Gossip Glut: Quince Loses Cooks, Baker and Banker's Bakery Counts Down, Magnolia Plots Dogpatch Brewery

By Jonathan Kauffman Wed., Jul. 28 2010 at 8:30 AM

Categories: Buzz Machine

The past 24 hours in gossip, innuendo, and cold hard facts about the San Francisco restaurant scene.

Well, well, well. After yesterday's dearth of dish, today brings an extended-length Buzz Machine.

First off, in our whining Monday about nothing happening, SFoodie forgot that we'd read a post from Jay B. at Grub Street about the kitchen troubles at Quince. Chef de cuisine Thomas Lents and pastry chef Joel Reno, both relative newcomers to the restaurant, have taken off. Other staff changes: Paolo L. at Inside Scoop learned that Spruce has snapped up La Folie's pastry chef, Mie Uchida. And Carolyn A. at Eater SF was first to report that Ryan Pollnow has become the executive chef at Home.

Marcia G. at Tablehopper reported that Magnolia Brewery is opening a much larger brewing facility and pub at 2505 Third St. in Dogpatch, which will allow it to triple production. Hold your growlers, though: The target date is spring 2011.

Tablehopper also obtained a firm opening date for the Baker and Banker Bakery (1802 Bush St.) ― August 1. SFoodie suggests that the staff label the tip jar the Baker and Banker Bakery Bankery.

Jay B. at Grub Street discovered the full lineup behind Jones (620 Jones St.), a new lounge in the Tendernob. Here are the names, for those of you who collect insider-baseball cards. Jones' owners: Peter Glikshtern and Jeff Whitemore (Mighty). The guys designing the bar menu: Scott Baird and Josh Harris (15 Romolo, The Bon Vivants). And now the guy designing the food menu: Ola Fendert (chef of Oola).

Yeah, we were there, too.

SFoodie is pissed that we snapped this photo of the uh-oh-inducing "vacation" sign at Ebb and Flow (598 Guerrero), walked over to a cafe to post it to the blog, and saw that Paolo L. at Inside Scoop took the very same shot a few hours before. The vacation comes after May's news from Grub Street that opening chef Vincent Schofield left the kitchen.

One last Tablehopper bit of gossip: the appearance of El Rancho Grande (855 Divisadero, 673-8226), which is mostly a classic taqueria except for the cheese steak. Or perhaps that is the new classic taqueria.

UrbanDaddy announced that Spire (685 Third St., 947-0000, spiresf.com), which has been open for lunch for several weeks, is starting dinner service on Thursday. Then Eater posted the menu.

There's more action taking place in the East Bay. We're a little information overloaded, so we'll save it for tomorrow.

Follow us on Twitter: @sfoodie. Follow me at @JonKauffman.