Sandwichland

American Grilled Cheese Kitchen Takes Café Gratitude Space For New Mission Spot

American Grilled Cheese Kitchen's Piglet sandwich.
American Grilled Cheese Kitchen’s Piglet sandwich. Photo: Courtesy of American Grilled Cheese Kitchen

Well, the rumors are true, and as Grub Street reported last month, the Mission location of Café Gratitude (2400 Harrison Street at 20th) is calling it quits as of May 25. Now the Scoop gets word that American Grilled Cheese Kitchen is taking the space to open a second, larger location than their wildly popular South Park flagship. The new, larger space is going to allow them to do prep work for both locations, and they’ll be adding a dinner menu as well, with a burger, and other comfort-y items. Looks like the overflow crowd from Flour + Water (across the street) just found a plan B that doesn’t involve creepy, culty menu sayings!

American Grilled Cheese owners Heidi Gibson and Nate Pollak expect to be open by late summer or early fall if all goes well, and the South Park location will, obviously, remain open and crowded every day.

And as discussed earlier, Cafe Gratitude is holding on to their original Berkeley location, as well as the Santa Cruz location and Gracias Madre. Despite protests by owners Matthew and Terces Engelhart to the effect that a couple of small lawsuits from former employees were putting them under, the closings of their Healdsburg, S.F., San Rafael, Oakland, and Cupertino locations appear to have been motivated more by the underperformance of those locations, perhaps due to an expansion that happened too fast. Their L.A. location, which is under slightly different ownership within the family, is still going strong, and the company just announced another spot in Venice, CA.


Earlier: Café Gratitude May In Fact Be Closing Its S.F. Location
Café Gratitude Settles Out of Court With Former Employees, Won’t Close All NorCal Locations
Local Grilled Cheese Lands on National List

American Grilled Cheese Kitchen Takes Café Gratitude Space For New Mission