Shuggie’s, the vibrant and climate-conscious Mission restaurant, will close on July 11 after four years in business. Owners Kayla Abe and David Murphy announced the news in a social media post Thursday.
The restaurant, on the corner of 23rd and Bartlett Street, was famous for its maximalist interior, orange wine showers, and trash pies. Their pizzas featured dough made from whey, a byproduct of the cheesemaking process, as well as other irregular produce as a vehicle to limit food waste. Formerly called Shuggie’s Trash Pie + Natural Wine, it quickly became a critically-acclaimed hotspot for shareables and a damn good time. (Shuggie’s was the first meal I had when I moved to San Francisco. I distinctly remember the restaurant blasting hardcore music, and watching our server step outside to kickflip in the street for a few minutes. I was too shy to try their all-you-can-chug orange wine pours, where, for a flat rate, a staffer would pour booze in your mouth straight from a porrón pitcher.)
Shuggie’s was listed among Bon Appetit's 24 Best New Restaurants of 2023.
Tired of being confined to pizza, the restaurant closed briefly last year to pivot away from pies. Their reimagined menu hinged on elevated nostalgia and still carried their mission of mitigating food waste, with dishes using surplus, fugly produce and climate-conscious proteins: elevated fish sticks, a take on steak frites, and even wild boar chop (because the feral pigs are invasive).
If Abe and Murphy were anything, they were busy. Shuggie’s introduced free snacks during happy hour. They broke their backs during Restaurant Week, and introduced a $40 prix fixe meal on Wednesdays. They hosted annual crawfish broils, live music, New Year’s Eve parties, and even tableside magic tricks.
Unfortunately, the model wasn’t feasible in the long term.
“It has been a slow build over the past year — seeing costs climb and patronage decrease. We felt like we could design our way out of these problems with new programming, changes in offerings and hours, buyouts, insane deals, even free food and a rebrand,” the duo wrote in a post on Instagram. “We have tried every conceivable pivot over the last 4 years to make a long lasting version of Shuggie’s.”
“Shuggie’s has achieved the massive goal we set out to achieve: To inspire American diners to think critically about food waste, planting the seed for many to consider their diets as vehicles for change.”
