Today, SF Moto is one of the leaders in motorcycle and scooter sales and service in the San Francisco area. With a huge selection of motorcycles, electric motorcycles, and scooters for sale, plus parts, gear, and service, we’ve grown to become a comprehensive Bay Area dealer that has options for every type of rider.
Every story has a few twists and turns along the way, though, and ours is no exception. Newer customers may not know that SF Moto began as a scooter restoration shop before expanding into scooter sales and then motorcycles. From the first scooter projects in his mom’s garage in Fairfax, our owner, Eric, has written many chapters on his way to becoming the most trusted San Francisco scooter dealer. Here’s a glimpse into how it all started one fateful day.
A Happy Accident Starts a Lifelong Passion
Eric didn’t set out to become a successful motorcycle and scooter dealer—it happened by accident. In the late 1980s, a teenage Eric was playing in a band, and the guitarist bought an orange 1976 Vespa 90 scooter from a flea market to fix up and sell. Once the scooter was ready, Eric begged to take the machine out for a spin before it went on the market.
What did Eric do once the guitarist relented? He drove the orange Vespa headlong into a fence. Out of guilt as much as anything else, Eric ended up buying the scooter. That fence encounter turned out to be a blessing in disguise, though. In the process of fixing and maintaining the scooter, Eric discovered he loved working on bikes, and it eventually overtook music as his primary hobby.
Soon, Eric added a 1981 Vespa P200E to his collection, buying it in Vallejo and driving it home to Fairfax. He recalls the ride home being scary, especially going over the tall bridges on Highway 37—the little scooter simply wasn't made for that type of riding! Like with the Vespa 90, he put his heart and soul into working on the Italian scooter, again working out of his mom’s garage.
Turning Passion Into Business
It wasn’t long before word got around, and Eric started taking requests to do other vintage Vespa restorations. When he turned 20, though, Eric’s mom decided that if he wanted to continue working on scooters, he had to do it elsewhere. In other words, she kicked him out of the house.
Again, Eric was able to turn a setback into an opportunity. On January 1, 1990, he opened the original SF Moto location in Berkeley to do full-time Vespa scooter restoration. It wasn’t a big shop—only 600 square feet—but he was in business. Focusing 100% of his energy on Vespas, it only took a few years for Eric to outgrow the space. With increasing demand for his services, in 1993, Eric moved to a new 1,500-square-foot building on 7th Street in downtown San Francisco. Along with continuing to do Vespa restoration and repairs, he took advantage of the extra space to start a mail-order parts business for DIY Vespa owners.
However, Eric was dealing with another problem. At the time, there was almost no support in the United States from Vespa or its aftermarket manufacturers, making it extremely hard to get parts domestically. The solution was simple: instead of waiting for Vespa to come to the United States, he would go directly to them. Eric made regular trips to Italy to visit Vespa vendors and import supplies. In addition to brand-new parts and accessories, he would have old 1960s and 1970s Vespa scooters shipped over that he could either fix up and resell or use as parts bikes for other projects. As Eric tells it, “Each time a container would arrive, it was like Christmas.”
Continued Expansion
From there, SF Moto continued to grow. The year 2000 saw Eric’s third and final move to our current location on 8th Street in the SOMA district. The ground floor of the new space was more than triple the size at 5,400 square feet. At the same time, Eric also decided to expand the business’s offerings. In addition to restoring Vespas, SF Moto was now selling and servicing all Japanese brands of used scooters and motorcycles, allowing many more Bay Area riders to experience the quality work of the SF Moto team.
For the next 12 years, SF Moto occupied the ground floor of our 8th Street location, continuing to offer restoration and repair services. When the need for further expansion came in 2012, Eric didn’t change locations this time. Instead, he just added the building’s second floor to the business, which more than doubled the available space to our present 11,000 square feet. That’s a long way from working on scooters in your mom’s garage!
Becoming an Official Motorcycle Dealer
There was one more big shift on the horizon for SF Moto. In 2015, Eric decided to start selling new motorcycles and scooters as well as used bikes. By becoming an authorized dealer for Honda, Kawasaki, and Zero, SF Moto could serve people who wanted the latest and greatest bikes to cruise downtown or take on Interstate 80. In 2018, we added Suzuki motorcycles and scooters to our inventory, and late last year, we became the only authorized CFMOTO dealer in San Francisco.
Sadly for some, this came at the expense of what gave SF Moto our start, as we no longer do vintage scooter restoration. We realized that we needed to focus on fewer things in order to provide the best possible service. Motorcycle and scooter riders who commute daily need a new bike as soon as possible, and they need their service work done the same day or close to it.
While restoring vintage Vespas is a true joy, it’s also very time-consuming. A single scooter can take days, weeks, or even months, depending on how much work needs to be done. With so many people now coming to SF Moto for motorcycle and scooter sales and repairs, there simply wasn’t enough time to give restoration projects the attention they deserve. As such, Eric made the tough call to stop working on pre-2000 Vespa scooters, selling off the remaining parts inventory to other shops in the area.
SF Moto Today
Although we no longer do vintage scooter restoration, we can't wait to help if you’re looking for new and used scooters in San Francisco. We are still the area’s only authorized dealer of Honda, Suzuki, SYM, and Lance Powersports scooters, and we have plenty of used models from other leading manufacturers. Our factory-trained technicians will also perform routine maintenance and repairs on your scooter. We added a second floor to the service department in November 2021, as well as a new exhaust extraction system to do even more for our customers.
Furthermore, you’ll see the same friendly face that SF Moto customers have been accustomed to since 1990. As the only owner SF Moto has ever had, Eric remains heavily involved in the day-to-day operations. We’re the second-oldest continuously-owned motorcycle dealership in San Francisco, and that helps us offer consistently excellent service. We’re here to educate you so every purchase is in your best interests. And if Eric is here, he’ll be happy to share more stories about the history of SF Moto.
