With thousands of revelers ready to flood the Castro for Pink Saturday tomorrow, the iconic Cafe Flore won’t keep its famed outside patio open overnight, even though the city gave it permission to do so weeks ago. “We’re not geared up with the staffing and stuff like that so we’re not ready to do it yet,” owner JD Petras told us between frantic Pride planning meetings. For the past year or so, the cafe has been closing at 2 a.m., operating on a trial basis to support its bid to stay open all night. You may recall that in 2007 Petras claimed he wouldn’t be able to stay in business without the extended hours. On May 14, the Planning Commission approved the extended hours, and a few weeks later zoning administrator Larry Badiner signed off on it. By that time, though, planning for Pink Saturday was too far underway for them to deal with changing the hours so the Flore management decided to hold off on the change until after this weekend. Soon enough, you should be able to enjoy that lovely patio any time of the day or night.
Photo via stevendamron/flickr
