Restaurants In San Francisco Hopeful As Air Quality Improves

Smoke and unhealthy air quality made people stay inside and restaurants suffered big losses, now the quality is improving bringing hope to the owners.  

JACOB ROBERTS, owner of a restaurant on Polk Street in San Francisco said they had to close their outdoor spaces due to the smoke. “We did a third of what we were doing for sales last week, which is disheartening because we were only doing half of the sales before this all happening,” he explained. 

This happened to most of the restaurants and cafes in the area. Christian Albertson, Monk’s Kettle owner, commented: “Been glad that people are able to come outside and then when you take that away you don’t really have very much at all. We’re just hanging on right now with what we’ve got.” He is hopeful as forecasters announced there are air improvements expected over the next couple of days.

“People are out. We have a couple of reservations for tonight so it’s looking a lot better so yeah it’s been a much better day in all ways,” Albertson continued.

This is the first time the smoke has affected daily life intensely, but the Bay Area has been dealing with some of the worst air quality in years due to wildfires raging in the area.