Scott James/The Bay Citizen

Ryan Scott in the kitchen at Bruno's in San Francisco's Mission District

In the Sinatraesque Bruno’s bar and restaurant in the Mission last week, the chef, Ryan Scott, presided over his kitchen staff to prepare meals, gave a reporter a whirlwind preview of his impending hip weekend brunches and paused briefly to sign over the title to sell his 2000 Dodge Ram Sport pickup.

“It doesn’t get more real than this,” said Scott, a former reality TV contestant on “Top Chef.” “I’m selling my truck to buy plates.”

Doesn’t the restaurant already have plates?

“I’m picky,” he said.

And busy. Scott is among a growing number of city restaurateurs now engaged on multiple battlefronts in the city’s increasingly combative food business. To some it is no longer enough to simply have a space with tables, chairs and scrumptious fare; the war for hungry stomachs also means going mobile, embracing social media and using locally sourced ingredients.

San Francisco has long had a competitive restaurant scene, but recent changes have made it more so, giving consumers new options and leaving some traditional restaurants feeling the pinch and looking for the city to intervene.

San Francisco has the highest number of restaurants per capita in the nation — 3,588, according to health department records; one for every 227 residents. (New York City has one restaurant per every 347 people.) Add to that a growing fleet of about 200 (and counting) licensed food trucks, some serving upscale fare like ahi tuna sliders and crème brûlée.

Unlicensed dining options are also proliferating: underground dinner parties that siphon customers from traditional restaurants and popular makeshift street-food vendors, like the soup guy on Valencia Street.

New competition has also come from the city’s 24 mobbed farmers markets, many of which serve either hot prepared foods or goodies to construct dinner on the spot.

“Restaurants need to be sharp and realize they are facing very diversified competition,” said Alison Bing, food writer and Lonely Planet guidebook author.

“It does create better prices” for consumers, Bing said, but it also puts “more pressure on restaurants.”

For example, she said, upscale food trucks have recently started parking outside bars that don’t serve food. “Bars are colluding with trucks to create a food and wine experience,” Bing said, with diners paying less than they would at an established restaurant.