For nearly two years, the corner of 21st and Mission has sat behind plywood. The former Chase branch at 2500 Mission St. became one of those dead storefronts that get invoked whenever people start worrying aloud about the state of San Francisco's commercial corridors. But this fall, the lights are expected to come back on.
The old bank will reopen as Hidden Frequency, a small, immersive music venue built around a single listening room and a steady diet of electronic and experimental sound. It comes from Naz Khorram, who already runs Arcana, the wine bar and plant shop right next door at 2512 Mission. Mission Local's Oscar Palma broke the news this week.
Khorram has been chasing a venue of their own since 2023. They went through the city's Vacant to Vibrant program and got offered a few downtown spaces, but each one needed more work and more money than made sense, and downtown never quite felt right. Then they saw a path: a vacant, recently remodeled building sitting right next to the business they already ran. Chase had shuttered the branch in 2024, well into Khorram's search, and left the space in good shape.
The paperwork has been moving quietly for a while. A "Hidden Frequency LLC" was registered to the 2500 Mission address on October 23, 2025, according to the city's business registry. Hidden Frequency filed for its entertainment permit on June 18, and that's according to Mission Local; although The Bold Italic has yet to see it appear among the Entertainment Commission's active permits.
From what we read, the plan is one listening room wrapped in a desert-and-dunes aesthetic, with cocktails, wine, and beer, plus collaborations pairing local visual artists with local musicians. Khorram describes the concept as a blend of three existing SF institutions: The Lab, the experimental arts nonprofit in the historic Redstone building; Gray Area, the nonprofit known for its electronic programming; and Envelop SF, the 32-speaker spatial-audio room inside The Midway where audiophiles gather to hear whole albums played back in surround.
Oscar Palma
A boarded-up bank turning into a music venue is about as clean a piece of San Francisco symbolism as you'll find right now: the money leaves, and the culture moves into the vault. Hidden Frequency is slated to open sometime this fall.
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