The Local Mission Eatery, one of three establishments owned by Yaron Milgrom, will close on Dec. 19, Milgrom announced in a press release Friday. Instead, Milgrom said, he and his partner will focus on their other two projects – Local Mission Market and Local Cellar.
The six-year-old Local Mission Eatery was Milgrom’s first project in the city and his second restaurant to close. He announced the closure of his other restaurant, Local’s Corner, in November of last year.
In Friday’s announcement, Milgrom said that lost income from Knead Patisserie, which shared the same space at 3111 24th St. until October, a drop in business, and competition from others meant they could no longer continue.
“[Our] bleating is lost in the din of restaurant openings and food delivery apps, of mail-order meal subscriptions and offices filled with free food. [Neither] San Francisco’s ‘stomach share’ (to use Michael Pollan’s phrase) nor its labor force has kept pace with new restaurants and the march of the aspiring unicorns of food-startups. And so, we cannot go on,” the announcement explained.
Milgrom declined to talk further about the closing.
“With a great lease, a beautiful and well-equipped space, with licenses and furniture, we are looking for a great buyer to take over our beloved space,” it continued.
The well-reviewed restaurant began as a sandwich shop that converted to a restaurant with communal dinners in the evenings and offered additional perks including cooking classes, a lending cookbook, and a reference library.
Early on in its nearly six years of business, Local Mission Eatery restructured into a more traditional restaurant.
The Eatery is also the second restaurant in the neighborhood to announce closure this month in part due to a shrinking labor force. Roosevelt Tamale Parlor also listed difficulty in finding labor as a reason for its closing.
Milgrom wrote:
In its remaining days, we hope Local Mission Eatery will be filled with the crush and thrill of a busy service, the quiet murmurs of delight as diners savor a bite of deliciousness, the trust as regulars set into their favored seat, the choreography of committed and happy employees engaged in meaningful labor. And on December 19, Jake and I will sit in the quiet of an empty restaurant, with a glass of wine, filled to overflowing with melancholy and old dreams and new visions and, I hope, the satisfaction of having done something real and important.
The real is often ephemeral. And so it is with Local Mission Eatery.
Finally! The one thing this gentleman failed to understand is that a place can’t alienate most of the neighborhood and then expect them to support him with their pocketbooks. And shame on Mission Local for not mentioning in its article that Mr. Milgrom alienated most Latinos in the neighborhood from the very beginning, from the unfortunate “Locals” branding in an era of gentrification, through failing to take any remedial action to remedy discrimination perceived by real locals, even refusing sensitivity training for himself and his staff, and so forth and so on and on. He hoisted himself on his own petard. The other ventures in his locals franchise no doubt will follow. He lost respect. We tried to explain it to him long before things blew up, yet it didn’t sink in. Sad really.
Bye Felitia.
This is the same guy, that didn’t want to serve people of color. or hire real locals. I’m glad he’s closing. His place didn’t fit in.
Glad to see bad bissness go
WIth the shortage of labor, maybe the city should enact some sort of homeless program to get homeless people working and off the street. The business would get a tax break for hiring homeless folks. It’s almost impossible to go from homeless to a working person without help. THis would be a transition faze for 6 months to a year giving these folks something to put on their resume to start them on a ladder of being self supportive. The businesses can promote the fact that they are trying to help get people off the streets. People like to frequnt businesses that give back to the community. Businesses get the cheap labor they need and homeless folks have a way to start them towards a better life.