Downtown fans of Eatsa, the quinoa-in-an-automated-drawer spot that opened its first location here in 2015, will be sad to learn that it sounds like it's gone for good.
The restaurant tried to expand a bit too rapidly after that first Rincon Center location, opening a second location at 1 California, another in Berkeley, and more in New York in D.C., most of which they shuttered in October 2017. And the one remaining location, the original at 121 Spear Street, closed "temporarily" in February. Now, as Eater reports, a notice posted this week at that location says that Eatsa’s owner, Keenwawa, Inc., had five days to pay the landlord more than $24,000 in back rent. Otherwise, the landlord, Hudson Pacific Properties, is planning to "initiate legal proceedings for unlawful detainer" to get back their money.
You may recall that Eatsa faced some legal trouble early on, with a lawsuit filed in early 2017 by national nonprofit Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) claiming that the restaurant unlawfully discriminated against the blind by requiring touch-pad ordering. The restaurant claimed that its on-site staffers were there to help with such things, and it's unclear how the suit was settled — Eater notes that Eatsa continues to license its technology to other businesses, including SF-based mac-and-cheese spot Mac'd.
Currently, the Eatsa website focuses on its software, and lists no physical locations.