Korean hot spot Namu’s Mission space closes down
The last standalone brickandmortar location of Namu Stonepot in the Mission has permanently closed, marking the end of an era for the owners and their string of groundbreaking Korean restaurants.
The restaurant, located at 499 Dolores St., closed Aug. 1, chef and coowner Dennis Lee confirmed. They were unable to negotiate a new lease with their landlord, he said, due to back rent they owed and other issues.
Until the pandemic, the corner restaurant across from Dolores Park was the home of Namu Gaji, which brothers Dennis, David and Daniel started in 2006 and moved to the Mission in 2012. It was here that they grew their reputation for inventive CaliforniaKorean cuisine and planted the seeds for the Namu brand. They went on to open the spinoff Namu Stonepot on Divisadero Street and at farmers’ market stands throughout the city. Jars of Namu kimchi are now sold at local grocery stores like BiRite Market.
But with the coronavirus and the evolution of restaurant trends, the Lee brothers have shifted toward more quickservice, takeoutfriendly concepts. They converted the Namu Stonepot on Divisadero into a location of their new Detroitstyle pizza concept Sunset Squares, where you can pick up pizza to go or grab a hot slice in less than five minutes. In June, they opened a SoMa beer hall that serves food from Sunset Squares, Namu Stonepot and Filipino American popup Uncle Tito. (Namu Gaji was supposed to move there but it never made it through the shutdown.) Before opening for inperson dining, the Ninth Street space served as a takeout and delivery hub for Sunset Squares.
“It’s been a gradual transition,” Dennis Lee said. “The fullservice, sitdown restaurants that are chefdriven and have original menus or personal cuisine, that’s something that’s getting harder and harder to do because it requires a certain type of labor.”
When the brothers opened Namu Gaji in 2006, Dennis Lee, the oldest, was 26 years old. It was hailed as a pioneering restaurant with a distinct point of view that terms like “Korean American” or “fusion” couldn’t sufficiently capture. Namu Gaji “helped set the tone for one of the most significant culinary movements to change dining in the Bay Area,” former Chronicle reporter Jonathan Kauffman wrote in 2016. Kauffman said their burger, okonomiyaki (savory pancake) and ramyeon (Koreanstyle ramen) were “as established in San Francisco’s culinary consciousness as Delfina’s trippa alla Fiorentina and Yank Sing’s soup dumplings.”
“We were young and excited and ignorant enough to experiment a lot and have the energy to mess around with styles of service and ingredients,” Dennis Lee said of Namu Gaji. Namu Stonepot, meanwhile, buoyed by the success of Namu Gaji, was known for its sizzling bowls of bibimbap topped with vegetables grown at the restaurant’s own farm in Winters (Yolo County).
The owners and the restaurant landscape they operate in have both since shifted. Restaurant turnover in San Francisco was high even before the pandemic, and Dennis Lee said the pressure to constantly deliver something fresh and new that captures diners’ attention is even more intense now.
He’s also worried that the impacts of the coronavirus are far from over. He said the possibility of more shutdowns, high levels of public anxiety right now surrounding the coronavirus and its impact on diners eating out made him and his brothers reassess their priorities. Food that’s more comforting and involves a shorter wait time, like pizza, seemed more feasible, he said.
“I hope to one day be in a space where I can cook more freely, but right now I’m having a lot of fun making pizza,” he said.
Fans of Namu Stonepot can still find the restaurant’s dishes at SSP Beer Hall and at stands at the Ferry Building Farmers Market on Saturday, and Clement Street and Outer Sunset farmers’ markets on Sundays.