SF loses a 30-year-old neighborhood diner
Decades-old diner Eat Americana on Balboa Street, left, photographed in 2020, has closed. (Noah Berger/Special to The Chronicle)
The following is a list of notable Bay Area restaurants that closed in April. Click here for a list of restaurants that closed in March.
Eat Americana, a 30-year old diner staple in the Richmond District, closed for good in April. SFGATE reported that the restaurant's owner, Tony Lai, has retired. When he opened the restaurant in 1996, he served a mix of Vietnamese and Italian dishes; in 2016, he hired a new chef who revamped the menu with diner classics, such as buttermilk pancakes and breakfast burritos. (SFGATE and the San Francisco Chronicle are both owned by Hearst but operate independently.)
Dutch Door Donuts closed its Healdsburg location on April 26, the business announced on Instagram. The shop opened in September, offering doughnuts fried to order then topped with vanilla glaze, rosemary garlic butter or chocolate, among other flavors. The original Dutch Door location in Carmel-by-the-Sea remains open.
Students set up shop at CCSF's Educated Palate. The student-run bakery shut down in April. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle)
The closing of the downtown City College of San Francisco campus means the end of Educated Palate, the pastry shop run by students enrolled in the school's baking program. (Classes are moving to the college's Ingleside campus). The space held its final bake sale on April 16, offering croissants, buns and bread. Educated Palate operated as a restaurant until the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the Bay Area's all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurants has closed. A Facebook user shared a photo of a note taped to the door at Supreme Pot in Daly City announcing its closure after seven years. "Looking back we are so incredibly grateful for the laughs, the celebrations and the community you helped us build," the note reads. The restaurant is looking to reopen at a new location, according to the note.
East Bay Nosh reports that casual Berkeley restaurant Sistory Thai Kitchen, open since 2022, has unexpectedly closed. The restaurant initially announced it was closing for vacation, but the outlet reports that the dining room has been emptied out as of April 17, and its website and phone number are no longer functioning.
Black Hammer Brewing in San Francisco, as photographed in 2018, has closed. (Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle)
Black Hammer Brewing Co. shut down its SoMa facility on April 3. The San Francisco brewery produced its beers, including blonde ales, wheat brews and Mexican-style lagers, inside the Bryant Street space for 11 years. The label also produced California's first commercially released cannabis-infused beer in 2017. In October, Black Hammer closed its restaurant and secondary taproom, Wilkommen, in the Castro. The San Francisco Business Times reported the SoMa brewery's closure.
Silicon Valley's longstanding fine dining destination Chez TJ served its last diners on April 11. Staff told the Chronicle that owner George Aviet retired after more than 40 years of running the restaurant. Set inside of a quaint 19th-century Victorian house, Chez TJ, became a go-to in Mountain View for its French-influenced tasting menu. The restaurant served as a launchpad for lauded Bay Area chefs, such as Christopher Kostow of the Charter Oak in St. Helena, ranked No. 86 in the Chronicle's 2026 Top 100 Restaurants list, and Joshua Skenes, who opened Saison, No. 83 on the list.
After baking buttery croissants and custardy caneles for a decade, La Noisette Sweets in Berkeley closed on April 1. Owner Alain Shocron told the Chronicle that he was retiring so that he could focus on his health and spend more time with his family. The bakery offered over a dozen sweet and savory treats, such as danishes with fillings like Thai coconut or prosciutto. The space did not sit vacant for long: Milk Cloud Bakery, known for its shokupan sandwiches and Basque cheesecakes, and whose owner Liz Khuu cited Shocron as a mentor, took over in mid-April.
Charlie Palmer Steak in Napa has closed. (John Storey/Special to the Chronicle)
Chef Charlie Palmer's restaurant group closed its Wine Country steakhouse, Charlie Palmer Steak located in the Archer Hotel Napa, on April 12. The decision to part ways was mutual, according to an announcement. Charlie Palmer Steak will open a new Wine Country location in the future, according to its website.
