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“What should we eat for dinner?” is a common question that plagues most friend groups.
Friend A wants Mexican, Friend B wants Indian and you want Chinese. Instead of debating about the merits of tacos versus tandoori chicken versus dumplings, everyone can eat the type of cuisine they’re feeling at Swing Shift, a recently opened San Mateo restaurant specializing in, well, everything.
“There’s a lot of good food in downtown San Mateo, but (I wanted to) add an option where people can go without having to think about it that hard,” said Yvette Yong, owner of Swing Shift.
Yong soft-opened Swing Shift on May 14 in the former space that housed Noshery. Swing Shift’s grand opening is set for Saturday, June 1, and there will be food and mocktail samples from 2-4 p.m. The menu is an eclectic assortment of starters like chicharrones, papadums and Irish meat pies and entrees like gumbo, pho and vegan ramen. The menu, written by Yong and developed by Jon Sears, former chef-owner of the Dining Room in San Mateo and Epicurean Events, aims to encapsulate the idea of urban comfort food.
“Our comfort food living here in an urban area doesn’t match the Southern comfort food theme,” Yong said. “I’ll ask people, like, ‘What’s your comfort food?’ and they’ll say macaroni and cheese, fried chicken or mashed potatoes and meatloaf, because that’s what they expect comfort food to be. But then when I press, I’m like, ‘What are the foods that you crave?’ And then they’ll bring up the tacos and the ramen and the pho and the pupusas, and so that’s comfort food too, because it’s food that they crave.”
The drinks menu, curated by Duggan McDonnell, the former owner of Cantina in San Francisco, features both low ABV options as well as a wide selection of zero-proof offerings. Patrons can find low ABV cocktails, all-organic, sustainable and/or biodynamic wines, beer and non-alcoholic cocktails, wines and beer.
“I actually had a party of six people come in last night, and they were just here for drinks, and they were all mocktails, which was cool,” Yong said.
Yong said she drew inspiration for Swing Shift from Blue Ribbon Brasserie in New York, a restaurant open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. where many people working in the restaurant industry go to eat after they finish their shift. The term swing shift refers to the work shift between the day and night shifts, typically 4 p.m. to midnight. While Swing Shift is currently open Tuesday through Saturday from 5-10 p.m., Yong hopes to eventually open in the early afternoon and close later in the evening.
Yong is no stranger to the San Mateo dining scene. She’s lived in the city for the past 26 years and opened a high-end seafood restaurant called Lure in 2005 (which closed in 2008 due to the recession). Swing Shift is a more casual concept that she hopes becomes a neighborhood eatery, she said.
“I had a couple come in last night. It was a Caucasian man and an Asian woman. And they had the corn dog and the siu mai, and I asked them how everything was, and they were like, ‘These are both our childhood favorite items, and we’re getting them in the same place,’ which was so cool to hear,” she said.
Yong is working on introducing an expanded menu to Swing Shift. Expect to see entrees like steak, pork chops, roast chicken and a selection of shareable plates.
Swing Shift, 5 South Ellsworth Ave., San Mateo; 650-281-0122, Instagram: @swingshift_restaurant. Open Tuesday through Saturday 5-10 p.m.
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