North Beach Loses Its Only Thai Restaurant Next Month

Tamarind Hall Thai Street Food & Bar, a three-year-old restaurant and sports bar at 1268 Grant Street. will close next month. The business, which counts itself as the only Thai food spot in Italian-centric North Beach, will serve its last meal around March 15, though that date’s not set in stone (it’s tied to a Type 47 liquor license transfer, so the restaurant will close when it goes through).

Tamarind Hall was the first food venture for Salisa Skinner, a Bangkok-born law school grad turned restaurateur. After she opened the restaurant, Skinner had two children back-to-back, and has decided to devote her attention to them.

“I’m quite heartbroken having to make this tough decision,” she says. Her restaurant and bar —popular for its khao soy, spicy “knockout” wings, and cocktails — was doing well financially, she says.

But Skinner didn’t want to see the quality slip. “I’m not the kind of person who can do a sloppy job,” she says. ”I can’t not be here all the time.”

It’s not clear what’s next for the 60-seat Tamarind Hall bar and restaurant spac, which was once Italian standby Pantera Cafe (whose old sign is still hanging). But Tamarind Hall could return some day.

“Who knows, this may not be the end of the Tamarind Hall story,” Skinner wrote in a press release announcing the restaurant’s closure. “Perhaps once the boys go to preschool, I may resurrect Tamarind Hall in Oakland (as that is where we live). We shall see.”

Looking back, “I don’t regret it at all,” Skinner says. “I gained a lot of friends out of this. I learned the struggles of actually being a small business owner... a solo partner... especially as a woman business owner.”