The team behind Ju-Ni has given up on its fun and seemingly popular sushi handroll concept at 18th and Guerrero, and the location will now become a second Hamburger Project.

Change is coming once again to 598 Guerrero. Talk of the persistent curse on the space seemed to subside after the solid eight-year run of Izakaya Yuzuki (2011-2019), but the next tenant, the much-buzzed-over AL's Deli from AL's Place chef Aaron London, only lasted eight months before London, presciently, closed the place ten days before pandemic lockdowns began in March 2020, citing a lack of sufficient customer volume.

After Handroll Project moved in in the spring of 2022, things also appeared promising, with the value proposition of high-quality sushi fish and other ingredients, sourced by the then-Michelin-starred Ju-Ni team. But employees there later told Eater (in a story pegged to Halloween season) that they sensed paranormal activity — like, a literal curse — in the space, and one employee spoke of seeing an actual apparition of some kind in the basement.

Still, Handroll Project lasted three years, but now that it's closed KQED is resurrecting the curse narrative and retelling the stories about the spooky history of the property — which include a psychic medium who resided there over a century ago, and a murder involving a chef at a former restaurant there, Platanos, though the murder actually took place blocks away at 22nd and Valencia.

Anyway, the same business owners, Tan Truong and chef Geoffrey Lee, are keeping the space and flipping it over to the presumably more profitable Hamburger Project, the smashburger venture they launched near Ju-Ni on Divisadero last winter. Eater reports that new signage has gone up at 598 Guerrero, but no official announcement has occurred.

Lee ostensibly stepped away from all three businesses in early January amid some drama involving a TikTok influencer who gave a middling review to Hamburger Project, and whom Lee subsequently attacked via social media over a period of weeks, leading to an online dustup. (Lee also claimed that his Instagram account had been hacked, and that many of the "weirder" messages following the initial dustup were not written by him.)

While Lee was still not part of day-to-day operations at Ju-Ni, Hamburger Project, or Handroll Project as of late February, according to Truong, Lee told Eater that he remained a silent partner in the restaurant group.

A similar incident played out in recent weeks involving the Hayes Valley restaurant formerly known as KIS Cafe, now Bosque. The restaurant closed last month after a dustup with a different TikTok influencer went viral, in which that influencer claimed she had been insulted and essentially kicked out of the restaurant by the chef because she didn't have enough followers and didn't seem to be a good fit for a "collab." It has since reopened under a new name.

The Hamburger Project Instagram account has still, curiously, not announced the new Mission location. The account's last post was eight weeks ago, announcing that it was extending hours to 10:30 pm. So, the opening date for this second location remains TBA.