When the Bay Bridge lights first lit up the San Francisco waterfront on a drizzly March evening in 2013, diners at Waterbar and Epic Steak were transfixed.
“When they popped on, it was kind of this surprise, like what’s going on here?” recalled the restaurants’ owner Pete Sittnick as we admired the dramatic views of the bridge linking Oakland and San Francisco from Waterbar’s sunny patio. “But it was so magical in terms of the way it lit up the waterfront and the bay.”
Three years after the public art installation created by artist Leo Villareal went dark due to damage from harsh environmental conditions, the lights are finally set to twinkle back to life. Thanks to $11 million in donations raised by nonprofit Illuminate, this Friday, March 20, the Bay Lights 360 is set to be activated with twice as many LED lights as before at a grand lighting ceremony. The city’s waterfront restaurants are heralding the arrival of the 50,000 LEDs as a glowing emblem of San Francisco’s recovery – and potentially even a boon for business.
Pete Sittnick, owner of Waterbar and Epic Steak, stands inside Waterbar in San Francisco, on March 10, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
In his 18 years of running Waterbar and Epic Steak right at the base of the Bay Bridge, Sittnick has had a front-row seat to the effect an illuminated night sky can have on a neighborhood. When the Bay Lights began dazzling the western span of the Bay Bridge in 2013, Sittnick said diners started making reservations at his restaurants specifically to see them. That year, sales at both restaurants went up by 15%, he said.
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“The Bay Lights brought a real notoriety, as well as just a brightened physical appearance, to the southern waterfront for San Francisco,” he said. “… It was a time that then sort of propelled this neighborhood to start to grow and expand.”
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is viewable from Epic Steak and Waterbar in San Francisco on March 10, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
The installation of the Bay Lights coincided with the Embarcadero’s transformation into a premier cultural destination, driven by the relocation of the Exploratorium to Pier 15 and infrastructure upgrades for the 34th America’s Cup. Thousands of new residential units were also springing up in the area, and a tech boom was rapidly reshaping the city’s economic landscape. Foot traffic was up, and energy was high.
Perry’s on the Embarcadero, which opened in 2008, also saw an uptick in business when the Bay Lights first switched on in 2013.
“We did very, very well,” owner Perry Butler said. “It was great, and it lasted several months.”
Angler, a Michelin-starred seafood restaurant on the Embarcadero, is known for its bay views. Jason Kapoor, director of operations at Angler, said that since the restaurant first opened in 2018, it’s been one of its main draws.
Customers dine at Angler, located along the Embarcadero in view of the Bay Bridge, in San Francisco. (Photo by Bonjwing Lee; courtesy of Angler)
“As you get closer into the evening and it gets dark, the lights on the bridge really have an impact as far as making this visual appeal for people that are coming in,” he said.
When the Bay Lights went dark in 2023, Embarcadero business owners felt the shift. At the time, San Francisco was already weighed down by a slow pandemic recovery and a negative national narrative; the loss of the lights was a symbolic and literal darkening of a neighborhood fighting for foot traffic.
“You definitely saw some disappointment,” Sittnick said. “People who had known about them, seen them, and had them as part of the experience of coming to Waterbar and Epic were saddened a little bit.”
FILE: Spectators watch the grand lighting of the Bay Lights art installation on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on March 5, 2013, in San Francisco. (Stephen Lam/Getty Images)
Over the past year, Embarcadero restaurants said they’ve started to see an uptick in business, with major events like the Super Bowl bringing more visitors. Many are hopeful the return of the Bay Lights could provide another needed boost to the area’s recovery.
“We’re excited about it, and we’re looking forward to more people coming to that part of town than have been lately,” Butler said. “It’s no secret that post-pandemic, it’s been a little bit of a struggle.”
Kapoor said that the past year has been the first year that Angler has seen business on par with what it was doing before the pandemic. According to Sittnick, Waterbar and Epic Steak have finally seen the return of the happy-hour crowd from nearby office workers. Boulevard, chef Nancy Oakes’ 33-year-old Embarcadero fine dining restaurant, has also seen an increase in business from the conventions in town.
“Any downtown activation that brings people to the waterfront, I think they get to see that we’re still here and we’re still going,” Boulevard general manager Jacob Paronyan said. “And that encourages them to come back and revisit.”
Customers dine at Waterbar with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the background in San Francisco, on March 10, 2026. (Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE)
Not everyone, however, is excited about the 50,000 LED lights set to permanently illuminate the western span of the bridge. In 2024, California resident Mark Baker filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against several public agencies, alleging that the Bay Lights 360 project is an environmental hazard and is discriminatory against individuals with disabilities. The case, though, was dismissed and the project went forward.
Waterfront restaurants are preparing for a busy weekend, with the grand lighting ceremony scheduled for Friday from 6 to 9 p.m, between Pier 14 and Brannan Street Wharf. While Waterbar will be closed on March 20 for a private event, Epic Steak will be open – and reservations are booking up.
“With the lights coming back, it’s really in tandem with the enthusiasm and the rebounding that San Francisco is having as a city,” Sittnick said. “It’s so cool to see all of that synergistically coming together. Maybe the lights are going to be the thing that propel us to the next level.”
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This article originally published at SF waterfront restaurants eye a revival as Bay Bridge lights return.