San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Culture Desk:
Ode to San Francisco’s lost landmarks.
Mostly, it’s been like a slow bleed as news breaks of yet another bar, restaurant, music venue or bookstore closing in the Bay Area.
But every now and then one of the closures seems to stop the world in its tracks. News that feels particularly personal to Bay Area residents. Losses that make you realize, “It’s never going to be the same.”
This is a tribute and a thankyou to those lost landmarks — the ones that feel irreplaceable. The project is a collaboration between The Chronicle and its readers. Let us know what’s missing by sending your tribute to phartlaub@sfchronicle.com with the subject “Lost Landmarks.” Together we’ll pay our respects to what’s lost and pledge our support to the landmarks that are still around.
What is an irreplaceable? Irreplaceables can be restaurants that were around for 100 years, or a neighborhood bookstore that did things so creatively that five years was enough to make a lifetime impression. Along with outright closures, we’re including businesses that lost original owners but appear to have a lifeline (including Toy Boat in San Francisco’s Richmond District) and businesses that lost an iconic space and will move to wholesale or online sales.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of every business that’s closed. It’s a compilation of closures that cut the deepest; the ones that we and our readers didn’t want to see go without saying “thank you.” Over the last six months of the coronavirus pandemic, the losses have been so nu
merous as to feel numbing, and not everyone can keep track of the breaking news.
Since the project went online last month, reader nominations on social media have included the Van’s Restaurant in Belmont, Clarke’s Charcoal Broiler in Mountain View and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library’s Fort Mason Center book warehouse.
The most tributes on social media came in for the Corte Madera theater, a singlescreen cinema that was particularly popular for event films — from “Jaws” to “Jurassic Park” to the newest “Avengers” movies.
“I saw every ‘Star Wars’ movie at this theater,” a Twitter user called @CyborgBooBoo23 added. “My 5th grade teacher rented it out and took us to ‘Return of the Jedi’ as an endofthe
year treat.”
The purpose here isn’t to write off the Bay Area as a whole. Over the years, we’ve lost many landmarks — Fox Theatre (1962), PlaylandattheBeach (1972), Doggie Diner (1986), the Zimburger (1995), Cody’s Books (2008) and the Kwik Way DriveIn (2015) — and new businesses emerged to feed us, entertain us and convince us again that this is the most beautiful place in the world.
We hope these restaurants, shops and venues aren’t just a memory. They can also be a model; an inspiration for what future businesses can strive to be.