The crab cocktail will flow again at Fisherman’s Wharf steak-and-seafood spot Castagnola’s, which has been closed since the pandemic and embroiled in a $1.1 million lawsuit over unpaid rent, but they’ve just settled that lawsuit.
We’ve lost a number of those old-style Fisherman’s Wharf seafood restaurants since the pandemic hit, because the sudden elimination of tourists (and a lack of local regulars patronizing the places) made those large-scale restaurants an untenable proposition. Among those that closed in 2020 and just never reopened was Castagnola’s on Jefferson Street, Fisherman’s Wharf’s oldest continually operating restaurant, which opened in 1916.
Many of those restaurant buildings along the Wharf are owned and leased by the Port of San Francisco, who offered rent deferral during the pandemic. Castagnola’s reportedly did not take the deal, and was sued by the Port for $300,000 of unpaid rent in September 2021. That saga just continued to get uglier, as Castagnola’s was then hit with another May 2023 lawsuit from Port seeking surrender of the premises and all back rent. The Port then filed an unlawful detainer and eviction case against Castagnola’s a year later.
But then this past June when the Port separately announced the demolition of the defunct restaurant Alioto’s to create a new Fisherman’s Wharf plaza, Port officials said Castagnola's would be reopening. That announcement indicated there might be a new operator taking over the space.
But we learned more on Tuesday at the SF Board of Supervisors' meeting, when the board unanimously approved a settlement deal with Castagnola’s. The approved deal allows Castagnola’s to settle their $1,123,884 back rent debt with just a $300,000 payment, but also requires the restaurant to pay “no less than $900,000 for physical improvements to the Premises.”
According to the details of the settlement, Castagnola’s has already paid $200,000 worth of the $300,000 settlement.
The full text of that settlement mentions longtime owners Kathrine Higdon and Cynthia Foxworth as being the parties involved, so apparently the new, reopened Castagnola’s will still be under the same owners and operators as before.
The Port of San Francisco apparently felt that settling for less money was simply their least-bad option. “Reopening Castagnola will provide activation of a long-standing vacant Fisherman’s Wharf property, solidify the perception that Fisherman’s Wharf is economically recovering, and reduce nuisance activities and security issues,” the SF Port Commission wrote after an April meeting. “Settling does not require Port to take on and manage another large, vacant restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf.”
But the rent debt kicks back in if the Castagnola’s location does not, in fact, reopen. The terms of the settlement demand that “Castagnola must reopen or cause the reopening of the Premises as a restaurant within three hundred sixty-five calendar days after the date this Agreement has been fully executed by Port."
That indicates some wiggle room that another operator could take over the space. And there has been a school of Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant openings hoping to capitalize on the rebound of SF tourism, like the Nation’s Giant Hamburgers that opened there this month, and the Everett & Jones BBQ spot coming in hopefully before the end of the year.
Image: Kim H via Yelp
