After More Than a Decade, Mission District Bar and Restaurant West of Pecos Will Close

Mission District Tex-Mex restaurant and bar West of Pecos is closing for good on October 28, according to a post on the business’s Instagram. The sprawling mechanical bull and taco haven is well-loved for its tremendous and welcoming space, robust menu including stiff margaritas, hatch green chile burgers, and abundant happy hour specials. The pre-game wonderland is run by owners and brothers Tyler, Dylan, and Rowan MacNiven who opened the business 11 years ago. The three grew up in San Mateo and later lived down the street from West of Pecos before opening the business.

Dylan MacNiven tells Eater SF the landscape of the Mission’s dining scene has changed, and that West of Pecos is an “unfortunate casualty.” He says despite all the external variables including homelessness in the area, at the end of the day there just weren’t enough customers. “We wanted to open something fun, whimsical, and celebratory,” Dylan MacNiven says. “We were likely one of the better-performing businesses in the area before the pandemic but have struggled ever since.”

West of Pecos

The announcement comes after Tyler MacNiven told Eater SF that May 2023 was the busiest month for the restaurant yet. Still, staff told Mission Local that business was too slow and the space simply too big. “Valencia is a special corridor with extreme concentration of mom-and-pop businesses,” Tyler MacNiven told Eater SF in July. “It lets us weather the storms.”

Valencia Street continues to ebb and flow through the pandemic’s fallout. West of Pecos is the most recent business to shutter, but not the first. Ancora across the street closed in February 2023 after just five months in business and uber-popular Stonemill Matcha — also across the street — closed in August. On the same stretch of Valencia, however, Sextant Coffee Roasters will open its second location a few doors down from fellow newcomer Barberio Osteria, the latter of which is serving its Italian fare in the former Ancora space. “For now we look to the future,” Dylan MacNiven says. “And how we can continue to let the good times roll.”