Another one of several splashy 2015 restaurant openings in the Mid-Market vicinity, Bon Marché, looks like it's not long for this world as we predicted just a few weeks ago. The high profile, cavernous French brasserie from the AQ team is now up for sale, as Eater first reported Thursday, and while the team is open to a partnership in which they remain involved, it's on the market as a turnkey restaurant and barely one year old at that.
Partner Matt Semmelhack, who recently completed a re-concepting of the former TBD as a Mexican grill called Fénix, tells Eater "We (and me personally) really want to see the neighborhood thrive and have a big stake in that. So, we are dedicated to making sure something good happens in the space, whether it's us or a new operator."
The restaurant, in the works for three years before its big 2015 opening, was well received for its food and its grand, Parisian marketplace interior, though it, like a few other restaurants in the Twitter 'hood, may have arrived just a year or so too late to capitalize on the free-flowing expense accounts of the tech boom, which was already showing signs of slowing by last year.
While Bon Marché remains open for now and fully operational, its potential closure would come on the heels of the recent, abrupt shutterings of Cadence across the street, and Oro late last month. Both restaurants had been open less than a year and were vying for similar SoMa and Mid-Market office workers and residents as clientele.
The listing for the 7,200-square-foot space includes the Type 75 liquor license, which allows it to operate its own brewery with brand new brewing equipment.
Semmelhack tells Inside Scoop that they would still consider splitting the space with a potential buyer and still operating in a smaller footprint, but that the restaurant is simply too large for them to continue to operate as-is.