public, which function like microloans. Anyone who invests in the business gets their money back in the form of monthly payments, which also include interest. “We’re not one for handouts and that’s why we have partnered with @thesmbx to help fund our next venture by announcing our new bond offering,” the post reads.

According to a prospectus on the restaurant’s SMBX page, the owners hope to raise a quarter of a million dollars for the second location. The lion’s share of the money will go toward the buildout, while a small portion will pay for SMBX’s capital raise fee. There are no details available about where the sister location of the popular Sunset business will be located, and the owners did not immediately return an interview request from Eater SF. We will update with additional information when it becomes available.