Some will see this as worse than the closure of Macy’s, as the wildly affordable Financial District lunch and breakfast go-to Lee’s Deli has closed its last two remaining locations.

Yesterday’s announced closure the Union Square Macy’s was a gut-punch to the Union Square retail scene, as that store is arguably downtown’s anchor retail destination. But for people who work five days a week in the Financial District, the San Francisco Business Times’ report on the closure of the final two Lee’s Deli locations will hit even harder.

Lee’s Deli was a breakfast sandwich, lunch, and by-the-pound Chinese buffet option that has reliably been one of the most affordable quickie meal options in the Financial District for four decades. They'd grown to 10 FiDi locations before the pandemic, though that was whittled down to two as of early this year (280 Battery and 303 Second Street), and now there are none.

We should note that Lee’s Deli is not the same as the highly similar Lee’s Sandwiches, a chain which still has an SF location at 625 Larkin Street, and kept expanding with two new South Bay locations in early 2023.  

Lee’s Deli has been around since 1983. It’s owned by an actual Lee, Lee Quan, who is now nearly 80 years old, and had hoped to hand the business down to his children.

"I wondered to myself, if Starbucks is leaving the Financial District, if McDonald's leaves, if Walgreens and CVS is going, what is that telling me? How can I survive?" Quan told the SF Business Times.

Quan also blames the San Francisco minimum wage law (currently $18.07) for the shop's closure.

But it’s not difficult to see that downtown’s lingering office vacancy rate and switch to remote work has eliminated the bread-and-butter of the FiDi lunch-break demographic on which Lee’s Deli was wholly dependent.

As the SF Business Times notes, with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday being the only strong business days downtown thanks to hybrid-remote work, Lee’s Deli was effectively relying on 12 days of revenue to cover a month's worth of operational costs and business expenses. And that wasn't cutting it for the sandwich shops.

Related: FiDi 24-Hour Fitness and McDonald’s Both Announce Closures Amidst Record Office Vacancy [SFist]

Image: Lee’s Deli via Facebook

A sinkhole appeared Tuesday evening along the California Street cable car tracks, near the intersection of Montgomery Street, but the situation appears resolved as of Wednesday morning.

With heavy rain, sometimes we have sinkholes, and a modest-sized one appeared Tuesday — actually two adjacent sinkholes appeared — along the cable car tracks at California and Montgomery streets around 7 p.m.

The sinkhole situation led to the suspension of California Street cable car service on Tuesday night, but the SFMTA said service was restored as of Wednesday morning.

Authorities said that a pipe beneath the area where the sinkholes appeared had been isolated and shut down, but the exact cause remains unclear. Crews worked to fill the holes, and apparently things have stabilized?

The initial sinkhole was estimated to be about four feet by four feet, and three feet deep, as KTVU reported.

A Department of Public Works crew arrived to address the underlying pipe problem, and according to KTVU it had been "gushing" water into the sinkhole before being shut off — suggesting this incident was not rain-related.

A motorcyclist was among the first to find the sinkhole, hitting it and crashing around 6:57 p.m. Tuesday.

Per KTVU, the motorcyclist, Arwi Odense, was briefly hospitalized but later returned to the scene with his wife to retrieve his motorcycle.

"You couldn't tell if there was anything there at all," Odense tells KTVU. "It felt as if somebody had like kicked my feet underneath me. Before I knew it, I was on the ground."

Below, some cool video of a cable car slowly making its way past the sinkhole, amid steam rising from the street.

Get your dirndl and lederhosen on as the oldest German restaurant on the west coast, Schroeder’s in the Financial District, is throwing a massive party for its 130th birthday Friday, with beer hall games, drink specials, and live music from Jazz Mafia instead of polka.

The Front and Sacramento Streets German beer hall Schroeder’s has been known for decades for its St. Patrick’s Day block parties and its outdoor Oktoberfest bashes. Both of those parties are still on (or already happened) in 2023. But since this year represents Schroeder’s 130th anniversary, the German restaurant and bar is also throwing a Schroeder’s 130th Birthday Celebration on Friday, June 9 (3 p.m.-10 p.m., RSVP encouraged), with costume contests, beer hall games, drink specials, live music, and a free beer boot glass if you’re lucky enough to arrive while supplies last.

“As the oldest German restaurant on the West Coast, we’re excited to celebrate 130 years of the heritage and the culture it has brought to the Bay Area,” Schroeder’s owners Andrew Chun and Jan Wiginton said in a statement to SFist. “Schroeder’s has a long history in San Francisco and we’re proud to continue keeping the steins cold and the schnitzel hot for our guests by honoring the anniversary all year long.”

The party promotions sound like a hoot. According to a press release, “The first 130 people through the door will receive a complimentary Schroeder’s boot ready to be filled with their beer of choice.” Trumer Pils will be etching personalized glasses while those supplies last, and East Brother Beer Company will hand out schwag bags until they’re gone.

The big brass horns of Jazz Mafia will be on hand for live music, and DJ Jerry Ross will work the decks. And as Schroeder’s often does at their big celebrations, they’ll have contests and beer hall games in categories like beer chugging, endurance stein-holding, and best costume competitions.

Drink specials will include Schroeder’s 130th Anniversary German Pilsner, and a “Schroeder’s Mule” (Jägermeister, ginger beer, and a lime). They’ll be serving their traditional favorites like a giant Bavarian pretzel with bourbon mustard and beer cheese, schnitzel sandwiches, pork frankfurter corndogs, and of course German meatballs. And for the plant-based crowd, Schroeder’s does in fact serve a Beyond bratwurst with sauerkraut.

Schroeder’s 130th Birthday Celebration is Friday, June 9, 3-10 p.m. 240 Front Street (at Sacramento Street. RSVP Recommended.

Related: 7 Mile House Celebrates Its 165th Anniversary On Saturday [SFist]

Images: Decanteur Media

It’s unclear whether Wayfare Tavern is moving, or if they’re just opening a second space, but Food Network personality Tyler Florence is the latest to make a big new bet on downtown with reported plans for a new Wayfare Tavern location at Pine and Battery Streets.

Frequent TV chef and one-time Sammy Hagar restaurant collaborator Tyler Florence’s SF flagship Wayfare Tavern opened in the former Rubicon space nearly 13 years ago. More recently, Florence added the Chase Center-adjacent steakhouse Miller & Lux in September 2021. But now we get the news that Florence's  upscale American food spot Wayfare Tavern is either moving or expanding, as the SF Business Times reports that Wayfare Tavern has submitted plans to open a spot at 201 Pine Street.

The permits Wayfare Tavern submitted apply to the property that is the recently closed Tunisian restaurant Dar Fatma, which was not even open for a year, and an adjacent GNC store which closed sometime during the pandemic.  

The Business Times also adds that “It's unclear if this means Wayfare's time on Sacramento Street — in a picturesque spot looking directly up at the Transamerica Building via skylight — is nearing an end or if Pine Street will be a second location in the Financial District.”

The permit requests are in process at the SF Planning Department, and in terms of renovations, this is not transforming the building significantly.  “The scope of the project involves exterior work for a new restaurant to be located at the first, second, and basement levels of a six-story building. The work includes new entry doors in the existing locations, new awnings along the Pine Street elevation, and new exhaust louvers in the transom window area.”

But from a downtown culture and vibrancy standpoint, this is huge. They will  apparently be adding a duplicate of Wayfare Tavern’s penthouse space The Sequoia into what was the GNC store. According to the Business Times, “Plans are to convert the second-floor office level to retail, expanding the restaurant space by about 4,355 square feet, per planning documents, and reducing the office load to about 18,000 square feet. The proposal features outdoor dining under retractable awnings along Pine Street, a bar and ‘Sequoia Rooms’ in the former GNC space."

Again, we still don’t know if Wayfare Tavern is just moving, or truly expanding. But it’s yet another example of people with skin in the game betting big on a downtown SF recovery, just like with the $250 million Michael Shvo Transamerica Pyramid renovation (with a ritzy private club), and the folks from Bourbon & Branch planning a new high-end speakeasy a few blocks away on Market Street.

Related: Tyler Florence Opens High-End Steakhouse at Chase Center, Designed By Ken Fulk [SFist]

Image: Google Street View

Moving in on the former Shorty Goldstein's digs at 126 Sutter Street, as we first learned about in March, is The Meatball Bar, and that name should say it all. Not surprisingly, there was already a line for tables according to one early Yelper who hit up the soft opening over the weekend, and who raved about all the meatball varieties on offer.

As we heard when the project was first announced, The Meatball Bar is a spinoff of Peninsula-based Neapolitan pizzeria mini-chain Doppio Zero, and a partnership between owners Gianni Chiloiro and Angelo Sannino, who had apparently been looking for space in SF for a while.

It's a counter-service operation with about 25 seats, offering not just your standard Italian meatballs and marinara, but also lamb meatballs, pork meatballs, chicken balls, turkey balls, shrimp balls, and vegetarian options like eggplant-parmesan balls, all with a variety of sauce choices including pineapple BBQ, Korean, truffle fondue, mint pesto, and mushroom demi-glaze. There are also sides on the menu (mostly visible here and not yet on their website) like mashed potatoes, spaghetti, and braised greens in garlic. Pricing looks to be $13 to $14 for four meatballs with a side, or $8 to $9 for just the meatballs. There are also several salad options available for $12 with optional balls added for $3 apiece.

Hoodline reports that the soft opening is complete and the place is now open every weekday starting at 10:30 a.m.

The Meatball Bar - 126 Sutter Street between Montgomery and Kearny - Open Monday to Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Future Bars group, a team of cocktail bar trendsetters with ventures like Tradition, Bourbon and Branch, and Local Addition, are resurrecting the gay dive bar of yesteryear Ginger's Trois, which once stood in the space now occupied by their bar Rickhouse. Ginger's Trois was the third in a line of bars owned by Don Rogers and named for the actress with whom he shared a last name. It closed in 2009, but now it's back, as the Rickhouse staff teased on their Facebook page.

Eater dug in for some details on Ginger's Trois, reporting that the new incarnation of the bar — Ginger's Quatre? — is located in a space the Future Bars team has been using for prep. The Ginger's entrance is on Hardie Place rather than 246 Kearny Street, and so far, hours are Thursday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to last call.

Don Rogers opened the OG Ginger's at 100 Eddy in 1978, where it lasted into the late '80s. In the meantime, it spawned a sister bar, Ginger's Too, on 43 6th Street, then Ginger's Trois on Kearny in 1991. According to a remembrance in the Bay Area Reporter, the late columnist Richard "Sweet Lips" Waters christened Ginger's Trois "an inexpensive bar for people with money," a motto the bar adopted.

By 2017 standards at least, the new Ginger's could be worthy of that old nickname. Most cocktails look to be around $9. Rickhouse has had a a cocktail named for Ginger's Trois on its menu for some time, and now Ginger's Trois' menu features drinks named for more former gay bars like Esta Noche, Deco Lounge, and the Lexington.

A post shared by Andy (@knucklesamwick) on May 3, 2017 at 7:05pm PDT

This isn't the first time Future Bars has delivered a surprise opening, waiting to share details of their projects with the public until a bar was nearly complete. Their downtown tiki bar, Pagan Idol, opened in a flash that felt like the food world equivalent of a surprise album.

SFist has reached out to Future Bars for more info on Ginger's Trois and will update this post when they tell us more.

Related: Behold: A Map Of San Francisco's Lost Gay Bars

California's Red Light Abatement Law, a classic early 1900s vice law, has been used as recently as 2015 to shut down illegal gambling dens, but it's been a long time since the City of San Francisco has filed a civil suit under violation of that law to shutter a place of alleged prostitution. Yet tactics old and new are needed to put a halt to one pernicious alleged brothel, according to the office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

According to the complaint filed by Herrera's office, Queen's Health Center at 325 Kearny Street "is a massage parlor brothel operated by the defendants under the guise of a legitimate massage establishment." There, since April 2010 and despite numerous health code violations, the defendants have regularly solicited prostitution online and in advertisements from backpage.com to SF Weekly, Herrera contends. Numerous undercover officers have interviewed clients who claimed they sought sex at the establishment and some officers further claim that they were solicited for sex themselves, according to the complaint.

“Massage parlors operating as fronts for prostitution are a blight on our neighborhoods and put women and the community at risk,” Herrera said according to a press release. “Queen's Health Center is one of the worst offenders. Over the years, city agencies have found multiple violations, issued fines and even suspended its business permit. But the business owner, Jie Qin Zhou, has repeatedly come up with new ways to hide and flout the law. No more. "

According to the Examiner's coverage, from 2008 to 2013 the Department of Public Health revoked 73 permits against similar operations — massage parlors operating as brothels — but 45 of them reopened. So to target the alleged repeat offender, Herrera's suit takes aim at both the business owner, Jie Qin Zhou, and the Kearny Street building’s owner, Frank B. Iavarone.

This tactic, according to City Attorney Herrera, "puts property owners on notice that they have a responsibility to ensure their commercial tenants are not exploiting women.... I want to be clear: This lawsuit takes on the business owner and the property owner—the people who profit off the exploitation of women.

Herrera's motion calls for a civil injunction: The business would have to vacate the space for a year, sell its fixtures and movable property at an auction and give the money to the city to fund enforcement, and levy penalties against the property owner and the business owner. Those would be up to $25,000 for allowing prostitution to occur on the premises, at least $200 for each day in violation of the Planning Code, and finally, $2,500 for each unlawful business act.

That's a lot more than the $320 a San Francisco police officer was quoted for "group sex" with masseuses when he entered the premises undercover. According to the complaint, investigators found masseuses wearing lingerie at Queen's on several occasions, found more lingerie and sex paraphernalia on site, and even discovered one masseuse naked in a massage room with her client. Yelp reviews allude variously to the legal and allegedly illegal activities at Queen's Health Center, with one Yelper in 2012 claiming that a "code word" was "boom boom."

“Women who work in massage parlors must be protected against coercion and exploitation,” San Francisco Director of Health Barbara Garcia said according to the release regarding the City Attorney's motion for a civil injunction. “I'm proud of our health inspectors and their dedication to protect these workers, in partnership with law enforcement.”

Related: East Bay Man Arrested On Suspicion Of Sex Trafficking After Luring Women To Fake Fitness/Modeling Agency

SUTTER SANSOME UPDATE 3 critical adults VEH into pedestrians AVOID AREA pic.twitter.com/YmpCx6sYVg

— San Francisco Fire (@sffdpio) August 23, 2016

Market Street was blocked off with firetrucks and ambulances today following an afternoon crash that left three adults seriously injured. According to the Chronicle, the crash occurred around 3:29 p.m. as the driver hit a newsstand and a streetlight before crashing into two pedestrians.

The San Francisco Fire Department tweeted out that the collision took place at the intersection of Sansome and Sutter, and the paper confirms that a Yellow Cab driver, without passengers, lost control of the vehicle sending it flying over a curb and into a shoe-shine stand and a newsstand kiosk.

“I had just come out of the building over here, and was gonna cross the street and heard what sounded like an explosion,” witness Tom Booher told KRON4. “I looked up and there were pieces of stuff flying everywhere right where the shoeshine guy’s stand used to be and the restroom that was over there. I mean, there was no skidding, it didn’t sound like there was any brakes, it was just — it did sound like an explosion.”

The three injured include the driver of the taxi, and two workers at the shoe-shine stand. A 40-year-old man is in critical condition, and a 59-year-old and 66-year-old are listed in fair condition. It is not clear at this time which of the three was the driver.

According to SFFD, the injured were transported to SF General, and the scene was being investigated.

This post has been updated.

The second San Francisco Eatsa, which is less like a restaurant and more like an Amazon Locker for quinoa bowls, is set to open next week in that land of the quick lunch, the Financial District.

Okay, the format won't be unfamiliar for Europeans (or people who were in New York in the 1950s) with their automats, but Americans can be forgiven their befuddlement. The idea is this: Order on an iPad and then receive your bowl through a hole in the wall as it's placed in a mailbox kind of thing for you to grab and go.

Our Angeleno counterparts at LAist had the news that Eatsa was opening in LA in December, so this marks their third location overall. Inside Scoop reported the news of Eatsa's imminent expansion from Spear Street to, now California and Market in the One California building, which SFist had heard was coming back in November, but without a clear opening date.

With a full menu of $7 vegetarian quinoa bowls like a "burrito bowl" and a teriyaki "bento bowl," Eatsa has been a novel hit among diners who prefer the digital ordering an cubby-collection process, which the eatery says cuts costs, to speaking aloud with humans. But hey, plenty of skeptics have been surprised by the quality and overall experience at Eatsa, so perhaps it's best to reserve judgement until you've given it a try — as San Francisco's FiDi workers can starting next Thursday. If you're really in a hurry, give their mobile app a try — you were waiting for that, weren't you.

Eatsa - One California Street, Monday-Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

A man who police say is responsible for at least ten recent bank robberies in San Francisco is behind bars today, after a monthlong investigation into a Thanksgiving-week credit union heist.

According to San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza, 38-year-old Frederick Black is allegedly behind "multiple bank robberies in the city," the majority of which took place in the Financial District.

Police first got on Black's tail after he allegedly knocked off an SF credit union on November 26. A month later, on December 27, police managed to track Black down in "the Mid Market area," and arrested him for outstanding warrants and the credit union job, Esparza says.

After what Esparza describes as a "diligent investigation," SFPD connected Black to ten heists, for which Esparza says Black has also been charged. (We don't have a booking photo of Black to show you yet, as Esparza says that there are still "identification pending matters".)

Police aren't done with this case yet: Esparza says that the investigation still is ongoing, and asks anyone with information on this series of bank robberies to contact SFPD investigators anonymously at 415-575-4444 or to text-a-tip to TIP411 with SFPD at the start of the message.

The San Francisco Police Department has determined that two suspicious deaths discovered on Monday are indeed homicides, making them San Francisco's 37th and 38th slayings of 2014. In one case, details are still sketchy. In another, a homeless man was killed in a beating that has left even seasoned law enforcement officers shocked and angry.

According to SFPD spokesperson Officer Albie Esparza, a 67-year-old homeless man named Tai Lam was sleeping in an alley near Montgomery and Sutter Streets when a group of three suspects beat him to death.

According to Esparza, Lam was not robbed, and police believe the attack was unprovoked. His body was discovered, still in his sleeping bag, at 7:30 Monday morning.

"It's a vicious crime," Esparza said.

"People should be outraged that this homeless person was attacked unprovoked and essentially beaten to death."

Esparza says that police are already reviewing surveillance footage, and asks that anyone in the area who might have cameras that caught the suspects on tape to alert the police.

According to Esparza, based on the surveillance footage, police should be ready to release a description of the suspects shortly.

Then, at 2:37 Monday, 63-year-old San Francisco resident Gary Mulhearn was found dead inside a home on the first block of Essex Street, which is between First and Second Streets in SoMa.

Neither police nor the medical examiner would elaborate on Mulhearn's cause of death at publication time, saying only that it was "being investigated as a homicide." Unless the ME reverses their decision on Mulhearn's death, his will be San Francisco's 38th homicide of 2014.

As always, the San Francisco Police Department is eager for the public's assistance in both investigations. Anyone with information on either slaying can contact the SFPD anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444 or send a tip by text message to TIP411 with "SFPD" in the message.

couple photos of that car that broke the guy's fall on Montgomery & California in FIDI. that car saved his life. pic.twitter.com/SDOKOb2z0C

— Chuck Reynolds (@ChuckReynolds) November 21, 2014

A window washer who fell from the roof of an 11-story Financial District building was is in critical but stable condition Friday, perhaps saved by the moving car on which he landed.

KCBS reports that the man fell from the Sterling Bank & Trust building at California and Montgomery Streets at 10:03 Friday morning.

They report that the man and his colleague were "adjusting their cables from the roof while their working platform lay on the ground," when the man apparently lost his balance and fell.

The man fell onto a Toyota Camry that was approaching the intersection, Bay City News reports via the Ex.

BCN reports that Bianca Bahman, 31, a pre-med student at SF State was passing by when the man fell. She says that "the car's roof caved in and there was blood everywhere" as the man landed on the vehicle.

A witness tells KCBS that “I was actually looking in the direction of where the fellow fell off the building and I saw something blue out of the corner of my eye falling and then I heard the loud thud and the shattering of the back of the car.”

About 20 passers by, including Bahman, rushed to the man's aid, while others began to direct traffic around the scene, KCBS reports.

“Everyone did the right thing, we didn’t disrupt the integrity of the spinal cord. We covered him with clothing. He was obviously in shock,” the witness said.

Remarkably, San Francisco Police Department spokesperson Sergeant Danielle Newman says, the driver of the Camry and the many pedestrians in the area all escaped injury in the incident.

The man, who is described thus far only as "middle-aged," was rushed to San Francisco General Hospital. At publication time, he remains in critical but stable condition.

San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection is investigating after construction workers demolishing a Pine Street building sent debris onto the sidewalk and into a lane of traffic.

The empty building, located between 435 and 471 Pine Street, which is near Montgomery Street, was undergoing a planned demolition at around 8:20 this morning when, as KRON4 reports, a backhoe pushing at the top of the structure's facade sent almost the entire building crumbling down. You can see the mess in the video below.

The debris pile extended past the sidewalk and into the street, CBS5 says.

Amazingly, no one appears to have been hit by fragments of the collapsing building because, KTVU says, the Columbus Day holiday means fewer Financial District businesses were open today, so there weren't many folks on the street.

DBI and California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration are both looking into the collapse.

Workshop Cafe (180 Montgomery Street) just became the first place in the city to have a BTM or Bitcoin Teller Machine on premises. The machine actually allows owners of bitcoin to convert the electronic currency to cash, and Workshop Cafe and the company BitAccess had an unveiling event on Friday. Bitcoin Magazine (yes, it exists) says, "The launch of this BTM is a big deal for San Francisco but also for Bitcoin as a whole."

In addition to exchanging Bitcoin for cash, you can also purchase Bitcoin with dollars of your own using the machine.

There's a transaction limit of 1 BTC, which is currently worth $476 USD, but repeated use can change this limit.

Here's how it works.

Upon first approach, the large and beautiful screen displays the current USD/BTC price along with some language options (English and French, at the moment). The very next screen is a disclaimer that the BTM is still a product that is in development which the user must accept before moving on...

Phone number verification with code [gets] sent via SMS ... New users begin with a transaction limit of 1BTC, or the current equivalent amount in USD, and the BTM comes equipped with additional verification options to raise that limit, including facial photography in combination with a photo ID scan. Frequent users will see a decrease in their transaction limit over time, if additional verification is not supplied.

Way to go, nerds! Too bad that @SFHiddenBitcoin seems to have tapered off.

[Bitcoin Magazine]

Previously: @SFHiddenBitcoin Is @HiddenCash For Nerds