Silver Antique Restoration Shop in SoMa: Biro & Sons

Biro & Sons works out of a plain building at 1160 Folsom Street, between 7th and 8th Streets in South of Market, and it is where San Francisco sends silver that has been dented, snapped, dropped or polished down to the copper. The shop is open Tuesday to Friday, 7:30 am to 5 pm. If you are hunting for an antique restoration shop that handles sterling, plate and other metals rather than wood or fabric, this family bench is the specialist.

The family story on the shop's own site begins in 1945, when Alex Biro, then 16, first put hammer to silver in Hungary. The family moved through Eastern Europe and Canada before settling permanently in San Francisco in 1959. Alex worked at M&H Company and later took over The Burridge Company, a local silver business founded in 1889, so the trade on this bench traces back well over a century.

In 1977 the business moved to Folsom Street and took the name Biro & Sons. Martin Biro joined his father that same year and Rick Biro followed in 1985, and the company now describes itself as three generations deep. That continuity matters when you hand over a family coffee service: the people who lift out dents and resolder handles here learned the work from a man who started before the end of the Second World War.

The official list of services is short and specific. Restoration covers family heirlooms, flatware and serving pieces. Repair means fixing broken pieces, fabricating missing ornamental elements and removing dents. Biro & Sons also buys, repairs and restores hotel hollowware, the heavy plated coffee pots, sauce boats and domed covers that grand dining rooms run through daily, and it makes, repairs and restores trophies.

The missing-ornament work is the part that separates a silversmith from a polishing counter. A cast finial knocked off a sugar bowl, a lost foot on a tea caddy or a broken decorative border can be modelled and remade rather than simply filled. Interior designers also commission one-off pieces and residential hardware here, so you may share the bench queue with custom door pulls and fittings for a house renovation.

Biro & Sons is unusual among neighborhood repair shops because of the trophies that have crossed its bench. After BMW Oracle won the America's Cup in 2010, the oldest trophy in international sport came to San Francisco, and the shop's history page says simply that its name kept coming up when people asked who should look after it. The cup is a tall Victorian ewer covered in fine chased decoration, exactly the kind of surface a careless polish would wear away.

The same page mentions four Capitol Records trophies whose recipients include Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Les Paul and Steve Miller. None of this makes a family candelabra less important, but it does tell you the restorers are used to working on objects whose surface and patina must survive, not just shine.

Biro & Sons does not post a price list, and the website asks you to get in touch because every situation is different. The most specific public numbers come from a 2022 syndicated home column by Marni Jameson, which quoted the shop at $6 per piece for cleaning and machine polishing and $10 to $12 per piece to recondition flatware to showroom condition. Treat those as a sense of scale for a big set of forks and spoons rather than a quote.

Structural work is priced on the object. A teapot with a split seam and a crushed spout is a different job from a tray that only needs dents raised, so bring the piece itself or clear photos of the damage when you ask. Flatware sets with a few lost pieces are a common reason people come, and the shop can source or make replacements.

Plan around the schedule: the doors open at 7:30 am, earlier than most of SoMa, and close at 5 pm, Tuesday through Friday only. There are no Saturday, Sunday or Monday hours, so weekend errands will not work.

Wrap each item separately in soft cloth, not newspaper, which can scratch and transfer ink. Keep any loose parts, broken handles and detached feet in a labelled bag, since original pieces are easier to reattach than to remake. If you want a mirror-bright finish or would rather keep some age in the surface, say so at the start; patina is easier to keep than to restore.

The 12 Folsom-Pacific bus runs along Folsom Street, and Civic Center BART is roughly a ten-minute walk to the northwest. The 7:30 am opening suits a drop-off on the way to work, before the SoMa offices fill up. Heavy pieces such as trays and urns are easier to bring by car, so it helps to have someone stay with the vehicle while you carry things in.

This part of Folsom is a mix of auto shops, design showrooms and the nightlife corridor that runs west toward 11th Street. Walk a few blocks east and you reach the Yerba Buena Gardens, the green lawns and waterfall memorial between Mission and Howard, with SFMOMA rising just beyond on Third Street. It is an easy way to spend an hour after leaving a piece at the bench.

If you are restoring more than silver, C. Mariani Antiques, a furniture and gilding workshop founded by Claudio Mariani in 1986, sits a short walk away at the corner of Harrison and 9th Street. Between the two you can cover a dining room: the sideboard at one and the coffee service that sits on it at the other.

Address: 1160 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, between 7th and 8th Streets in SoMa. Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 7:30 am to 5 pm; closed Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Email: birosilver@gmail.com. Services: silver and metal restoration, dent removal, broken-piece repair, fabrication of missing ornaments, hotel hollowware and trophy restoration.

Bring the object or detailed photos, keep every loose part, and mention how much tarnish or patina you want left. Ask the Karpo APP to plan a SoMa afternoon around the drop-off, from a coffee near Yerba Buena to a museum stop before the evening crowds arrive.