Japanese Restaurant Near Me in Jackson Square: Cassava's Gas-Lamp Courtyard Lunch

Cassava seats every guest outdoors, in a brick courtyard lit by historic gas lamps, and it takes no reservations for regular tables. The cafe at 633 Battery Street in Jackson Square is open Monday to Friday from 8 am to 3 pm, adds Saturday service from 8 am to 2 pm starting October 31, 2026, and serves hayashi rice for $20. For a japanese restaurant near me in the Financial District, this is the calmest lunch table on the map.

Chef Kristoffer Toliao and co-founder Yuka Ioroi opened Cassava in 2012, and the restaurant's About page says it has lived at three locations in fourteen years. The Infatuation's September 2026 review traces the route: it started in the Outer Richmond with a Japanese breakfast, moved to North Beach with a more French bistro menu, and has now landed in Jackson Square, closer to its Japanese roots.

Toliao trained at Le Cordon Bleu, staged at Kikunoi, the Kyoto kaiseki house's Tokyo restaurant, and cooked under Dominique Crenn. Ioroi, who is from Shizuoka, runs the hospitality and writes essays about the restaurant business. The pair were James Beard Foundation semifinalists for Outstanding Restaurateur in 2023, a rare honor for a café that now serves most of its food at lunch.

The café sits in the courtyard of One Jackson Place, a historic building in the middle of the block, marked only by a glowing Cafe sign. The Infatuation described sunlight falling from above, palm fronds moving overhead and brick walls on every side. Because of the historic gas lamps, the restaurant says it cannot use outdoor heaters, so a blanket is set at every table.

That makes the weather part of the plan. On a sunny weekday the courtyard is the best outdoor lunch in the neighborhood, and on a cold, foggy morning the blankets earn their place. Cushioned benches line the breezeway, and the restaurant welcomes strollers and larger dogs at those bench seats. This is not the table for a long rainy-day lunch, since every seat is under open sky.

The Po'-Tama onigirazu costs $10 and is the dish the reviewers single out. It is an open-faced rice sandwich built around house-made spam and a cabbage omelet, with pickled bean sprouts, and it is gluten-free and dairy-free. The Infatuation called it hard to find elsewhere in the city and said the house spam is salty enough to balance the slightly sweet egg.

Hayashi rice costs $20. Here it is a vegan version, a tomato cream gravy with curry spices over potatoes, cauliflower and broccolini, and you can add thick-cut bacon pieces for $5. The two bentos, poached Scottish king salmon or Sonoma duck leg confit, cost $27 each and come with miso Dijon broccolini, simmered hijiki and a cup of soup. They are the full lunch for a hungry guest.

Before 10 am the menu is mostly coffee and light breakfast, and the full lunch menu starts at 10. The breakfast sandwich is a Po'-Tama on a buttermilk biscuit for $11. The egg salad sando on Andersen Bakery's Japanese milk bread costs $13, and the tuna salad sando costs $14. A refrigerated case holds pre-packed sandwiches and salads for a fast takeaway.

Chicken tsukune miso soup, with house chicken meatballs, daikon, burdock and Hodo tofu, costs $7 a cup or $12 a bowl. An honest call: skip the $10 market greens toast and spend the money on a cup of tsukune soup beside an onigirazu. That pairing is $17 and gives you the two dishes that show off the kitchen.

You check in at the podium, either for a table or to place an order. Between 11:30 am and 2 pm every table is reserved for dine-in guests, so takeout orders are meant to be eaten off the premises. Parties of up to six are welcome, but at peak times the limit is four. Online orders through the café's ordering page are takeaway only.

For the calmest visit, come between 10 am and 11:30 am, when the lunch menu is already running and the office crowd has not arrived. Drinks-only guests can sit on the breezeway couches and benches during the lunch rush. On busy days, two people can still get a table quickly if they arrive by 11:45 am, before the courtyard fills with nearby workers.

Dinner is not a regular service. Instead, Cassava runs hosted evenings with seasonal menus by Toliao and drink pairings by Ioroi, and its homepage listed an October 24 dinner, Continuum No. 1, as sold out. Saturday lunch is returning on October 31, 2026, from 8 am to 2 pm, which makes weekends possible again after a break.

After lunch, walk a few blocks southwest to Redwood Park, the small grove of coast redwoods beside the Transamerica Pyramid at 600 Montgomery Street. Jackson Square itself is one of the city's oldest surviving commercial districts, full of brick buildings now used as design showrooms, and a slow loop along Jackson Street makes a good walk after a long lunch. Many of these buildings survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, which is why the block still feels nineteenth century.

Address: Cassava, 633 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111, in the courtyard of One Jackson Place in Jackson Square. Contact: the café lists the email hello@cassavasf.com and does not publish a phone number on its site. Hours: Monday to Friday 8 am to 3 pm, Saturday 8 am to 2 pm from October 31, 2026, closed Sunday and holidays.

Prices from the official food menu: Po'-Tama onigirazu $10, hayashi rice $20, salmon bento $27, duck confit bento $27, egg salad sando $13, tuna salad sando $14, chicken tsukune miso $7 a cup or $12 a bowl. Seating is outdoor only, first come, first served. Ask the Karpo APP for a quiet Jackson Square lunch or a walk to Redwood Park.