Sarah Rich is from the South. Her husband Evan Rich is from the East Coast. But after working together at Bouley in New York, they decided their destiny might very well lie in California.

“I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in New York,” Sarah Rich says. “I knew if we didn’t leave then, we’d never leave. So, I convinced him begrudgingly to give San Francisco a shot.”

The move proved beyond fruitful, and Bay Area diners are all the better for it.

Last summer, the couple opened their own restaurant, Rich Table in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood, on Sara’s birthday (July 26). Diners have been celebrating ever since then by packing into the 60 seats here.

The couple set out to create a restaurant they would want to eat at on their days off — casual, comfortable, yet with food cooked with impeccable ingredients, thoughtfulness and exemplary technique.

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