Personalities

Kenneth Zankel

Kenneth's Links:

President/Co-Owner - The Grove SF

Kenneth Zankel is the President and - with wife and professional interior designer Anna, - Co-Owner of The Grove SF. These 4 unique sibling restaurants, developed since 1999, though each very much of its neighborhood, and varying in size from 80 seats to 180 seats share a vision that has remained the core of each Grove: Open long hours; warm, woodsy, eclectic, indoor/outdoor; with a zillion personal details and oozing with soul. An inclusive, lively, congenial locals’ gathering place, moderately priced, and where a solo diner or big family, regulars or newcomers would adopt it as café, restaurant, 2nd home – and sometime all of these at different points in a given week. With over 10,000 handpicked songs by Kenneth, many rare. American comfort food with a gourmet twist, and signature flavors. “San Francisco’s Living Room.”

Born and raised in and around New York City, Kenneth graduated from Skidmore College, worked for 3 years as a venture capital analyst for Harvard University’s endowment, earned an MBA from Columbia University, managed entertainment industry marketing (concerts, sports tournaments, performing arts) for American Express, and then ran Visa’s U.S. restaurant marketing, working with Wolfgang Puck and other major players. He then attended the Guitar Institute in LA. In 1995, he combined the above – entrepreneurism, music and art, restaurants, Art meets Commerce – and launched his first restaurant, Zinzino. Designed by future wife Anna Veyna (he was her client for 7 years before asking for a date!), Zinzino was a critically and popularly acclaimed neighborhood gem featuring two 8000-pound brick ovens from Italy, that pioneered the artisanal pizza craze in San Francisco. Kenneth is a 14 year board member and two-time-President of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, as well as a Director of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and Nuci’s Space.