Belden Place San Francisco

Often dubbed the French Quarter of San Francisco, Belden Place (aka Belden Alley, Belden Lane, or Belden Street) offers a touristic, American repesentation of European dining. The area was home to San Francisco’s first French settlers. Approximately 3,000, sponsored by the French government, arrived near the end of the Gold Rush in 1851.

 According to historian Gladys Hansen, the French shared Dupont Street (now Grant Avenue) with early Chinese settlers during the early days of Chinatown, and were more sympathetic than others to their concerns. French novelist Alexandre Dumas, père, in his 1852 first-person account A Gil Blas in California, describes local Chinese cooks experimenting with French cuisine. The enclave persisted, despite subsequent waves of Chinese, Italian, Irish, and other immigrants to the area.

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