Pacifica city officials taped off the Chit Chat Cafe, located on the Pacifica Municipal Pier, after residents reported a large crack in the foundation of the pier.
Courtesy of Tony Rivas
Waves crash into Pacifica Municipal Pier in January 2023. The pier has been closed several times over the past decade due to structural issues.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
The city of Pacifica closed its famous but troubled pier Thursday after a massive crack developed across the concrete.
By about 6:45 a.m. Thursday, city engineers were out at the Pacifica Municipal Pier stringing yellow caution tape across the entrance, according to San Francisco resident Tony Rivas. From the road he could see a clean break about 4 inches wide in the concrete walkway of the section closest to the shore.
As Rivas watched the engineers work and snapped photos on his phone, he saw a large chunk fall out from under the pier and hit the water with a splash.
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“I was devastated,” said Rivas, an avid crabber at the pier.
Pacifica officials said the pier was closed due to “cracking, separation, and displacement of the concrete walkway and structural elements.” It will remain off-limits while structural engineers conduct a safety assessment.
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Photos posted by the city show a wide crack stretching horizontally across the pier from one side to the other. The crack appears to run through the foundation and under the Chit Chat Cafe, a restaurant located just in front of the pier’s gates.
A 4-inch crack runs along the concrete and foundation on the side of Pacifica’s pier Thursday.
Courtesy of Tony Rivas
Video captured by David Chamberlin, a professional nature photographer who lives close to the pier, showed officials shutting down the section of Beach Boulevard just outside the pier as they brought in a crane truck to inspect the damage.
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The break was so clean, Chamberlin said, “it kind of looks like if you were to take a twig, put one hand on either side and snap it.”
The 53-year-old pier has closed several times over the past few years due to structural issues. In 2021, the far end of the 1,140-foot-long L-shaped pier was shut down after the handrails collapsed. Then in late 2023, damage caused by high tides and large waves forced another partial closure that lasted into 2024.
The city has described the pier as “in good shape, though it shows the result of its age and the heavy use it receives.”
Past closures have been a blow to area businesses, which rely in large part on tourists drawn to the pier. The 2023 closure caused business at Chit Chat Cafe to drop 50%, co-owner Branden Jenkins told the Chronicle at the time.
In a social media post on Thursday, Chit Chat’s owners wrote they were unable to even enter the building to retrieve any belongings. They asked supporters to visit their second location in Pacifica, located on Manor Drive.
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Chamberlin, who has lived in Pacifica for more than two decades, said the damage to the pier Thursday was the worst he’d ever seen.
“It was severe. I’ve seen damage to the pier. I’ve photographed when one of the whole walls got knocked down by a wave,” Chamberlin said. “I was shocked with what I saw.”
Waves are seen in a time exposure photograph at Pacifica Municipal Pier in December 2023, during a time of high surf. The pier was closed Thursday after a large crack appeared in the concrete.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
Just the day earlier, he said, the pier had been busy with people fishing off the sides or scanning the seas for whales. The water had seemed normal.
But in recent weeks, the area had been hit by stronger waves, he said.
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Rivas, the San Francisco crabber, said he’d been on the pier last week and felt the structure shudder with the impact of the oncoming waves.
“It didn’t really feel safe then,” he said. “It wasn’t really windy, but the waves and the water energy were hitting it hard. You could feel it.”
Swells are typically much less powerful in summer than winter. But California is bracing itself for what’s forecast to be a strong El Niño. This natural climate pattern typically spurs powerful storms and destructive waves along the West Coast, causing damage to local infrastructure. Meanwhile, sea level rise induced by human-caused global warming puts even more coastline at risk of erosion.
The history of damage to the pier, and the high price tag attached, made Rivas doubt whether the city would be able to reopen it.
He mourned the loss of community with the other regular crabbers who would give him advice, or trade his Dungeness catches for their rock crabs, his preferred type.
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“It feels like we’re saying goodbye to an old friend,” Rivas said. “Everybody out there always seems so friendly, always willing to help and give you pointers, steer you in the right direction in terms of equipment, types of bait to use.”
Chronicle meteorologist Anthony Edwards contributed to this report.