The venerable Left Bank restaurants — known for decades in the Bay Area for fine French cuisine — are shutting down, along with their sister restaurants LB Steak and Meso Modern Mediterranean.

The owners, Vine Hospitality, first informed employees Monday morning — after their Father’s Day shifts on Sunday, according to two members of the management staff. The company has yet to issue a public announcement.

“It’s shocking,” said an employee who had been hired just three months ago. “We just got the word at 9 a.m. We weren’t expecting this.

“But these things happen in this economy.”

The shutdown will hit hard at Santana Row in San Jose, which is home to all three of the restaurant concepts. The move also affects the oldest Left Banks in the group, Larkspur and Menlo Park; the LB Steak at Bishop Ranch in San Ramon; and Petite Left Bank in Tiburon.

In some cases, Francophiles have a couple of days to make a last trip in for lunch or dinner in these Parisian-styled cafes, according to staffers. The Left Bank location in Larkspur will serve diners today, Tuesday and Wednesday, then shut down. For Peninsula customers, they will have today and Tuesday at the Menlo Park location. There was no answer at the San Jose restaurant.

The group has a long history of serving French classics and celebrating Bastille Day and Beaujolais Nouveau Day in the Bay Area. In the early 1990s, restaurateur-entrepreneur Ed Levine partnered with noted French chef Roland Passot to create the French brasserie menu and look, opening their first Left Bank in Larkspur in 1994. Next came the Menlo Park location, which has been a mainstay on Santa Cruz Avenue in that city’s downtown since 1998. The Santana Row restaurant opened in 2003. followed by the group’s first LB Steak there in 2009.

A decade later, the group expanded its culinary footprint with Meso Modern Mediterranean at Santana Row in 2019, then branched out to the East Bay for the first time with an LB Steak in San Ramon in 2021. The Petite cafe opened in Tiburon in 2022.

This is a developing story. Come back for updates.