Longtime downtown lunch and dinner hotspot Town Hall is closing after Halloween, and celebrity chef Tyler Florence will be taking it over and keeping the name.

As Tablehopper first reported Friday, the New Orleans-inflected SoMa restaurant, which first opened 20 years ago, is calling it quits. Chef-owners Mitchell and Steven Rosenthal and co-owner Bjorn Kock made an official announcement late last week, saying, "Town Hall has always been a joy for us, a place everyone could call home. While we’re sorry to see this chapter close, we leave with great pride in what we have accomplished."

The team adds that they're happy to be passing the name and legacy onto Tyler Florence, saying, "Florence’s approach for the evolution of Town Hall include[s] a refreshed menu, extended hours, and valet parking."

Town Hall's last day will be October 31, and reservations are still available.

The reopening of Town Hall is scheduled for "early 2024."

It's not clear if dishes like the fried chicken will remain — Florence also serves fried chicken at his FiDi restaurant Wayfare Tavern. But the menu will be changing.

Florence opened his second SF restaurant, the Chase Center steakhouse Miller & Lux, in the fall of 2021, with a swank design by Ken Fulk.

And just last month we learned that Florence and his restaurant group were taking over the two cafes on either side of Union Square, both of which will be called Miller & Lux Provisions.

Town Hall was for years a spot for SF politicos and business types to have power lunches, and the closure indicates that it has suffered like so many restaurants since the pandemic eased to recapture that customer base. The Town Hall empire at one point included two other downtown restaurants, Salt House and Anchor & Hope, both of which have closed.

Mitchell Rosenthal's cookbook, Cooking My Way Back Home: Recipes from San Francisco's Town Hall, Anchor & Hope, and Salt House, was published in 2011.

Photo via Town Hall.