Wo Hing General Store (584 Valencia Street), which opened to much buzz in the original Slanted Door space in 2011, is closing Sunday after just a year and a half in business. Owner Charles Phan tells the Scoop that the crowds were just never consistent, “for whatever reason,” but the reason is likely that the food never quite lived up to the hype, or the prices. (As Jonathan Kauffman noted in his January 2012 review, “You’re only allowed to scale up grandma cooking if the results turn out significantly better,” and Mr. Bauer called the place “corporate” and “disappointing.”) It’s also garnered a fair number of unfavorable comparisons on Yelp to the less expensive Mission Chinese Food. There were always great cocktails and noodles though! Note that this marks the first casualty among all the new Valencia openings of the last two-plus years. It remains to be seen what will happen with this prime piece of real estate, as Phan has held on to it for over twenty years at this point, so stay tuned. [Scoop]
