Bi-Rite Creamery

Bi-Rite has been a San Francisco institution for more than 80 years. Today, the 18th Street Market, originally built in 1940, features the building’s signature art deco façade and original glazed tiles that forever connect us to a time when San Francisco Mission District neighbors first gathered at the Market to connect with their community. It’s a storied history for the Bi-Rite Family of Businesses and the Mogannam family. Here are some of the highlights. Brothers Joe and Bill Cordano built the market located at 3639 18th Street, San Francisco, in 1940. They continued to operate the market until 1959, at which point they sold and built another store in the Bayview neighborhood. Two immigrant brothers, Jack and Ned Mogannam, purchased the 18th Street market in 1964, and began the work of making Bi-Rite a reliable, friendly neighborhood corner store. With many neighbors living paycheck to paycheck, the Mogannam brothers would often extend them credit so they could always be able to get fresh, good food. Sam Mogannam grew up helping his dad, Ned, and uncle Jack in the market every day. He tackled whatever needed to be done, from delivering groceries to the seniors in the neighborhood, to helping buy the produce at the Wholesale Produce Market, learning to carefully distinguish quality and flavor from price. After years of working in the market, Sam Mogannam chose to pursue a different path after high school. Graduating from San Francisco City College’s Hotel and Restaurant Management program, Sam then cooked in Switzerland for a year before returning to the Bay Area to cook at Oakland’s Market Hall and eventually open his own restaurant, Rendezvous Du Monde, in 1991. But in 1997, when Ned Mogannam flatly told Sam that “You’ll never have a family if you stay in the restaurant business,” Sam and his brother, Raph, agreed to take over the family business. As long as they could do it their way. In June 1998, Bi-Rite Market was reinvented. Featuring a kitchen in the center of the store, Bi-Rite became a new type of grocery store, one that featured fresh, farm-direct foods that were freshly-cooked and served with the hospitality of a restaurant. On that opening day, Bi-Rite Market was staffed with an incredibly talented, passionate team of six. The grocery store continued to evolve throughout our first eight years under the leadership of the second-generation Mogannams, and Bi-Rite became an industry leader. Our shelves were filled with ingredients chefs coveted. Sustainability, farm-direct, and responsibly raised became requirements for our products. And service was more than simply friendly. We welcomed guests into our home, taking care of them, inspiring them to think about, taste, and truly enjoy good food. In the early 2000s, Calvin Tsay popped by to help Bi-Rite on a project, but eventually realized this was his chosen family and joined the leadership team alongside Sam. Meanwhile in 2002, two amazing pastry chefs, Anne Walker and Kris Hoogerhyde, started baking the most delicious sweets and selling them through Bi-Rite Market. These two phenomenal women quickly outgrew their borrowed kitchens and in 2006 the world-renowned Bi-Rite Creamery opened. As the first ice cream shop to use local, organic dairy from the Straus Family Creamery (just 45 miles north of San Francisco) and make all recipes from scratch, Bi-Rite Creamery instantly became a San Francisco destination. Guests were especially enthralled with our signature Salted Caramel and Balsamic Strawberry flavors. 2008 was the year the Bi-Rite team took the conversations being had with guests on the Market floor off-site, creating18 Reasons, a physical space for neighbors to gather and meet the producers who were feeding them.18 Reasonshas since evolved into a vibrant nonprofit community cooking school that hosts classes and dinners every night of the week and runs three free multi-week cooking and nutrition education programs throughout the Bay Area:Cooking Matte