Popular San Francisco restaurant Gracias Madre closes blaming ‘nearly impossible’ business conditions in the Doom Loop city

San Francisco’s “doom loop” has claimed its latest victim after the doors closed on a pioneering vegan restaurant in the city’s crime-ridden Mission district.

Gracias Madre has clients such as the Duchess of Sussex, Natalie Portman and Liam Hemsworth at her West Hollywood branch.

But it shares its neighborhood in the Golden Gate city with an open-air drug market and hundreds of homeless people.

“Living conditions in San Francisco have deteriorated and have made running a small business almost impossible,” read a note posted to customers on the door.

“We have regular customers and customers who kept saying it just seems too dangerous to come here at night,” said manager Joseph Donohue. CBS“and I don’t blame them.”

Nordstrom became the latest big name to join the exodus this week when it closed the doors of its flagship store in the city’s Westfield Centre.

It joined dozens of others that have pulled the plug, including Whole Foods, Anthropologie, Old Navy, AmazonGo, Saks Off Fifth, and Office Depot.

Meanwhile, the remaining stores, such as Target, have been reduced to locking their entire inventory behind glass to deter shoplifters.

Opened in 2009, Gracias Madre serves “traditional Mexican fare made from scratch with local, organic, plant-based ingredients,” according to the website.

But a large building next door has been empty for ten years in a city where a third of the office space is now empty.

Ninety-five downtown San Francisco retailers have closed since the start of the COVID pandemic, a drop of more than 50 percent.

And of the 203 retailers that opened in the city’s Union Square area in 2019, only 107 are still operating, a 47 percent drop in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.

“Our mission has always been to honor the mothers who care so much about serving, nurturing and living in hope for their families, especially those of Mexico,” read the note left for customers.

“It has been an honor to work on behalf of their generosity and sacrifice all these years.”

Donohue blamed “economics” and “the state of the mission” for its closure.

“It’s just a bit shady in the area, the streets are not cleaned regularly,” he told SFGate.

“It almost seems like it’s a forgotten side of the city.

“This area would be great if the city paid attention to what they’re doing.”

He said people found it difficult to park in the area and “a bit too dangerous” to visit the restaurant after dark.

‘Because there was no place to park your car and when you parked your car you didn’t know if there would be a burglary or not.

“So many customers said they wouldn’t come at night,” he added.

In her Lower Haight neighborhood, restaurant owner Zahra Saleh has temporarily closed her business because she feels “violated” after seeing too many burglaries and shoplifting incidents in her area.

“My Lower Haight is sinking in a sea of ​​lawlessness,” wrote the owner of Café International.

“And the ship captains and politicians bicker among themselves, blaming each other as small businesses suffer.”

The city’s land use commissioner Alex Ludlum resigned this week with a scathing letter to Democratic mayor London Breed after he was accused of advertising a ‘Doom and Squalor’ tourist walk through the city’s devastated neighborhoods.

“I regret that my attempt to draw attention to the appalling street conditions and rampant crime in my neighborhood has been misinterpreted as a mockery of suffering individuals,” he wrote in his letter of resignation.

“As long as open-air drug markets continue their day-to-day operations, we will continue to witness the misery of suffering addicts, the withdrawal of pedestrians and office workers, the continued closures of small businesses, and the stagnation of our rich cultural life. .’