Petit Crenn will close in September after a final few months of dinners, Portola gets a new cocktail bar and pizza spot, and Alora gets a Chronicle review.

In significant news for Hayes Valley, chef Dominique Crenn has announced that Petit Crenn will permanently close in September, when the current lease expires. Until then, there will be five months of dinners there and a chance for fans to say goodbye to the place, which opened in 2015 but has only been intermittently open since 2020. The casual cousin of Atelier Crenn began serving up rustic Breton-style cuisine, which as Crenn said was the food of her mother and grandmother, and the final round of prix fixe dinners will return to that concept. Prepaid reservations for May and June go up for grabs Friday morning, April 12, and will run you $210 per person including beverage pairings.

A new cocktail bar and pizza spot has opened in Portola called Out the Road. It's a new project from Southern Pacific Brewing and Sea Star founder Chris Lawrence, and as the Chronicle reports, it took over the space vacated by brewpub and brewing supply shop FDR (Ferment Drink Repeat) at 2636 San Bruno Avenue, which had established itself as a neighborhood hangout. Josh DeClercq, the current head chef at Heirloom Cafe, consulted on the menu, which features a fried chicken sandwich, falafel sandwiches, crisp-chewy pizzas, and a Bavarian bratwurst Reuben. And the 15 taps left behind by FDR feature craft beer, wine, and cocktails on tap, including a Paloma and a purple-ish vodka highball called Off the Record.

As we noted earlier this week, Minnie Bell's Soul Movement now has an opening date in the Fillmore, and it's next Friday, April 19. Chef Fernay McPherson, a third-generation Fillmore residents, has been operating Minnie Bell's at Emeryville's Public Market for over five years, and now her rosemary fried chicken and mac and cheese will be more readily available to SF diners.

In the legal battle between former business partners Anna Weinberg and Dave Stanton over money Stanton says is owed to him when he divested his share in Park Tavern, there has been a prejudgment decision this week that went against Weinberg. As the SF Businesss Times reports, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer Jr. affirmed the "probable validity" of Stanton's claims, which could potentially lead to Leo's Oyster Bar and Tosca Cafe being sold.

A new Asian-inspired sandwich spot called Izzy & Wooks has opened in the Metreon complex at 155 Fourth Street. It's a new concept from the family of restaurateurs behind Inay Filipino Kitchen, which also has a Metreon location, and who also opened SF's only Bonchon Korean Fried Chicken shop in the complex as well.

Also, Saluhall opened today at the IKEA-anchored shopping center on Market between 5th and 6th streets. The 200-seat food hall features an abundance of plant-based options, as well as two bars, an all-day bakery-restaurant, and a cooking school.

Over in Berkeley, the short-lived Elsie’s has already closed. This was the pivot to full-service dining by chef-owner Cash Caris, who had been running the popular pastrami spot Delirama in the space until February. Caris said on Instagram, in a post that has since been taken down, "It has become evident that the financial strain of running the restaurant has become insurmountable."

And for those who live or work in Mountain View, you'll be glad to know that a Slice House by Tony Gemignani will be bringing fresh pizza to the Village at San Antonio center, opening later this spring.

At the Chronicle, Associate Restaurant Critic Cesar Hernandez published a glowing review of Tacos Mama Cuca, which recently relocated from a sub-legal home-based operation to an above-board food truck parked at 9000 International Boulevard in Oakland. Owner Maria Marquez, Hernandez says, "is the Bay Area’s taco queen," and "even Los Angeles doesn't have Sonoran tacos this good." He's especially a fan of Marquez's smoky carne asada and tripas, her "best-in-class flour tortillas," and her extra-flavorful molcajete salsas.

And critic MacKenzie Chung Fegan reviewed Alora today, the new pan-Mediterranean restaurant from the Rooh team that opened in January. She describes the off-putting experience of the restaurant shutting off the music and bringing up the lights promptly at 9:58 pm, about nine minutes after dessert had landed at her table — an experience that reinforced the odd dissonance between the great food and the atmosphere they're cultivating there. "It’s all quite a shame because, given the talent in the kitchen, Alora could be a destination for serious diners instead of what it feels like currently — a clubby hotel bar, albeit one with a confusingly deft food program," Fegan writes.