40-Year-Old San Francisco Diner Chain Closes All Locations, Cites Economy and Homelessness
29th February 2024
A San Francisco restaurant chain recently closed its last two remaining locations after 40 years of operation, with the owner citing the city’s economic challenges and homelessness.
“COVID has been a disease for us, let’s put it that way, so it’s been difficult, and we tried opening six or eight stores in the beginning in 2021, and it was ugly,” Lee’s Diner founder and owner Lee Quan told the local ABC 7 in a report published Wednesday. “There was just nobody around—we can’t do business.”
Quan, whose family-owned chain had 16 locations at its height, said after the pandemic, people were generally back to work only for three days out of the week. He also blamed inflation, minimum wage hikes in San Francisco, and a lack of support from government leaders from the city and state for his business’s closure.