Due to license issues, Yoko and Clint Tan have been unable to open a restaurant in SF's Inner Richmond.

Yoko and Clint Tan taught themselves how to cook ramen, which The Chronicle called "exciting" and was recognized at the World Ramen Grand Prix in Japan. They taught themselves how to run their beloved noodles in the Haystack pop-up store outside the Daly City kitchen, serving thousands of customers in five years.

So when fans urged them to open a restaurant in San Francisco, they thought they could do the same. But it turns out that even the most determined entrepreneur cannot match the city’s hidden pitfalls and notorious red tape.

What Tans wanted to do was to take over an available small restaurant space and provide ramen noodles for 10 guests every Wednesday night. They think it's easy to turn one Japanese restaurant into another, but there are very few stores in San Francisco.

Now they have $100,000 in their hole, far from starting, and full of regrets.

Although admitting that they are like "deer in the lights" when navigating the city's Byzantine licensing process, they still want more guidance. Or, maybe, they hired a professional license accelerator to do the work for them.

Even reporting on their attempts is confusing because city officials and restaurant experts do not always have answers.

The owner of The Noodle in a Haystack pop-up shop spent $100,000 trying to open a restaurant in the space previously occupied by curry restaurants.

The legend of the Tans began when they got their dream space in June and made big bets on Clint Tan's hometown.

"We thought,'This is our opportunity. We will do something seriously in San Francisco, graduate from people's living rooms and start living here,'" said 39-year-old Clint Tan. "Obviously, our motivation has now disappeared."

This is with the help of Proposal H, which was passed by city voters in November last year to make it easier for small businesses to obtain permits. Yes, with the city's permission, Tans was helped to navigate this confusing maze, but the maze still exists.

Since its entry into force in December last year, Proposal H, supported by the Mayor of London, has only helped 21 small businesses get permission to open. The city has not tracked whether these 21 people actually opened their doors.

This insignificant figure indicates that more changes are needed—including simplified code and better customer service—to help small businesses open in a city full of vacancies.

The mayor’s spokesperson Andy Lynch said Bridt has promoted a number of efforts to address “ineffective or overly cumbersome” local regulations and bureaucracy.

He added: "We need to make it easier for small businesses to open, operate and succeed in San Francisco, and we will continue to find ways to make it easier for them to do this."

In June, Tans took over the lease of 4601 Geary Blvd. A curry restaurant called Konomama in Richmond. They spent $50,000 in "key money"—a normal amount according to Laurie Thomas, executive director of the Golden Gate Hotel Association—to pay for rent, cooking equipment, and furniture. In addition, the rent is USD 3,600 per month, plus utilities.

They wanted to use Konomama's equipment, but changed the seating arrangement, updated the paint and installed new bathroom tiles.

Clint Tan said he contacted the Prop. H team in the small business office in the summer to start getting approval. He said that at the same time, he disconnected the sink to work on bathroom tiles and used lamps to paint around it.

It was an anonymous person who called 311 to report unauthorized work. At that time, their entrepreneurial dream turned into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Patrick Hannan, a spokesperson for the Building Inspection Department, said the unauthorized work was more extensive than Tan described, including new plasterboards and unstable shelves erected in storage areas. Tan said that when he took over the space, the shelves were there.

On August 19, an inspector ordered to stop work. After 11 days, the city allowed Tans to continue to apply to change Konomama to Noodle in a Haystack.

"I sent the same message to everyone at least about five times," Clint Tan recalled, saying that he kept delivering different instructions to different people. "No one can give me a direct answer."

Tan said that the previous restaurant staff used an induction cooker without a range hood. This is the way he cooks noodles in a pop-up shop in the city. However, the city government said he needs to install a range hood to exhaust steam and grease from boiling. Noodles.

The blueprint for the unopened restaurant of Yoko and Clint Tan.

Tan said that it turned out to be too expensive, so the permit he received last month stated that he could only cook noodles in a microwave oven. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Public Health stated that its records show that Konomama supplies prepackaged curries prepared in rice cookers and non-porous frying pans, and these methods are not applicable to Tans' wider menu.

Thomas and the restaurant group said the city has not done enough to help new entrepreneurs understand these complex issues.

Even if the previous restaurant was not necessary, the city asked Tan to upgrade the water heater. The Tan family and the city government are also arguing about the number of sinks needed—twice the number of workers—and the type of kitchen finishes.

Dan Sider, chief of staff of the Ministry of Planning, said that different tanks serve different purposes. And the previous kitchen finishes "may be installed without permission" and do not comply with safety regulations.

"The noodles in the haystack did not comply with the public health regulations of the new restaurant in the state at all," Said said. "Once the applicant modified his plan to meet the requirements, we immediately approved them."

Sharky Laguana, chairman of the Small Business Council, said that if the previous restaurant has been passing annual health inspections, he does not understand why so many devices have not passed Tans inspections.

He described the Tan family's experience as "outrageous, outrageous and deeply disturbing."

"When our living room caught fire, we have been trying to add a bedroom on the second floor," he said.

Kanishka Karunaratne Cheng, executive director of Together SF, a civic participation non-profit organization who once served as an urban planner, said that in a city with greater problems, deliberations on the smallest changes in buildings have driven her crazy. She said the city needs to treat business owners as customers and update unnecessary codes.

"It always feels very punishing," she helped. "People want to make some small changes, but they end up in a Kafka-style change network, they have to make changes, and then they all start to add up."

Although the Kickstarter fund created by Tans will help them pay the $100,000 they have invested in the restaurant so far, it will be a financial difficulty to actually open.

"I hope I didn't sign up for this," Clint Tan said. "That was a mistake."

It's too late now. They promise.

Here is an idea: All ramen lovers should book immediately after Noodle in a Haystack opens and leave a very large tip. At least someone in San Francisco should express some gratitude to Tans.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears every Sunday and Wednesday. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

Heather Knight is a columnist who works at City Hall, covering everything from politics to homelessness to family escape and the quirks of living in one of the most fascinating cities in the world. She believes in holding politicians accountable for their decisions, or usually irresponsible — and tells stories of real people and their struggles.

She co-hosted Chronicle's TotalSF podcast and co-founded the #TotalSF project to celebrate the wonders and whims of San Francisco.