San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Prominent restaurateurs retire early amid industry strain
On a recent weekday afternoon, Russell Moore and Allison Hopelain were making chicken soup and sopes at home — an unfathomably leisurely lunch for two powerhouses of the Bay Area restaurant scene.
Having time for such a pause couldn’t be further from how they’ve spent most of their waking hours for decades, working their way up through restaurant kitchens and then running their own at the nationally acclaimed, now-closed Camino in Oakland and, later, the more casual Kebabery in Berkeley.
They closed the Kebabery in October and breathed a sigh of relief. The kebab spin-off, which was supposed to be their escape from the rigorous standards and pace of Camino, ended up draining them of energy and money during the pandemic. They decided they were done with restaurant life. They wanted more: to get a good night’s sleep, to surf, to read a book from start to finish, to spend time with each other as partners rather than co-owners.
They’re not the only prominent restaurant owners who decided in 2022 to step away from the industry, despite running some of the Bay Area’s most beloved and lauded establishments. The most famous example may be David Kinch, who announced this summer that he planned to retire from his renowned, three-Michelinstarred Manresa, which is closing at the end of the year. Kinch declined an interview, but his previous announcement cited a desire to find “a new equilibrium” in his more casual offshoots after decades of “back-breaking work that demands you show up at your fullest every day, no excuses” in a fine-dining restaurant.
Chef Aaron London also sought a more balanced life when he closed the wildly pop
ular Al’s Place in San Francisco this summer, wanting to spend more time with his young family.
The pandemic required restaurant owners everywhere to give even more of themselves to their businesses. Moore and Hopelain opened the Kebabery with former Camino general manager Brian Crookes in 2017, planning a future in which a management team would run multiple Kebabery locations and free them of the day-to-day grind. Instead, they found themselves in a constant state of anxiety due to the disruption of the coronavirus: worrying about staffing, whether they had enough money to build a parklet, what their next survival pivot would have to be.
“The pandemic used everything up,” Moore said. “It used all our creative energy. It used up money. We just didn’t have any reserves left.”
So for now, they’re enjoying their free time and have no intention of returning to restaurant work. They recently hosted a tamale party for friends. They cook lunch and dinner together. They’re finally able to make more Camino barrel-aged vinegars, a time-consuming passion project that they’re now relying on to make money. With no restaurant to get back to, delivering bottles of vinegar to stores in Los Angeles is now an opportunity to take an extended vacation.
Like Moore and Hopelain, the pandemic brought a “forced moment of reflection” for Lana Porcello, who with Dave Muller ran the beloved Outerlands in San Francisco for over a decade. With the Outer Sunset restaurant closed temporarily, they were able to have dinner as a family with their young children. Porcello started a master’s program in fiction writing, and Muller returned to a passion for watercolor painting. They didn’t want Outerlands to die, but they got to a point where they wanted to move on, Porcello said. They sold the restaurant this fall.
“You’re letting go of something that’s so dear and so special and also making that decision because there are other things,” Porcello said. “It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. It just means it’s time to make space for the next thing.”
Despite playing a role in shaping one of San Francisco’s most popular neighborhood restaurants, Porcello doesn’t see a future for herself in the industry. It had started to feel unsustainable in many ways, from staffing shortages to rising costs. She’s instead focused on her kids and writing. (Porcello recently wrote a short story about a person whose restaurant is closing.)
Despite leaving restaurants behind, these owners expressed optimism about the future of the industry. They hope their departures clear the way for something new.
“The industry is changing,” Crookes said, “and those people that have the energy to adapt and the skill to adapt to what the industry needs to become have a chance to be successful still.”