SF Mexican restaurant abruptly closes, blames city

One of San Francisco’s most famous vegan restaurants is no more. Gracias Madre, the 14-year-old Mexican restaurant at 2211 Mission Street, abruptly closed its doors on Sunday, as first reported by Mission Local. 

“It closed because of the economy and the state of the Mission,” general manager Joseph Donohue told SFGATE. “If you go over a block to Valencia it’s looks like it’s a completely different city … they’re paying attention to one area and forgetting about the other areas of the city, which is kind of upsetting.”

Gracais Madre never bounced back from the pandemic, he said, and they “needed to look at getting out while [they] were still on top.” 

Donohue said that the business was also hurt by its particular location — being next to an empty building for over a decade (the building at 2205 Mission Street is slated to become teacher housing by early next year) — and the fact that string lights installed by the city along Mission Street stopped on the other side of 18th Street from the restaurant. The lighting, in particular, made it look like there was “something wrong with the other side of the street,” Donohue said.

“We’ve got regular clients and customers that kept on saying it just seems too dangerous to come down here at night, and I don’t blame them,” Donohue said. “… This area would be great if the city would pay attention to what they’re doing.”

Gracias Madre created quite a buzz when the owners of celebrity-endorsed Café Gratitude first opened it in 2009, back when restaurants dedicated to vegan food were more novel. The restaurant served vegan versions of classic Mexican dishes, from enchiladas with potatoes, zucchini, mole and cashew cream to quesadillas with butternut squash and pumpkin seed salsa verde. 

Café Gratitude, meanwhile, crashed and burned: Owners Matthew and Terces Engelhart closed or sold all eight of their Bay Area Café Gratitude restaurants in 2011, which they attributed to lawsuits by employees alleging unpaid overtime wages and other labor violation. The couple were the subject of controversy once again in 2016 when it was revealed that the vegan restaurateurs were not only eating meat, but raising and slaughtering cows on their Vacaville farm. 

The Engelharts went on to open two more locations of Gracias Madre in West Hollywood and Newport Beach. Both Southern California locations remain open. 

“The condition of life in San Francisco has deteriorated and made running a small business nearly impossible,” read a note from the Engelharts on Gracias Madre’s website. “We thank all of those who worked beside us from the beginning until the end, your devotion will never be forgotten.”