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Popular bakery Pie Society is shutting down, but it isn’t due to break-ins or staffing or landlord issues. Instead, James Beard Award-winning chef Angela Pinkerton told the San Francisco Chronicle her lease was coming to an end, and she’s looking to take a break before jumping into something more long-term. The closure is on her own terms, she says. “It’s time to call it a win and give myself time to relax,” Pinkerton told East Bay Nosh.
The shop at 2533 Seventh Street in Berkeley will keep its regular hours until April 1, then switch to walk-in purchases and order pick-ups on Saturdays only before closing on April 22. Fortunately for her many fans, this doesn’t mean Pinkerton’s pies will be gone forever; she says she plans to do some pop-ups and pie pickups during holidays as she works on her next project.
A new lounge will take over the Keystone Tavern space in SoMa
Mosser Hotel on Fourth Street is set to turn the Keystone Tavern location into a new lounge dubbed the Harlequin. The new bar aims to debut by this summer, the San Francisco Business Times reports. The Harlequin will be led by the hospitality team that owns and operates Alchemist Bar & Lounge, Woodbury, and the twofer bar, Members Only and Finders Keepers in Nob Hill.
San Francisco gets a food hall. And San Jose gets a food hall.
Somehow we’re re-entering the era of the food hall, with one planned for the new Upper Haight affordable housing development at 730 Stanyan Street in San Francisco, and another already welcoming in customers. The Littlest Little Italy in San Jose has been open since February 2, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reports, with five businesses sharing the 5,000-square-foot space at 320 West Saint John Street. Enoteca La Storia first opened in the space as a restaurant and wine bar in 2017, but due to the pandemic sought to convert the space into a food hall in 2021. Bibo’s Little Italy Pizza, Birre by Pour Decisions Taproom, and Torino Panino Italian Deli and Sandwich all joined Enoteca La Storia’s Ancora Vino and Salumi bar.
Partner sues Roseville bar for role in deadly car crash
A lawsuit has been filed against House of Oliver for its alleged role in a deadly car crash that killed four men from Granite Bay, the Sacramento Bee reports. The partner of one of the crash victims alleges negligence on the part of both the driver of the vehicle and the bar for serving the group alcohol. The suit alleges the bar continued to serve the driver alcohol at its weekly Whiskey Wednesday event despite the driver being “severely intoxicated and obviously drunk.”
Are we terrible tippers? Well, the POS systems know all
It doesn’t matter what you tell friends about how much you tip, because the digital point-of-sale systems system used for most transactions at restaurants (and, ultimately, hospitality workers) knows the truth. It looks like POS platform Toast gave up all of its dirty tipping statistics in a 2022 restaurant trend report that lists San Francisco among the lowest tippers in the country, doling out tips at a 17 percent average, the San Francisco Standard reports. This is below the national average tip of 19.6 percent at full-service eateries.
