Published Aug. 5, 2026at2:35pm
Chicken Fried Palace, the Texas-inspired diner that debuted in November in the Mission, closed quietly in mid-July. Chef-owner Seth Stowaway has been so rattled by a health scare that he says he can’t recall the exact date.
Stowaway was at an event in late spring in Berkeley when he suddenly felt chest pains and numbness in his face, then developed a rash that spread from head to toe. He managed to get himself home, where he googled his symptoms. “I usually brush things off, but it said, ‘Go to the emergency room,’” he recalls. “I could barely move. I was brought to my knees by the pain.”
At the hospital, doctors initially suspected a heart attack but later revised the diagnosis to an esophageal spasm, which produces a tightening of the chest that can mimic a cardiac event. The episode laid Stowaway out for more than a week. “I’m still recovering,” he says.
That couldn’t have come at a worse time. A self-described former drug addict who has been sober for years, Stowaway had been regularly flying to his native Texas to help a relative grappling with a substance-abuse crisis. Torn between familial responsibility and professional duty, and newly unwell, he made the decision to close the Palace, as he calls it, after only eight months in business.