Sam Wo Be Gone*

Sam Wo moved to 713 Clay (Chron)

*Possibly offensive, but I'm Asian American, so it's ok.

Over the years we've followed the up-and-down fortunes of Sam Wo. The hole-in-the-wall Chinatown restaurant had survived the 1906 earthquake and the Great Depression, but health-code and building-code violations forced its closure in 2012.

Sam Wo re-opened on Clay Street, a few blocks away from its old address, in 2015, and there was general celebration that a 20th-century San Francisco institution had been revived.

However, Sam Wo might soon join other victims of the pandemic.

At 112-year-old Chinatown legend Sam Wo Restaurant, longtime owner David Ho is doing everything these days.

2003: at 813 Washington (cars
going uphill are the giveaway)

He’s buying all the ingredients, lifting 50-pound bags of rice up the restaurant’s steep stairs. He’s cooking every item on Sam Wo’s menu, from the rice noodle rolls stuffed with pork to the jook studded with preserved egg. He’s washing dishes and scrubbing the floors.

But Ho, 62, is tired. His body is full of aches and pains. He’s scared of catching the coronavirus. Still, he doesn’t want to stop working, despite the pleas of his business partners. Even his daughter has expressed concerns he’s working too hard without a staff to back him up, according to co-owner Steven Lee, who helped resurrect Sam Wo, Chinatown’s oldest restaurant, after it temporarily closed in 2012...

During the pandemic, Sam Wo’s main income has been from feeding food-insecure individuals through HelpKitchen. The restaurant worked with two other nonprofits to feed people in need this summer, but those efforts have already run out of money. And now, HelpKitchen is slated to run out of funding at the end of the year, according to Lee. It’s possible more will come in January, but Lee said Sam Wo will be forced into hibernation if that program disappears, because its takeout business doesn’t add up to enough income.

David Ho sounds like an extraordinarily dedicated owner, the sort of person whom everyone would wish success upon. I've never had a chance to check out the "new" Sam Wo but plan to do so before year-end even though it is 25 miles away and will be take-out only.

BTW, Sam Wo has a four-star rating on Yelp.