Viral robot company turns vacant San Francisco storefront into showroom

1415 Van Ness Avenue is getting a very different kind of tenant. REK, the viral robot company built around humanoid combat and public demos, has taken a 6,000-square-foot ground-floor space in Nob Hill and is turning it into a storefront, training ground and repair shop for robots.

The location sits in a busy retail corridor near Japantown, Civic Center and Polk Street, where empty storefronts have become a familiar sight. REK’s plan gives the address large display windows and a highly visible purpose: visitors will be able to watch humanoid robots, learn how they work, train with them, repair them, customize them and eventually buy them. Private demos were planned for June, with a public opening set for July.

Cix Liv, REK’s founder, said the company wants to familiarize people with robots in daily life. That pitch puts the storefront somewhere between retail and live demonstration, with the ground floor functioning as a permanent gym and showroom for a business that has already attracted attention far beyond the warehouse off Van Ness where it had been operating.

The company’s events have drawn crowds before it ever had a public-facing shop. In February, one San Francisco REK event drew hundreds of spectators who paid about $60 to $80 for tickets to watch modified Unitree G1 robots fight. The robots were described as about 4.5 feet tall and roughly 80 pounds. REK has said it plans to build a league of robot boxers that would eventually include full-height machines nearly 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds.

For San Francisco, the storefront is a test of whether a vacant retail space can become something more than a one-off spectacle. REK is betting that a place where people can see, rent, fix and buy humanoid robots will generate enough foot traffic and curiosity to work on a prominent corridor that links downtown to the western edge of the city’s core. The company’s choice of 1415 Van Ness Avenue also keeps the operation in the same neighborhood ecosystem where entertainment, transit and neighborhood retail already overlap, giving the venture a more public footprint than a hidden industrial site.

The opening comes as humanoid robots are drawing closer attention across the country, not just for novelty but for safety, training and real-world use. REK is trying to make that future visible on Van Ness, where a vacant storefront is becoming both a showroom and a live experiment in whether San Francisco will make room for robotics on the street.