An expanded food court, a stationery and trinket section plus a basement complete with an arcade, home goods section, consignment shop and photobooth are all now open at San Francisco’s H Mart.
The popular Korean American specialty store on Alemany Boulevard now offers 27,168 square feet of shopping and dining space across two floors as of June 19.
“It’s pretty nice,” said Amanda Z., who found out about the expansion via TikTok. “It’s new stuff that we haven’t seen before.”
In 2022, H Mart shared plans to expand into the former 24 Hour Fitness Space and bought the OceanView Village shopping center in 2024. The expanded area was a long time coming.
On the main floor, there is a large dining area and a larger space for the Korean restaurant chain Daeho. Nearby is H POP, the supermarket’s home goods brand that offers lifestyle, stationery, and character-based products, such as blind boxes, unique and comical pens, themed notebooks and gift bags, LED mood-lights and fixtures, and aisles of plush and plastic keychains, among other goods.
The new wing has a larger counter for Daeho and plenty of seating | Anne Marie Kristoff/Ingleside Light
“It’s good,” cashier Betsy F. said. “It’s brought a lot of business.”
The basement is divided into two main areas. One for H Mart wares and the rest for vendors, plus additional tables for dining.
In this area, H Mart offers aisles of home goods, including additional snacks and drinks, plushies, and aisles of food containers, character-branded cups, kitchen utensils and appliances, bedding, cleaning supplies and beauty goods like shampoos and face masks. It’s part of its Hello Home home goods department.
Nearby, vendors include global home health care appliance brand Ceragem, luxury consignment shop Maison Again and Korean-inspired photo booth K Photo La Vie. Japanese arcade company Kiddleton operates over 20 amusement devices like claw machines and a Naruto Emblem Battle card game. Two other spaces have yet to be filled.
Kiddleton has dozens of amusement devices. | Anne Marie Kristoff/Ingleside Light
This expansion has been a long time coming for residents like Dennis Sanchez, who lives across the street and leads some of Community Living Campaign’s exercise classes for seniors.
Sanchez said that while he was surprised to see how much of it, like the H POP section, was tailored to younger patrons. He was excited to be finally open and said that the H Mart team has done a very nice job.
“It’s a little touch and go in terms of what we would buy, but I like the fact that it’s not very crowded,” said Sanchez, who bought a small trash can. “The aisles are spaced nicely. It’s very clean. I hope they continue to keep it clean. It’s nice to have something that's open.”
