What Downtown Hayward's B Street Built While a BART Car Took Five Years

To get the pizza oven into Storybook, the crew removed every front window at 943 B St. and lifted a Forno Bravo in with a forklift. Executive chef Peter Richey told the Tri-City Voice it was the largest oven the kitchen could hold. Storybook opened at the end of December 2025. Owners Aric Yeverino and Jen Cuevas turned what had been a mostly blue, empty catering space into green and gold rooms. A guest walks through a lounge-style dining room, past a bar with a nautical mural by local artist Francisco Ramirez, into an arcade and then out to a courtyard with a fountain.

The whole project, front windows included, took roughly a year. Down the street, a 65,000-pound train car is moving on a slower clock. Its five-year build explains a lot about how downtown Hayward looks this October. The headline project kept getting pushed back, and the blocks around it filled in during the wait.

The Project Everyone Has Heard About

Arthur Mac's Big Snack at 1060 B St. has been five years and nearly $2 million in the making, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on June 30. The 7,000-square-foot space is planned around a restored 1973 BART car with restaurant seating inside. It will also have fire pits, a large pergola and a full bar with 20 beers on tap. Owner Joel DiGiorgio says the menu will be close to the existing Arthur Mac's: cold-fermented pizza, wings, salads and snacks. The BART car will serve a shorter menu that "will focus on what many of us have snuck onto BART in the past, tallboy cans of beer and slices of pizza."

DiGiorgio pitched the idea in 2021 through a BART program that repurposes the agency's retired original cars. He expected the restaurant to take two years. Here is what stretched that to five:

1. The move itself. A crane carried the car five miles from a storage yard. That cost more than $30,000 and needed approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation plus a 45-day review by the Hayward Executive Airport air traffic control facility.
2. The weight stayed on. Most of the car's weight sits in the undercarriage hardware and propulsion gear. Architects and engineers advised against removing it because that could compromise the car's structure.
3. No safety data for a parked train. BART's engineering and safety data covers powered trains only. So the site needed a foundation built on real train tracks and a custom concrete fire wall, which together cost more than $100,000.

"Nobody has ever brought a 75-foot BART train car onto a downtown commercial zone."

The car's original seats, signage and handrails will stay. Drop-down tray tables are being added, and the conductor's station, chair and control panel included, will be open for photos and double as a kids' play area.

On timing, the Chronicle reported in June that the Oakland Arthur Mac's at 4006 Martin Luther King Jr. Way would close in October and the Hayward location would open the same month. The Downtown Hayward Improvement Association's August 25 column still described it as coming "this fall." As of early October, we have not seen a published opening day. Check Arthur Mac's own channels before you plan an evening around it.

The Blocks That Didn't Wait

Pull up the 2026 changes on B Street and most of them sit within a few blocks of the train car. All of them opened or reopened while the car was still a construction project.

Each of these has a backstory that ties it to Hayward.

Erik's DeliCafé officially reopened on June 1. The new owner started as an employee, worked at the deli for years and saved until he could buy the business. The name and the counter are the same, and the person who now owns it once worked behind that counter.

Con Azúcar Café started in San Jose. Founders Alejandra Gonzalez, Alan Jimenez and Ruben Jimenez brought it to Hayward, where they went to school as kids. The café serves specialty coffee, handcrafted drinks and sweets inspired by Latin flavors. The City of Hayward listed its June 20 grand opening as a day of music, food and community activities.

Dali Tea moved into the former Once Tea space. Its menu includes milk teas, slushies, lemon teas and coffee. Its opening date depends on who you ask. Oaklandside's roundup said in a July 21 entry that it was up and running. The Downtown Hayward Improvement Association's August 25 column still described it as gearing up for a soft opening. In either case, it opened over the summer, months ahead of its neighbor at 1060.

Storybook is still new enough that the kitchen treats the menu as a work in progress. Richey changes it twice a season but keeps dishes for a month or two so returning guests can order favorites again. He also keeps entrees steady while rotating the sides. The partly whole-wheat sourdough comes from a starter kept going since summer 2025. When the June feature ran, the restaurant was closed Mondays and Tuesdays. The Tri-City Voice called it the dining partner to Books on B, the independent bookstore on the same street. Yeverino also renovated the speakeasy at The Dirty Bird.

Revere Tattoo has been a downtown fixture for years and now sits next door to the coming Arthur Mac's. So the train car will have a neighbor on one side that was already settled in before it arrived.

The Night That Puts Them All On One Ticket

The 2nd Annual Taste of Hayward runs Thursday, October 22, 2026, from 4 to 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 plus a service fee and cover every tasting location. You pick up a Taste Passport at check-in and walk downtown sampling appetizers, entrées, desserts and drinks at your own pace. Bring ID if you plan to try the alcoholic pours. Organizers advertise bites and sips from more than 25 downtown restaurants and bars.

The 2026 participant list was still marked "Coming Soon" on the official page when we checked, and the names shown there are from 2025. So we can't say which of the B Street newcomers will be pouring. This is the first Taste where a summer's worth of openings could be on the map, though, so the passport route may look different from last year's. Tickets are on sale through the Downtown Hayward event page.

Parking Downtown Changed in July

If you haven't driven downtown since early summer, this is the change most likely to catch you. The City of Hayward began enforcing posted time limits on downtown streets, city lots and garages on July 1. Parking is still free as long as you stay within the posted limit. Overnight parking is not allowed in city lots or garages. Limits vary by location, so read the sign where you park.

The city facilities closest to the B Street blocks above:

• Municipal Lot #2, 1042 B St., a short walk from 1060 B St. and the cafés at 1081 and 1099
• Municipal Lot #4, 1147 B St., at the far end of the cluster
• Cinema Place Parking Garage, 22695 Foothill Blvd.
• City Hall/Downtown Library Garage, 22625 Mission Blvd.
• Municipal Lot #8, 944 D St., one block over from Storybook

The city has said a parking permit for people who live and work downtown is a future phase, with no launch date in its June announcement. The Downtown Hayward Improvement Association's July 14 board minutes said staff were developing an employee permit but had no estimated launch date. Taste of Hayward runs four hours, so if you plan to visit several stops, a garage is a safer choice than a curb spot with a short limit.

When the BART car does open, the doors will face Erik's under its new owner, a San Jose café whose founders came home to Hayward, a tea shop in a familiar storefront and a bar and kitchen whose oven came in through the front window. All of them opened while the train car was still being built.

At City 1st Realty, we pay attention to downtown openings like these because they are part of daily life for the East Bay neighbors we work with. If you want to talk about Hayward and San Leandro, or about anything else on your mind for the year ahead, we'd be glad to hear from you. Work with Us.