once had 16 locations in and around San Francisco. Twelve of those locations were in the city’s Financial district just a few years ago, but the final two restaurants just closed for good.
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has been the disease for us and we tried to open six to eight stores in the beginning in 2021, and it was ugly. There was just nobody around – we can’t do business,” said owner Lee Quan.
And while some people have come back to work, Quan, who started and ran Lee’s Deli, says, those customers are mainly there just three days a week. For a breakfast and lunch restaurant in or near San Francisco’s Financial District, he says that doesn’t pay the bills.
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Lee points to inflation, the multiple minimum wage hikes in recent years in San Francisco, and a lack of support from city and state leaders after COVID.
“Did they do anything to really help us? No. What things they did were insufficient to deal with the problem. We needed people to come back in and we needed the homeless people out,” said Quan, “When the pandemic hit we had 12 stores – let’s say all those stores were stocked with food, each one of those stores would be stocked with food that would last for weeks or month so when we could not open, all that food ended up going in the garbage can!”