612one Fusion Culinary & Fine Cocktails announced their intent to close their doors through a social media post yesterday. 612one opened back in February, 2017 replacing Italian favorite Bucci’s at the brick ‘Sawtooth’ building on Hollis. 612one took over the remainder of Bucci’s ten-year lease when their owners opted to retire after 28 years in business.
“[This is] a difficult thing to write, but what is going to be even more difficult is saying goodbye,” they noted in a heartfelt letter signed by partners Gary, Darrell and Ohm. “We love 612one and our customers who are more like family than patrons.”
612one served Asian-fusion fare with a full bar and generous happy hour. They hosted private events, occasional live music and live televised sports in their vast space. They maintained a solid 4-star average rating on Yelp.
Co-owner Gary Srisawat’s previous restauranteur resume includes owning Cha-Am Thai in SF’s SOMA district.
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Full-service restaurants in Emeryville are becoming scarce as new establishments have increasingly opted for the counter-service model to reduce the impact of higher labor costs. The deliver model has also changed the economics and viability strategies of restaurants.
Bay Street has had a particularly difficult time finding replacement tenants for shuttered restaurants. They have not been able to attract replacement tenants for Elephant Bar, Pasta Pomodoro, Asqew or Zao Noodle that have all closed over the past few years.
612one will host a two-day farewell celebration this Friday, March, 15th and Saturday, March 16th. “Please join us to enjoy our last celebratory event, to write a note in our memory book, and to bid us farewell,” they note in their farewell letter.
They will close their doors for good on Friday, March 22nd.
I love this place, sad to see it close.
Surprise, surprise. Another restaurant closing.
Gee, I wonder what might have caused all these Emeryville small businesses to fail and all of their employees to lose their jobs. I wonder. I wonder.
Could it be the thing that all the small businesses warned the City Council about? That thing that the city wasn’t even willing to study before doing something outrageous for their political donors? That thing that the owners of the business that previously occupied this site prepared a 10 slide presentation on explaining why the City Council didn’t have a clue about the economics of what they were doing? Ya know what I’m talking about…that thing that was an ideological pipe dream that has already cost thousands of workers their jobs and a host of small business owners their lifes’ savings?
Nah, couldn’t be. Let’s blame something else.
I’ve heard they used the wrong kind of ice in their drinks. Yeah, that’s it.
It’s helpful if you explain the “thing” because I, for one, don’t know to what you are referring, so it’s really hard to know what to do with what you’ve said here.
MWO = Minimum wage ordinance. At the time it was enacted, Emeryville had the highest minimum wage in the state. It forced employers to incur an extremely large increase (several dollars/hour) in a very short amount of time (months not years).
The city jettison the regional approach and decided to go it alone. The fact borne out by overhearing a conversation between two council members “it doesn’t look good (the employment numbers)”.
Ask a small business owner, that is, if you can find one in Emeryville. They’re an endangered species.
The city council decided to hunt them for sport a few years back.
True, MWO may have hurt this business, but there are others that will take its place that will be able to afford the wage increases. It’s not like those jobs are lost forever, just with a different employer. Emeryville needed to start paying its workers something closer to a liveable wage.
When one business fails and another opens, you’ve still lost the jobs.
If the first business has 30 employees and all of them lose their jobs and another business opens with 30 employees, you end up with 30 jobs total.
If the first business had remained open you would have had 60.
What we are seeing is stagnation in a time of growth and rapidly increasing incomes when we would expect rapid increases in entry level positions.
The MWO has been a disaster for entry level workers in Emeryville, and it will be catastrophic at the first recession.
I thought their fish and chips was just the best I’m sorry to see them go.
The City commissioned a study a year after the MWO was implemented when the small business minimum wage was at $13 (It has since increased $1 every year and will increase to about $16 in July and continue to increase annually). From my recollection, the city initially agreed to do an annual study but has since opted to not restudy the impacts of the MWO specifically and do a “general business conditions” study.
Here’s a link to the 2016 study:
https://emeryville.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=4766218&GUID=B3E4ABCE-DC25-4B18-80A3-4BF2A518C416
How about trying to bring a Red Lobster to Emeryville?
Their food is good and reasonable price wise!
Hell. No.
No.
I went to one happy hour here and never went back. The food was bad and so was the vibe.
Can’t say I’m too surprised. The owner was very emphatic about wanting to “bring asian-fusion to Emeryville”, while being oblivious to the fact that nearly half of the restaurants in Emeryville are already “asian fusion”. You won’t stand out if you’re doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing.
Have to admit, never had a good meal there, and yeah, was way to similar to other offerings in the neighborhood. What we needs is a solid, affordable Italian/pizza option. That said, definitely sad to see small businesses struggling so much.
[…] was another brutal year for local restaurants. 612One Asian Fusion, Smashburger, Rubio’s, Fuddruckers, Buckhorn Grill (rumored to possibly return after Bay […]