Polk Street Has Two Kinds of Handroll Now, and Each One Fits a Different Part of Your Day

A Handroll Hawker roll is about 3.5 inches long and 1.5 inches across. It comes uncut, shaped like a cylinder, and filled with a whole slice of fish. It goes in a pink box or a paper bag and is built to be eaten on the walk home up Union Street. A few blocks south at Saru Handroll Bar, the handroll is an edomae-style course you eat sitting down, from a team that once held a Michelin star at the same address.

Both are called handrolls, and they are close enough on Polk that Hoodline asked in March whether the street had a "handroll turf war" on its hands. Six weeks after Handroll Hawker opened, they look more like two different meals. One works for lunch and errands. The other is dinner. A new aperitivo bar a block west on Van Ness opens in the late afternoon, between the two.

The Melbourne roll at Polk and Union

Handroll Hawker opened at 2360 Polk Street on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. It's open from 11:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., seven days a week. Owner Romi Trower is a filmmaker who moved to San Francisco from Melbourne in 2019. The San Francisco Standard reported that she was missing the uncut rolls that are sold at grab-and-go shops all over Australia.

The Australian version works differently from the cone-shaped temaki most San Franciscans know. Eater SF reported that it is usually made ahead and kept in a patisserie-style fridge, so the rice is cold and the nori is soft instead of crisp. That's why the roll holds together in your hand and why pickup is quick. Trower told Eater the idea is that "you can honestly push the stroller with one hand and eat the roll in the other."

There's fine-dining training behind the casual format. Chef Tai Trinh came from Robin, the omakase counter in Hayes Valley, and seasons the rice with aged red vinegar. Trower went to culinary school in Tokyo before opening. David Steele's team at Flour + Water Hospitality Group consulted on the project. The opening menu has nine rolls:

• Spicy salmon or spicy tuna with cucumber and a yuzu spicy mayo
• Crispy chicken or shrimp tempura with lettuce and house mayo
• Salmon and avocado, plus cooked shrimp with avocado, cucumber and sesame
• Two vegan rolls, inari tofu with pickled daikon and cucumber-avocado
• Cooked tuna with cucumber and mayo, which Trower calls "the Australian classic"

The only other items are a vegan miso soup, canned sodas, sparkling water and Trinh's yuzu lemonade. Trower suggests three rolls for a full meal and one for a snack. Artist Serge Gay Jr. painted the walls with murals that hide handrolls in a woman's curls and put them on roller skates in place of wheels.

"You should think, 'I could have that again tomorrow and on repeat.'"

Trower said that to the San Francisco Standard about the simple flavors. It also describes how she means the shop to be used: as an everyday lunch, the kind of food a block can come back to without planning ahead.

The address has always followed the street's habits

Some neighbors will know 2360 Polk under other names. Hoodline's history of the corner traces it this way:

1. Tonic, a neighborhood cocktail bar that opened in 2008 and ran for more than a decade with daily happy hours and trivia nights
2. Zero&, a bubble tea location that came after Tonic, briefly
3. Handroll Hawker, with signage up by March 2026 and doors open that September

Hoodline summed up the move from cocktails to boba to sushi as a neat picture of how Polk Street's storefronts keep changing. The latest change brings a daytime business to a space that spent most of its history as an evening bar. Its 11:30 a.m. opening is the clearest sign of how different it is from Saru.

Saru, a short walk south, is the sit-down version

Saru Handroll Bar at 2206 Polk has a longer history than its name suggests. The team opened Saru Sushi Bar in Noe Valley in 2012. In 2017 they opened Kinjo at the Russian Hill address, which earned one Michelin star for its traditional omakase. Later they turned Kinjo into Saru Handroll Bar to give Russian Hill a more casual option. The menu sticks to seasonal fish, edomae style.

"Casual" means something specific here. Dine-in is walk-in only, with no reservations. In March, Hoodline reported a set of five rolls for $52 and said the restaurant regularly fills up. It described Saru's crowd as dinner dates willing to wait in line and Handroll Hawker's as the lunch crowd and people who stop in on impulse.

Set side by side, the two schedules show how much they differ:

Both are open from noon to 7:30 p.m., but at the edges of the day only one is. Before noon, Handroll Hawker has the street to itself. After 7:30, it's Saru's. On Mondays, when Saru's posted hours list no service, the Polk and Union counter is the only one of the two open.

Torino covers the hours in between

Late afternoon is where a third opening comes in. Tablehopper reported at the end of October that Torino Bar Aperitivo has opened at 2360 Van Ness Avenue at Green Street. It has the same street number as Handroll Hawker and sits a block west and a block south. Before the pandemic, the corner was Ho's Bootleg Bar & Kitchen.

The bar comes from Sean Halpin, who was a partner in Key Klub and worked at Cellarmaker and Social Kitchen and Brewery. Tablehopper expects natural wines on the list. The Infatuation lists wine, Aperol and Hugo spritzes, and classic cocktails. Hours are 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, until 11 p.m. on Thursday, and until midnight on Friday and Saturday.

A 4 p.m. opening lands right as the rush at Handroll Hawker winds down and hours before Saru gets busy for dinner. With all three on the map, a Thursday in the neighborhood can go like this:

1. Lunch, 11:30 a.m. onward. Three rolls from Handroll Hawker, eaten on the walk or at one of its few tables.
2. Aperitivo, after 4 p.m. A spritz at Torino on Van Ness at Green.
3. Dinner, later in the evening. Walk to Saru at 2206 Polk and join the walk-in line for the five-roll set.

Why a Polk Street handroll needs a format

Polk isn't the only street in the area betting on handrolls this fall. Eater SF reported that Kaiyō reopened at 1838 Union Street in Cow Hollow as Kaiyō Handroll Bar on Friday, September 11, 2026. Its handrolls carry Peruvian Nikkei flavors, including lomo saltado.

Handroll Project, the spinoff from Michelin-starred Ju-Ni, opened in the Mission in 2022, closed in 2025 after three years, and became a second Hamburger Project location. Hoodline cited that closure as a sign that positioning matters in this category. It read Handroll Hawker's grab-and-go model as built for access instead of the harder-to-scale intimacy of a sit-down handroll bar.

Russian Hill now has both models within walking distance on the same street. Saru does the sit-down version with a Michelin pedigree and a walk-in line. Handroll Hawker does the everyday version with a pink box and a 7:30 close.

If you're weighing a home within walking distance of Polk and Union, or getting ready to sell one, Colleen Cotter Real Estate Group can help. Request a complimentary market consultation.