MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: ‘Don’t invest in San Francisco, because you won’t make it:’ Facing closure, chef unloads on city.
When it comes to choosing where to operate a business, location is often the most important criterion. But if you ask chef Peter Hemsley of upscale seafood restaurant Aphotic, it is beyond that in San Francisco. Just 19 months ago, the chef opened Aphotic in a cavernous, inky black space near the intersection of Folsom and Third streets in SoMa. By the end of the year, it will be closed.
Hemsley is adamant that it wasn’t the food or even the $215 price tag on the 11-course tasting menu that caused the restaurant to fold. He blames the city.
“If I could have found a better location, I would have,” Hemsley told The Standard. “But it’s expensive and hard, and, for those who can’t, the lesson is: Don’t invest in San Francisco, because you won’t make it.”
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In the Instagram post, Hemsley expressed in candid terms exactly why he decided to throw in the towel. On top of industry-wide issues, including the rising price of ingredients and labor, Hemsley called Aphotic’s location on the southwest side of the Moscone Center the “ugly butt end of a desolate convention center suck hole” — a juicy quote that understandably showed up in headlines.
Hemsley told The Standard he saw the writing on the wall in recent weeks. It’d been a slow spring and summer, but as the usually busy fall season set in, reservations weren’t picking up. “I knew that forecasting into the spring and summer of yet another year, it probably wasn’t going to work and that this was the time to call it,” he said.
It’d be easy to write off Hemsley as bitter. But there is evidence to back up his experience. Tourism industry experts confirmed last month that 2024 has been a big letdown for San Francisco. This year, the Moscone Center will host just 25 events, down from 34 in 2023. Matters are on track to improve only marginally in 2025.
High-spending international tourists, the kind who might have splurged on a fancy dinner at Aphotic, haven’t returned to the city. Hemsley points out that he’s not the first to note the impossibility of keeping a restaurant alive in SoMa these days — even at a more approachable price point.
It really is a doom loop — the more the negative headlines keep piling up about Frisco, the less tourists want to visit, and the more the city contracts.
Exit quote:
I asked Hemsley what he thinks the city could be doing to support small-business owners. “No city official ever reached out to us to see how we were doing or to congratulate us or to let us know what their plans were or any multitude of things that they could do to help out small businesses,” Hemsley said. “So I think that lets you know about the mindset of the city.”
Well to be fair, SF politicians have much more important priorities these days than keeping their city’s businesses alive and tourists flying, bringing their disposable income with them:
● San Francisco Auditing 98 Monuments to Remove Those Deemed ‘Racist or Sexist’.
● San Francisco Flew ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Flag Until Saturday.
● San Francisco Spends $5 Million of Taxpayer Money to Give Free Beer and Vodka Shots to Homeless.
● San Francisco Mayor Appoints Drag Queen to Head Office of Transgender Initiatives.
● San Francisco’s Train System is Still Running on Floppy Disks.
● San Francisco officials weigh in on departure of Elon Musk’s X headquarters: ‘Good riddance.’
How many more businesses whose departures will be met by San Fran officials responding with some variation of “good riddance” before voters decide enough is enough? Or as America’s Newspaper of Record reports: Robbers Announce They Will Have To Leave San Francisco Because Everything’s Been Robbed.