Dosa closing Valencia Street site
Dosa is closing after 14 years on Valencia Street, and owner Anjan Mitra is calling on the city to help out independently owned restaurants.
“It’s a combination of so many issues that are hitting us,” said Mitra, referencing what he calls a perfect storm of factors unique to San Francisco restaurants, including rising costs of labor, scarcity of labor and increased competition. He said that these issues have been mounting for years and, for Dosa, they have finally
Dosa in the Mission District will close Monday. Its other San Francisco location on Fillmore Street will remain open, as will the quickservice Oakland spot.
added up. “Something has to give. Right now, we were starting to see the cost come home. As far as keeping a neighborhood restaurant in the Mission, which we love, it just became unsustainable.”
Mitra opened the groundbreaking southern Indian restaurant in 2005 with his wife, Emily. Combining the best of Indian traditions with California ingredients and a modern sensibility, the restaurant quickly became a neighborhood hot spot. In 2008, the Mitras opened a bigger Dosa on Fill
more and in 2018, a quickservice outpost in Oakland; the other locations will remain open.
The last day of business for Dosa on Valencia will be Monday.
Mitra, who has served on the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, is adamant that if San Francisco wants its neighborhood restaurants — that is, sitdown restaurants like Dosa that are independently owned and frequented by locals — to survive, city officials have a responsibility to help out with the costs, be it in the areas of labor, health care or rent. It’s a refrain that several restaurateurs voiced at the Board of Supervisors meeting last week.
“The laws hit us (in the restaurant industry) disproportionately,” said Mitra, pointing to other recent closures including Commonwealth. “The assumption is that restaurants have a purpose in a city. If you want the restaurant industry to survive with prices that are affordable, then you can’t expect restaurants to carry the burden.”
Gauging the health of the restaurant industry is a tricky proposition. While highprofile restaurants like Dosa and Commonwealth have decided to close in recent weeks, sales tax data shows that restaurant sales are growing, especially compared with the sagging retail industry.
Since it is unlikely that the city would help foot bills for local restaurants as Mitra is suggesting, he has tried to adapt to the times.
While Dosa on Valencia is shutting down, Mitra is expanding in other realms. In addition to opening the quickservice Oakland restaurant, which has lower labor costs and a simplified menu, he also opened a commissary kitchen last year outside the city. There, he has created a line of products to be sold in stores across the Bay Area. He has a kiosk at Whole Foods in Cupertino, with some of those products on the shelves there.
And he is working with a new virtual kitchen company, with the idea that Dosa will cook in kitchens in various Bay Area locations and use apps — DoorDash, UberEats and the like — to deliver to different geographic areas. The first one will be in San Jose. He says such “ghost kitchens” are an example of the looming changes in the dining world.
“They just got funding for millions, and can run at a loss for years while they build a business,” Mitra said. “This is the way the industry is evolving.”