After 28 years, the beloved live music venue Bissap Baobab at Mission and 18th streets will have its last day on Dec. 28, according to the restaurant’s social media page.
“Let us be clear: Baobab is NOT done. We are actively looking for a new home. The Baobab bends, but it never breaks,” owner Marco Senghor wrote in the Instagram post, adding that closing the Mission Street location has been an incredibly emotional decision.
“Sustaining such a large space has become too difficult in these times,” wrote Senghor.
“These walls have witnessed weddings, birthdays, revolutions, breakups, makeups, miracles, and thousands of nights where cultures blended like spices in a Ceebu Jen pot,” he added, referring to Senegal’s famous one-pot dish that usually contains rice, fish and vegetables.
The owners are inviting the community to a farewell party on Dec. 20 while they continue to search for a new location for Bissap Baobab. They will also host Baobab Flying Night on Saturdays at Muddy Waters Coffee & Lounge at Valencia and 16th streets.
A registered legacy business that started in the 1990s from a small catering kitchen on 19th Street, Bissap Baobab has faced battle after battle in the past decade while offering West African dishes and dance performances to a diverse crowd.
The Bissap Baobab on 19th Street was briefly sold during Senghor’s legal battle with the federal government in 2018 and 2019, when he avoided a 10-year federal prison sentence for obtaining citizenship through a fraudulent marriage. He ultimately received one year of probation and a $1,000 fine.
After a few years running Little Baobab, in 2022 Senghor moved the restaurant to a much larger space at 2243 Mission St., reopening it as Bissap Baobab.
The dance hall regularly received noise complaints from its neighbors, though Senghor complied with the Entertainment Commission’s rules and even spent $80,000 on soundproofing.
“To our neighbors, thank you for reminding us that joy sometimes comes with a decibel limit,” Bissap Baobab posted on Instagram today.
Following an appeal from neighbors, Bissap Baobab endured a grueling 10-month ordeal before finally getting its license in mid-2023 to serve beer and wine. That process usually takes 60 days.
That same year, the dance hall also spent months obtaining a full liquor license. Senghor said at the time that during its first year at the new location, he had lost managers and employees and struggled to attract enough customers due to the lack of hard liquor.
He was already on the verge of handing the keys back to his landlord when the license finally came through.
“We are searching, listening, and trusting that the Universe is already whispering our next address,” Senghor wrote today. “Wherever we land, the drums will follow, and so will the Ceebu Jen.”
The neighbors that complained moved to a condo on Mission Street, then complained that it’s not silent at night. Incredibly entitled to expect to move to a commercial street and then expect the thriving bars and restaurants on the street to cater to you. Noisiness is the price you pay for living above all the best bars and restaurants in the city. If you don’t want that, then you should move a few blocks away to a residential street.
100% this. These people bring suburban lifestyles and judgement to an urban area. And the result is a neighborhood that is less interesting and more lame.
This place has been a one of a kind institution over the last two decades.
Yes and no. If you live on Mission Street then you expect some traffic noise, especially during the day.
You don’t expect amplified dance music and a thumping bass at 1 a.m.
There is a reason nearly all of the city’s nightclubs are in the industrial area of SOMA. You can make all the noise you like there and nobody’s sleep is disturbed.
Bummer – the Mission seems to be losing all of its interesting places. In unrelated news there are open air markets down the street. I can’t imagine any new tenant leasing that space anytime soon. Another vacant storefront 😔
Yep! It’s becoming like that Bob Dylan song- Desolation Row.
So Sad, Too Bad, but it was the same Yuppie types,and gentrifiers that moved into the South of Market, during the 90’s and ruined the music scene there, by continuing to complain about the noise, so that scene moved to Oakland. The woman, that owns the Marsh, in the Mission, saw the handwriting on the wall, and got that area zoned, to prevent the same thing happening to that venue. I guess the complainers that live near B.B would rather hear, gun shots, than music.
One factor you did not mention is that they had some ongoing battles with their residential neighbors. It was unfortunate that a place that attracted a noisy late-night crowd was smack next to peoples’ homes.
This came to a head when they were trying to get that hard liquor license. I said at the time that they would probably be better suited to a different location
No one can rightfully expect to live at Mission and 18th and have silence at night. I live in that area. Of course it’s loud! It’s a commercial street full of bars and restaurants! If you expect silence at night, move a few blocks away to a residential area.
So, they would rather listen, to gun shots, and crack heads shouting at each other? Saw the same thing happen to the South of Market area,which was mostly ware houses and night clubs, then the gentrifiers moved in and started to complain about the noise and that was the end of that music scene.