Laura Morton for The New York Times Ike Shehadeh carried a sandwich out of his store, past the line of waiting customers in February.
It looks like riled-up neighbors are close to putting a tiny but much-trafficked San Francisco restaurant out of business. And this is happening in a city that is reluctant to cut back the hours of the rowdiest nightclubs.
The alleged sins of Ike's Place are not in the same league with those of some nightclubs — no guns, no public drunkenness, no fights. But the sandwich shop, a foodie phenomenon in the Castro, has been served with an eviction notice. Ike Shehadeh, the owner, said he was headed to court next week to fight the notice. But if he loses, he'll be forced to close.
As Gerry Shih reports in Friday's New York Times, neighbors have bitterly complained about the byproducts of Ike's preternatural success. The shop is little more than a doorway, but it sells about 1,000 sandwiches a day. The restaurant has had to put stanchions on the sidewalk for crowd control.
Neighbors say the crowds are loud, the litter constant and the odors from the kitchen overwhelming.
"I haven't been able to open my window or have a conversation in two and a half years," said Sam Black, one neighbor.
We first reported on the backlash in February, when Mr. Shehadeh tried to quell neighbor's complaints by closing early each night. He said four neighbors had since become more hostile and had threatened to sue the building's owner. He said that is what prompted the eviction effort.
The tiny shop on 16th Street near Market has been home to restaurants for years. But the previous eateries were failures. Those of us who lived in the neighborhood long ago wrote off the location as cursed.
But Ike's arrived in 2007 with its freshly baked bread, its mysterious "dirty sauce" and its quirky sandwich combinations. It became a sensation on citizen review Web sites like Yelp. Foodies swarmed.
Mr. Shehadeh said he had done nothing wrong, except beaten the odds in a tough economy. "We're not in violation of our lease because we're successful," he said.
Fifty-three people work at Ike's Place in the city. Most will lose their jobs if it closes. And thousands of foodies will need to find a new place to swarm.
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