The 36-year-old Union Square Indian restaurant New Delhi is the only Indian restaurant on the city’s Legacy Business Registry, and it is now in danger of closing as downtown foot traffic remains in the dumps.
Ellis Street’s Indian destination New Delhi Restaurant opened in 1988, and has since seen an array of celebrities dine there, including Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Deepak Chopra, and Anthony Hopkins. It was named an SF Legacy Business in 2020, the only Indian restaurant in the city to hold that distinction. But that distinction has not curried enough favor to keep the business in the black, as KPIX reports that New Delhi Restaurant is in serious jeopardy of closing because Union Square foot traffic and revenue have still not bounced back from the pandemic.
"January and February have been one of the slowest [months] in 36 years," New Delhi chef and owner Ranjan Dey told KPIX. "This is the time that I would love everybody to support us because once we are gone, you can't just say, 'Oh, I wish I came.'"
There are obviously broader issues at play here. Remote work continues to keep downtown foot traffic low. A long list of Union Square retail closures is hindering the neighborhood's rebound, with Nordstrom long gone, Bloomingdale's down to its final month or so, and of course Macy’s days are numbered too. Heck, the whole downtown shopping destination model may be broken, and impossible to fix.
New Delhi is trying some new strategies. They're doing “Curry-Oke” karaoke nights in the bar area on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Less than two blocks away, the famed John’s Grill has had some success by similarly adding live jazz music every night.
We’ll see if this works for New Delhi, whose name is part of the fabric of the neighborhood to its mural-style sign. KPIX’s report notes that Ellis Street may get one of those boozy “entertainment zone” designations, though as is, there aren’t really many street fairs on Ellis Street that could take advantage of that to-go cocktail capability.
So for now, New Delhi is simply trimming back its hours to cut its losses. The restaurant no longer offers lunch, but it still serving dinner nightly from 5-11 pm, and the bar at 160 Ellis Street (near Mason Street) is still listed being open until 2 am.
Related: Union Square’s 52-Year-Old Extremely French Restaurant Jeanne D’Arc Has Permanently Closed [SFist]
Image: Andrew D via Yelp
