And what a year it was. 2025 was not lowkey for really anybody in the San Francisco Bay Area (see a major power outage right before the holidays). As it goes, it was a particularly unsteady year for those in the restaurant industry. Tariffs made it a weird year for coffee and matcha; the new administration threatened workers along the West Coast. But there was plenty to celebrate: Just ask San Francisco’s youngest fried chicken and pizza enthusiasts (it was a big year for pizza).
Thank a McSweeney’s blog post. Eater got the good word that author Dave Eggers and coffee wunderkind Mokhtar Alkhanshali are teaming up on the waterfront. Details are still forming, but by this time next year, there should be some seriously good Yemeni coffee drinks at Pier 29.
In Eater fashion, we crowned a spate of the food and drink scene’s top of the top. Intricate Chinese tasting menus, hella high-end pop-ups, laidback neighborhood spots with booming okonomiyaki: It’s like the San Francisco Bay Area has a ton of really good food or something…
After a splashy entrance to the Sausalito restaurant scene, Ditas closed. Basically. It’s a space for founder Nikita Khandheria’s newer venture Eria Cafe. Sometimes, it’s a private events space, too.
Oh, coffee, you National Basketball Association (NBA) muse, you. Relatively recent Golden State Warriors baller Jimmy Butler’s BIGFACE came to the legendary Lucca Ravioli space on Valencia Street with $100 coffee tastings. In a twist, the coffee was pretty good!
One of our regular closing roundups did numbers when it touched on Hayes Valley influencer vs. restaurant beef. (More on that later.) In this case, we received a tip that said Domo Sushi had closed. But then we clarified that — despite initial reports — Domo Sushi was, in fact, still open.
This was the year Starbucks largely said adios to San Francisco. Up to the end of the year the company keeps closing locations in the region, reeling from its record-setting $39 million labor settlement in New York. The writing was on the wall before that, though, and San Franciscan politicos and coffee heads weighed in on the breakup.
The oyster heroes at Swan Oyster Depot caused a stir on Yelp when they put out a dashing Donald Trump-themed hat in the dining room. To nobody’s surprise, many San Franciscans found this in poor taste, and for a day the city was alight in briny debate. Grass keeps growing, oysters keep shucking.
Coffee in 2025, I tell you what. This time it was Mission District-made Philz Coffee selling the beloved San Francisco chain to private equity firm Freeman Spogli & Co. for $145 million.
There was a banner night sky full of Michelin stars in June 2025. San Francisco’s Kiln nabbed a second star, and newcomer Enclos in Sonoma racked up two, too. Even Oakland’s stunner Sun Moon Studio reached up and plucked a star. Your editors in the Bay attended the Sacramento event, live-streaming and working the room like old-school journalists.
The story that broke the levee. Influencers and restaurateurs had a brutal go in 2025 across the board — just ask the team at Hamburger Project. It was a woman attempting to create content for Hayes Valley’s Bosque (nee Kis Cafe) that sparked superviral TikToks, thinkpieces across the state, and even live events to discuss influencers in the restaurant industry.