Chef Jay Foster had two landmark restaurants in the Bay Area. Then, suddenly, they both closed.
at the SFO airport. Today, all but the latter have closed. In his own words, Foster shares what happened, what it means for San Francisco, and what he’s doing next.I’ve always loved San Francisco. I always wanted to have my own soul food restaurants there. So when I had the chance to open Farmerbrown, what would become a soul food institution in the Tenderloin neighborhood, I leapt for it.
Still, we were able to settle into what felt like a really good rhythm that lasted for 11 years. During that time, Farmerbrown became more about exploring what soul food is and what it can be. For me at the time, soul food meant all the people that came in to eat, to work, to find community over a meal. As we were attracting more and more people, our landlords, formerly San Francisco natives who lived nearby, had to sell the property to a multinational real estate company.
So in some ways, the opportunity to open Isla Vida, our Afro-Caribbean rotisserie chicken concept, felt like a way to do more for San Francisco. My partners pushed me to take advantage of the chance. I saw it as the opportunity to correct some of the mistakes we’d made while opening Farmerbrown. Unlike before, we went smaller for everything: smaller space, smaller team. But I knew from the start that things felt different. We could feel the neighborhood changing.
When I told my team, I was bracing for the worst responses possible. I was expecting people to curse me out, to blame for everything that happened, for all of the mistakes I made. It felt like I’d let my entire team down, like I’d failed each of them. Instead, I got the exact opposite response: People were empathetic. Staffers thanked me for the time we had together, asked me if I needed anything. They made sure I didn’t have to carry this grief alone.
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