One the oldest restaurants on SF’s Haight Street is closing its doors

Blue Front Cafe, a 62-year-old restaurant in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, is closing its doors for good. The closure was confirmed in an email sent to SFGATE by Hani Khoury, who co-owns the restaurant with his brother.

The cafe, located on Haight and Masonic, is among the oldest restaurants in the neighborhood. It was established in 1961, just a few years before hippies descended for the Summer of Love. The Khoury brothers acquired the restaurant in 1992 and operated it through its closure this year. A final date has not been set.

On a recent menu, the cafe offered espresso drinks and omelets alongside falafel wraps and shawarma plates.

In an email to SFGATE, Khoury said that the pandemic finished the restaurant. “Not enough business to even stay afloat,” he wrote. “We used to depend on corporate lunches to supplement our business income greatly but that part had diminished.”

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing signed on Dec. 26, Khoury reportedly declared $576,000 in liabilities against only $100,000 in assets.

Even before the pandemic, the business was struggling. In an interview with Hoodline in 2019, Khoury acknowledged that third-party delivery fees ate into the cafe’s revenues, and construction projects in the Haight pinched the flow of customers. 

Blue Front Cafe is the most recent in a series of restaurant closures in the Haight. Mi Familia, a Haight Street taqueria, closed in June, followed by VeganBurg, a Singaporean chain restaurant, which closed in October.

“We love our food and we proudly served our neighborhood for over 30 years but the pandemic killed us unfortunately,” Khoury said.