The Summit, that laptop-centric cafe only employed by elite-trained baristas and once thought to be the Mission’s neighborhood game changer, is scheduled to shutter its doors at 780 Valencia on January 28, 2012.
Mission Local has more details, including the following quote from one of the owners of the space:
We at I/O own the building. The Summit was simply our coffee shop vendor. They weren’t able to pay the market rate for rent, so we’re going to have a new vendor in going forward. The incubator is definitely still open and will be having the next group of companies in the new year.
“Market rate” in a neighborhood notorious for shuttered storefronts? What would that be, exactly?
+1
MAN FUCK THAT SHIT ! LET IT CLOSE !
Cranky-
“Market rate” in this case means that the owners paid too much for the apace, and that no business will ever be able to pay the rent necessary to cover the mortgage expenses of this masturbatory business fantasy.
Shuttered storefronts are to be expected when landparasites charge so much for leases that most businesses will fail.
The landlords seem to be under the impression that one can make an entire neighborhood out of increasingly expensive restaurants.
+1
With the closing of the Summit, we have the advent of that exciting new guessing game: “Where will the douchebags go now?”
On missionsmission, apparently.
Wasn’t that space Daniel’s Creamery or something? (my memory fails me)
I believe it was an auto shop for a number of years (it still looks like one from the outside.)
This was my least favorite establishment to come onto Valencia. I like the .com’ing to stay on the peninsula, I suppose. It was sort of a douchier version of something that already existed, ala tacolicious.
taco-WHAT-ous?
Nice spot but man, was their coffee expensive.
The article says that The Summit was just the coffee vendor for the space and that a new vendor was preparing to move in. It will probably have to be an established coffee vendor to afford the space’s apparently outrageous rent. I wonder who that new vendor will be? Let’s all speculate. I’m going with Blue Bottle. That’ll bring the San Francisco Coffee Wars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMqutKBS5iE) home for sure.
um…
- 2 outlets
- closes randomly on friday night for “special events’
- under-seasoned, overgreased, and therefore overpriced food items
- snooty, unfriendly clientele
- cash-only unless you buy their $75 “card”
- regularly out of random things on their menu, early in the afternoon
- mediocre banal ‘art’
- random ‘dj’
- really uncomfortable stools
- no purse hook
- drafty in the front
- shitty “handcrafted” soda
yeah, i’m so sorry they’re moving out.
here here.
I;d often drop in for late night work, get a FIVE DOLLAR tea, power up my laptop and then they would announce “SUMMIT IS CLOSING 20 MINUTES”, hours before their normal closing time.
Can we please have ONE good coffee shop in the mission that stays open till midnight?
exactly.
you also forgot the slow, SLOW, baristas. wtf.
Also, randomly lazy. Like they’ll bring out your food but no silverware.
About as sad to see this one go as I am Heart.
Amen to that! The two times I visited the cafe, I got nothing but snooty attitudes, cold 20 minute drip coffee and frozen-in-the-middle quiche.
It was fun to do a quick walk through with out of town guests on the neighborhood tour. But that’s about it.
That’s a shame. They have the best iced tea on Valencia plus really friendly staff.
Where will you work after they shut down, is the real question on everyone’s mind.
Regardless of what you think of The Summit, they got a raw deal in the end.
I can’t go into details of it, but honest to God they got screwed, plain and simple.
Ooooooo…….classified information!
Cross my sweaty palms with the prerequisite 30 pieces of silver, and I’ll chirp like a giddy coloratura.
Went there once, pay way too much for what I got. If they can’t afford to make it with what they were charging the landlord is asking too much.
When they say “couldn’t pay market rate”, I’m guessing it means the landlord agreed to whatever monthly rate but put them on a month to month lease. Summit then did a fuckload of improvements to the space. Then someone (I like the Blue Bottle theory) offered some insane rent to the landlord, who gave Summit the option of matching it. When they couldn’t, they declared that they “couldn’t pay market rate”.
I have no idea what actually happened, but I have a feeling it was something like that. And whether or not you liked Summit’s coffee or their barristas or whatever, that strikes me as a really shitty turn of events.
Also, at least that cafe tried to do something different than the usual overly slick super gourmet coffee places. The DJs and art were a good idea, whether you liked the execution or not. And I thought it was great that it doubled as an event space.
+1
Regardless of how you feel about The Summit, they tried to bring something different on Valencia… Offering quality cup of joe, a chill place for people to meet, work, or just hang… And always thought the staff was nice. I went to some really fun events over there from art openings, to nightlife events, and even a movie screening. It’s not easy to start up a biz in this economic climate, and I’m sure the overhead was already pretty high… Sounds like another greedy landlord jacking up the rent and going with the highest bidder, which is a reflection on the building owners, not the tenant. The Summit got screwed.
In what world is “Offering quality cup of joe, a chill place for people to meet, work, or just hang” something different on Valencia? How ever will the neighborhood survive, what with Ritual and Four Barrel each a few blocks from that spot, plus the many smaller coffee shops. This place was the height of gentrification, and unless you’re really a fan of the Tacolicious-ification of Valencia, its hard to feel too bad about this place closing.
Summit only had a 1 year lease.
Landlords (ie I/O) jacked the rent after Summit put in a LOT of money to build out the space/get it permitted/etc. Stupid move on Summit-owner’s part… Who puts that much money into a space with only a 1 year lease?
Summit owners should have stayed in NOPA/kept their club/rest (polaing?) open there, instead of putting their money into i/o’s pocket.
This is all second hand info. I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy. But that’s what you get on the internet.
Sounds like the i/o are being a bunch of bitches. I never frequented the Summit, but I’m still sad to see an interesting space go. I’m sure the replacement will be even douchier and more expensive.
Summit was always my “go to” bathroom when wandering home drunk on Valencia….
their coffee sucked — what elite training??
still, i liked to go there in the evening and have a beer and work on my laptop; sometimes you just have to do that, but you look like a douchebag doing it anywhere else; there i just blend in.
i just hope it dosen’t turn into a starbucks.