Tommy Toy's to Close March 30

Tommy Toy's opulent dining room, a casualty of the reclaimed-wood era. [Photo: Tommy Toy's]

Long-running SF institutions have been taking a drubbing in 2013: with Fog City Diner and Masa's both shuttered and the fate of Big 4 still up in the air, the latest casualty is Tommy Toy's, the opulent nouveau-Chinese spot that was a magnet for celebrities like Francis Ford Coppola and Clint Eastwood, as well as politicos like Dianne Feinstein and Willie Brown, in the late '80s and early '90s. But with fancified Chinese fare falling out of fashion in favor of more authentic takes (as Betelnut's recent closure and reboot can attest) and a dining room that reads more '80s power-lunch than hipster cool, it was probably time for Tommy Toy's to meet its maker. Regular appearances on Groupon and its ilk likely didn't help matters much.

Toy himself passed away in 2008, and the restaurant is currently run by his co-founder and longtime partner Alon Yu. Yu cites "a changing market demographic and some lease issues" as the culprit, and will go into semi-retirement after the restaurant closes. The space will revert back to the landlord, and all that opulent decor will be sold off. Tommy Toy's last day will be March 30, so if you're craving a final coconut-shell bowl of seafood bisque topped with puff pastry, get on it.

· Tommy Toy's Cuisine Chinoise to close at the end of March [Inside Scoop]