SF Tequila Shop

SF Tequila Shop occupies a storefront at 801 Cortland Avenue in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood. The business traces to a liquor store Nirmal Singh Malhi and his son Davinder Singh Malhi opened in Modesto, California, in 1993, which they shifted toward a tequila-focused operation from the late 1990s into 2000. The family's third generation later relocated the business to Bernal Heights, reopening it there under current operators known as Moose and Scott roughly three years before a November 2025 profile of the shop was published.

The shop sells bottles for off-premise consumption rather than pouring drinks on site. Its shelves hold more than 1,000 bottles spanning tequila, mezcal, sotol, raicilla, bacanora, Mexican gin, and Mexican wine, described on the shop's own site as hand-selected "for its craftsmanship, story, and flavor profile," with an emphasis on "additive-free and traditionally made expressions." What began as a tequila specialty has broadened over time; the owners describe their mezcal range as running "from smoky and bold to delicate and nuanced," and told one interviewer, "A lot of people don't realize that Mexico produces world-class spirits across every category."

The business runs a monthly bottle subscription called "A Taste of Mexico," offers gift cards and free shipping on orders over $249, and hosts recurring "Meet the Maker" events and weekly tastings that the shop frames as pairing retail with category knowledge — publishing tasting notes, producer spotlights, and buying guidance rather than serving as a bar. Its address, inventory mix, and stated retail-only model place it as a dedicated agave-spirits bottle shop rather than a restaurant or general liquor store — the specific gap that repeated, differently-worded searches could not fill in Los Angeles or New York City.