15 long-lived Bay Area restaurants we said goodbye to in 2023

Say it ain't so, Anchor Brewing, KC's BBQ and more! These are the 15 Bay Area restaurants whose closures after 30 years -- 70 years, 127(!!!) years -- left us reeling. Plus the 3 reboots that gave us hope.

The Bay Area said farewell to many restaurants, brewers and bakeries in 2023.

The ones we pay tribute to here had been favorites for years, even generations. Some chefs and owners decided to retire or take a break. Others couldn’t weather the costs of doing business in this inflationary, post-pandemic era. Or ran up against redevelopment plans. Or, sadly, faced crime and safety issues in their neighborhood.

Here, in order of longevity, are 15 businesses that shut their doors after 30 years or more, plus a few revivals and reboots that we’re thrilled about. Let us know if we missed one of your favorites.

ANCHOR BREWING CO., San Francisco, 127 years

Anchor lives on in legend. Founded in 1896, the S.F. brewery was sold in 1965 to Fritz Maytag, who learned everything he could about steam beer and transformed this regional brewery into a national powerhouse. In the process, beer expert and Bay Area News Group columnist Jay Brooks writes, “Maytag launched a craft beer revolution.”

Anchor began bottling its version of pre-Prohibition steam beer in 1971, its first Porter in 1974 and its Liberty Ale in 1975, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride. It was also one of the first beers to use the popular Cascade hops. “By 1980, anyone interested in opening a microbrewery visited Anchor Brewery first,” Brooks says.

The end came this past July, six years after Sapporo bought Anchor, with competition keen and sales falling. Employees and others have launched attempts to buy the brand, but the liquidation process is still ongoing and is likely to take a significant amount of time.

FISHERMEN’S GROTTO No. 9 and TARANTINO’S, San Francisco, 88 years and 77 years

The pandemic sunk tourism to San Francisco’s iconic Fisherman’s Wharf, and since then, it’s been a rough road to recovery for the classic seafood restaurants.

The venerable Alioto’s made it to 97 years before closing in 2022. The year, Tarantino’s and Fishermen’s Grotto No. 9, both deeply in debt to their landlord, the Port of San Francisco, closed their doors. The Grotto had opened in 1935, and Tarantino’s had been around since 1946.

Not surprisingly, the view was the thing, overwhelming most memories of the food. “Looking for classic SF seafood wharf views? This is the spot to be!” customer Sabra wrote on social media in 2021. “Gorgeous views of the water, bridge and boats from almost any table with their floor-to-ceiling windows.”

MERRITT RESTAURANT & BAKERY, Oakland, 71 years

Established in 1952, this beloved Lake Merritt neighborhood bakery weathered many troubles, both financial and fiery, over the years before quietly disappearing this past spring, East Bay Nosh reported.

The diner-style restaurant famously served up waffles and fried chicken, while the bakery offered everything from chocolate chip cookies and croissants to wedding cakes. For years, it was open 24 hours.

Online, longtime customers lamented the loss. “Thank you for being the quintessential place to get fried chicken and strawberry shortcake in the Bay Area!!” Lindsay L. of Berkeley wrote on Yelp. And Lynnette F., who lives in Novato, remembers that her parents bought their wedding cake from Merritt and that she had purchased birthday cakes for her son over the years, including the amusingly decorated one shaped like a hamburger. “Like all good things, Merritt Bakery has come to an end,” she said.

KC’S BBQ, Berkeley, 55 years

The brisket. The ribs. Those hot links. Three generations of Davises have stoked the pit for KC’s, starting in 1968 with Vernell Davis, who passed the secrets of Kansas City barbecue down to son Patrick. After a devastating fire in 2017, they reopened in new digs on San Pablo Avenue, with granddaughter and co-owner Kristen carrying on the tradition.

A few years after their fresh start, the post-pandemic economy took its toll. “The brick-and-mortar is a monster!” Kristen told NBC Bay Area this past spring, when they closed the restaurant.

However, in an Instagram letter to the KC’s community, they said: “Don’t be sad for us! We are excited to get some much-needed rest before exploring new ventures and opportunities. We won’t be gone forever. Our legacy is too rich! Keep an eye out on our social media for what’s next.”

JADE PALACE, Newark, 53 years

Every day this month, there’s a get-together at Jade Palace, as the Lee family greets longtime customers and well-wishers before closing the old-school restaurant they’ve run for five decades.

Edwin Lee and wife Chui Ngan Lee opened the place in 1970 and were joined later by sons Phillip and Jimmy and daughter Susan. Customers would come from around the East Bay for their Cantonese fare and conviviality. “Beef and broccoli, sweet-and-sour pork, the chow mein — you know, what people really like,” Phillip Lee told reporter John Metcalfe in a Bay Area News Group interview this month.

It’s become a regular community meeting place. “This place has been like that our whole lives — the place to hang out,” Lee said. “Anytime someone comes in here, it’s like a reunion. We talk about what Newark was like back in the day.”

NORTH BEACH RESTAURANT, San Francisco, 53 years

For decades, owners Lorenzo Petroni and Bruno Orsi and their North Beach Restaurant held court in North Beach. Tourists would flock to this popular district, and the city’s movers and shakers converged here for pasta and deal-making.

But in recent years, the loss of vacationers and convention-goers has made it hard to hold the business together, son Leo Petroni told the San Francisco Chronicle, so he’s put the restaurant building up for sale and is hoping for better days ahead.

“I believe this is a great opportunity for a new generation of restaurateurs to make their impacts on this iconic neighborhood in a world-class city,” he said.

FISH MARKET, Palo Alto and San Mateo, 47 years 

The Fish Market era came to a close in the Bay Area in September. Almost 50 years after opening California’s first Fish Market restaurant in Palo Alto, then expanding throughout the South Bay and Peninsula, the company shuttered that original location and the San Mateo one. The reason? Redevelopment is in the works for both properties, company officials said.

But president Dwight Colton vowed to “preserve the memory of our founders – and the memories created by millions of guests over the years – by closing in a fashion that upholds the restaurant’s original integrity and vision.” And they did, offering plenty of advance notice so that customers could get in for not just one last meal, but many, and offered blast-from-the-past specials.

And on the final days, diners who came for their final goodbyes, seafood platters and bowls of chowder were able to leave clutching a souvenir, a special vintage menu reprinted to commemorate the restaurant.

POULET, Berkeley, 44 years

How many ways can you roast a chicken? Poulet, the deli in Berkeley’s gourmet gulch devoted to its namesake, demonstrated them all.

Back in 1979, Marilyn Rinzler was a Cal grad student trying to figure out how to feed her sons without being in the kitchen every night or resorting to fast food. “I was cooking chicken for them one day, and I had this idea: What Berkeley needed was a healthy takeout business featuring fresh chicken. And an idea was born,” she told Bay Area News Group columnist Martin Snapp in a 2018 interview.

She launched the unusual concept with recipes created by her and her business partner, the future sausage king Bruce Aidells, and ran the place until 2018, when she retired and sold to an employee. Poulet’s takeout meals were perfect for the pandemic, but the deli shut down in July of this year.

VUNG TAU, Milpitas and San Jose, 38 years

It isn’t over until the sign comes down, right? Alas, that’s not the case with Vung Tau, a downtown San Jose institution that opened by family matriarch Nhan Huynh and brother-in-law Dung Nguyen in 1985 and gained a loyal following among Vietnamese residents who longed for the authentic cuisine of their homeland and nearby students at San Jose State.

In two years, they went from a 13-table eatery to a larger space, the former home of the Harvest Inn diner, daughter Anne Le Ziblatt said. The sign on Santa Clara Street still offers an enticing reminder of the banh khot (shrimp-stuffed rice cakes), tamarind prawns and shaking beef served inside. But the family’s Vung Tau II in Milpitas has just closed and this location officially has too.

The legacy continues in Palo Alto, however, where chef-owner Tammy Huynh and co-owner Tanya Huynh present contemporary takes on Vietnamese cuisine at the fine-dining Tamarine, an art-filled space on University Avenue. That restaurant has now been in business for 21 years.

LE CHEVAL, Oakland, 38 years

When the month of September came to a close, so did Oakland’s legendary Le Cheval, a Vietnamese fine-dining institution for 38 years. Business was down sharply at the family-run restaurant at Tenth and Clay streets, according to Son Tran, and it wasn’t a post-pandemic problem of too many local employees still working from home.

“The lack of office workers did not kill us,” Tran told KPIX. “The crime, the criminals killed us.” The restaurant had been hit by burglars, he said, but the impact on customers has been worse, with car break-ins becoming routine.

According to Bay Area News Group archives, Le Cheval first opened in 1985 on Jefferson Street. The family had arrived in 1975 via an airlift from Vietnam, Son Tran said. Over the years, Oakland’s political and business elite charted the city’s future while dining on shrimp rolls, plates of lemongrass chicken and steaming bowls of soup. Jerry Brown made Le Cheval a regular destination when he was Oakland’s mayor, before his second stint as governor.

HO CHOW, Fremont, 36 years

A mainstay in Fremont’s Warm Springs district since 1987, Ho Chow delivered a white-tablecloth experience for business lunches and family dinners alike.

For many years, lunchtime at Ho Chow — an original tenant at the Galleria center — involved a scramble for parking and a rush to get a table, as spacious as the restaurant was. Many customers declared the honey walnut prawns the best they’d ever had, and the Mongolian beef and Chinese chicken salad always drew raves.

So popular was the restaurant that a separate takeout entrance had to be opened far from the main doors.

The end this year was quiet, with no formal announcements by the owners. A  new restaurant, Burma Bay Cafe, is now bringing new life to the space.

PASTA BENE, Berkeley/San Francisco, 33 years

Restaurateurs Farhad and Ladan Jalali are calling it a career. After serving affordable Italian fare to Cal students and other Berkeley neighbors for 13 years and San Francisco residents for 20 years before that, the couple has decided to retire. Their Pasta Bene restaurant on Telegraph Avenue closed for good Dec. 15.

Besides pasta, pizza, sandwiches and salad, Pasta Bene was known for the housemade focaccia served with every entree (“helps sop up the sauce,” they said on Facebook) and for the tiramisu.

In a farewell note, they thanked their dedicated staff, their customers, the Telegraph Avenue community and everyone from UC. “To our frequent patrons, whose names, favorite dishes and preferred tables we know, you brightened our place when you stepped inside.”

AND THE GLORIOUS REVIVALS …  

RICKEY’S SPORTS LOUNGE, San Leandro, 74 years the first time: The legendary Ricky’s sports bar in San Leandro reopened this year, three years after its beloved founder died, giving Raider Nation a home to call its own again. Customers had feared that the business, which Sports Illustrated had famously named the No. 2 sports bar in the nation, wouldn’t survive the death of owner Ricky Ricardo and the pandemic shutdown. But entrepreneur Ramonn Smith stepped in, bought and remodeled the place and renamed it Rickey’s Sports Lounge. What’s more, he has broadened the appeal, inviting fans of all sports and all teams, even the red and gold.

BUFFALO BILL’S, Hayward, 39 years the first time: The iconic brewpub closed last year, but reopened this August, this time in the hands of restaurateur Alejandro Gamarra, who runs several Mexican restaurants in Hayward. Original owner Bill Owens opened Buffalo Bill’s in 1983, just one year after then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 3610 into law, making it legal for breweries to sell beer directly to consumers. In 2017, one of Buffalo Bill’s tap handles was inducted into the Smithsonian American History Museum to represent the most historic brewpub in America.

FAULTLINE BREWERY, Sunnyvale, 29 years the first time: This was more of an overnight rebranding than a revival, but we want to pay tribute to the Faultline brewing legacy. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, the owners of the award-winning Faultline, the Bedrock Restaurant Group, which had purchased San Francisco’s Laughing Monk brewery, reopened the restaurant as Laughing Monk Brewing and Gastropub. Although the Faultline name was retired, four of the customers’ favorite beers — Kolsch, Redwood Ale, Hefe Weizen and Black Dragon Stout — will continue to be brewed and available in Sunnyvale.