San Francisco Centre Loses Restaurants and Retailers

The slow-motion decline of San Francisco Centre mall is hitting restaurants.

Six eateries have left the 1.5 million-square-foot mall in recent months, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The most recent roster of departees included Jamba Juice, Izzy & Wooks sandwich shop, Mija Cochinita taco shop, Mai Savory Hot Dogs, a Fires of Brazil barbecue spot and Blondie’s Pizza.

Only a few restaurants remain on the premises; kitchen equipment was gone from all the former tenants’ food stands. Blondie’s Pizza relocated to 940 Market Street while Izzy & Wooks is moving to a new to-be-announced location, the outlet said.

At least eight other retailers have closed their doors in the past few months, including Sunglass Hut, a Razer electronics store, a Steve Madden store, and clothing stores Oak + Fort and Zara. Nordstrom shuttered its flagship at the mall in 2023, while Bloomingdale’s similarly announced the exit of its flagship in January.

Retailers have rushed for the exits in the years since the pandemic. The mall’s occupancy is between 30 percent and 40 percent, according to the San Francisco Examiner — a steep drop from 96 percent in 2016. The latest estimates mean somewhere between 750,000 and 1 million square feet is now vacant at the mall.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield and Brookfield Properties, the previous owners of the mall, abandoned their ownership post last year, prompting a lawsuit from lenders like JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank over an unpaid loan. A foreclosure auction for the mall has been delayed a half-dozen times, with the most recent date scheduled next week on Aug. 21.

The mall has seen a steep drop in foot traffic as fewer stores bring in fewer customers. Between 2019 and 2024, foot traffic at San Francisco Centre fell 63.3 percent, according to the San Francisco Business Times. From January to May of this year, foot traffic at the mall was down 68 percent from the same period in 2019 and between 25 and 40 percent in the same span the year prior.

— Chris Malone Méndez