Poke Bowl Near Me in the Castro: I'a Poke on Church Street

I'a Poke opens at 11:30am every day at 314 Church Street, near 15th Street, and closes at 8pm Monday through Saturday and 7pm on Sunday. The Castro counter has been building bowls since April 2016, and a regular build-your-own bowl with two scoops of protein and five toppings costs $15.95 on the shop's Square ordering site. If you searched poke bowl near me between Market Street and Dolores Park, this is the small, focused shop locals send friends to first.

Hoodline and Time Out both traced the shop to three founders, Shirley Lam, Raymond Chu and John Su, who opened on Church Street in April 2016 in the space that had held Chile Pies. The word i'a means fish in Hawaiian, which suits a menu built almost entirely around raw tuna and salmon. By October 2017, Hoodline was reporting an expansion beyond the Castro into SoMa.

Sourcing was part of the pitch from the start. In a May 2017 write-up, Time Out reported that the shop flew in bigeye tuna from Hawaii three times a week, at a time when most poke counters in the city were working with whatever their distributor sent. That focus on the fish itself, rather than a long list of mix-ins, is still visible in how short the signature menu is, with six named items instead of a wall of combinations.

The Infatuation reviewed the shop in June 2026 and advised sticking to the marinated sesame-soy tuna and salmon, which is sound advice. The Classic bowl is the purest version: salmon and tuna in sesame shoyu with cucumber, edamame, seaweed salad, green onion and furikake, for $22.95. It is the bowl to judge the shop by, and it tastes like fish first, sauce second.

The Aloha bowl, at $24.45, is the richer choice. It pairs tuna with spicy mayo and sesame shoyu, avocado, edamame, masago, jalapeno, green onion and furikake. You can upgrade any signature bowl from the menu page: mango adds $0.75, extra avocado $1.50 and tamago $0.50. White rice, brown rice or salad are the base options.

The Tango bowl, at $23.70, is the one that sets I'a apart from simpler counters. It mixes salmon, tuna, shrimp and octopus in ponzu with mango, cucumber, lemon, green onion and fried onion. Octopus is uncommon on poke menus in the city, and the lemon and ponzu keep four proteins from tasting muddled.

The Volcanorrito is the shop's sushi burrito: tuna and shrimp with spicy mayo, sesame shoyu, a pinch of cayenne, avocado, masago, jalapeno and cucumber, rolled for $20.95. It is the right order if you plan to eat while walking toward Dolores Park, though the cayenne and jalapeno together make it the spiciest item on the board.

The Vegetarian bowl at $18.50 uses tofu in sesame shoyu with avocado, cucumber, seaweed salad, green onion and fried onion. A Spam musubi at $8.50 is a good add-on for a hungry eater, and a fair way to taste the Hawaii lunch-counter side of the menu without committing to a second bowl.

Custom bowls come in three sizes. The regular at $15.95 includes two scoops of protein and five toppings, the medium at $19.45 adds a third scoop and unlimited toppings, and the large at $22.95 includes four scoops. One Google reviewer counted 12 to 15 pieces of fish in a regular bowl and found it small, so the honest call for a full meal is the medium.

Unlimited toppings at the medium size tempt people to pile on everything. Resist. Seaweed salad, cucumber and edamame complement the fish; adding mango, corn, masago and crispy onions on top of two sauces buries it. Pick one creamy sauce at most and let the sesame shoyu do the work.

Hoodline described the early I'a shops as mainly takeout operations, and the Church Street room is a small counter-service space, so plan to carry your bowl out. Weekday lunch brings people from the offices around Market Street and Church Street station; arriving at 11:30am sharp or after 2pm keeps the wait short. On sunny weekends, the Dolores Park crowd passes by around noon and the counter fills quickly.

If the Church Street line is long, order ahead online for pickup and choose your location at checkout. The shop's Square site lets you pick between Church Street and Fillmore, and a pickup order skips the queue entirely.

Mission Dolores, the oldest intact building in San Francisco, sits at 3321 16th Street, about three blocks from the shop. Its museum and basilica are open on weekdays from 10am to 4pm, and the adobe Old Mission chapel and its cemetery garden take about half an hour to see.

From there, walk two blocks south to Mission Dolores Park at Dolores and 19th Streets. The upper slopes on the southwest side look out over downtown, and the lawn is where most Church Street takeout ends up on a warm afternoon. Bring a jacket after 4pm; the fog often rolls in from the west.

Address: 314 Church Street, San Francisco, CA 94114, near 15th Street. Hours: Monday to Saturday 11:30am to 8pm, Sunday 11:30am to 7pm. Transit: the J-Church streetcar runs along Church Street, and Church Street Muni Metro station at Market is about two blocks north. Build-your-own bowls cost $15.95, $19.45 or $22.95 by size; signature bowls run from the $18.50 Vegetarian to the $24.45 Aloha. Order online via iapoke.com for pickup at Church Street or Fillmore.