Oh no! One of our favorite restaurants in town that we constantly recommend to people, Canteen (817 Sutter Street), is closing at the end of August, or by early September. The reason is that restaurateur Dennis Leary, who opened the tiny Lower Nob Hill restaurant in 2005 to much acclaim, is opening too many new restaurants.

As the Chronicle reported just before the holiday, Leary is busy preparing to open two new ventures, Cafe Terminus (10 California St.) down at the terminus of the California Street streetcar line, and Trocadero Club (701 Geary St.) by summer's end, and he's decided to call it quits at the 20-seat Canteen, where he's overseen a well-curated, French-influenced menu of San Francisco cuisine these last eight years. Leary also owns popular sandwich spot The Sentinel, the next-door bar House of Shields, and bakery/cafe The Golden West.

Canteen was once a popular brunch destination, but Leary pulled the plug on brunch last year in what he described as a "lifestyle decision." He further contracted the scope of the restaurant late last year by doing a single prix fixe each night based around the 1971 cookbook The Hundred Glories of French Cuisines, by Robert Courtine, which focuses on rustic, regional French dishes, though the quality and spirit of the food has remained mostly the same as in its heyday. Also, Leary killed off one of the most popular menu items earlier this year, the vanilla souffle. For most of its eight years the restaurant has remained on Michael Bauer's Top 100 list as well.

Leary says the restaurant is doing better than ever, however it's time to "walk off the stage."

Hopefully another talented chef will sieze on the opportunity to use this unique and cozy space, which was formerly a hotel coffeeshop attached to what is now an Academy of Art dorm. (The bathrooms remain through the lobby and down the hall.)

Or, just maybe, the outpouring of love from fans of this place in the next two months -- much like the outpouring that saved TV shows like Southland and Friday Night Lights -- will convince Leary to keep it open.

[Chron]