California restaurant closes due to state of San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - After 16 years in business, popular vegan Mexican restaurant Gracias Madre has closed. The owners left a note outside, stating that the economy and state of Mission Street, also known as the Mission, forced this decision.
Before the pandemic, Gracias Madre known for its vegan selections on Mission Street often attracted long wait times, but it never recovered from the pandemic, and the street conditions drove away customers, especially at night, according to former General Manager Joseph Donohue.
"A lot of people would say that it was a little bit too dangerous to come at night, because there wasn't any places to park your car, and if you did park your car you didn't know if it was going to get broken into or not, so a lot of customers did say that they wouldn't come at night," Donohue shared.
Donohue said Gracias Madre tried to stay open until 10:00pm, but didn't have enough business to do so, and the owners did not have enough cash to stay open another month.
"A little shady"
Their farewell note read: "The condition of life in San Francisco has deteriorated and made running a small business nearly impossible."
Donohue said going home after work on nearby BART was not an option.
"It's just a little shady in the area, the streets are not clean on a regular basis. It's almost as if it's like a forgotten side of the city," Donohue added.
Donohue also said its location next to an empty building on 18th street wasn't enticing, though it is scheduled to become teacher housing in the future.
Two locations staying open
"I don't feel secure sometimes walking the streets," said one Mission resident.
The resident also added that he used to get on the hours long waitlist for gracias madre. He's lived in the neighborhood for 23 years.
"The street conditions in the Mission is very bad right now, at this moment, because not only the garbage, but the homeless, the drugs," the resident explained.
Fortunately, Gracias Madre still has two locations in Southern California that will stay open.
"When you're in this business, at this point, you have to figure out new ways to run it," Donohue stated.
