The Mission District commissary and catering operation behind the late Charles Phan's culinary empire was hit with an immediate health permit suspension and closure order last week, after San Francisco Department of Public Health inspectors found a severe rodent infestation riddling the kitchen, prep areas, food storage zones, and the adjacent shuttered Chuck's Takeaway sandwich shop at 3332–3334 18th Street. The closure — and a same-day reinspection that allowed the commissary to reopen — adds a troubling chapter to the ongoing story of the Slanted Door Group as it tries to rebuild and honor Phan's legacy without its founder.
What Inspectors Found
Inspector Katie Dea of the SFDPH Environmental Health Branch arrived at Charles Phan Events, the catering and commissary operation at 3334 18th St., on the morning of June 11, 2026 for what was logged as a routine inspection. What she found was anything but routine. According to the official inspection report obtained by Hoodline, rodent droppings were documented in an extensive list of locations: on the floor at the entry, under the front counter, behind coffee equipment, on shelving near a small oven, on the floors behind equipment and cooklines, on speed racks and low shelving throughout the prep space, on the ledge extending from dry storage shelving, under the prep sink in the heat sealing area, on top of the dishwasher, and in the back storage area — among other places.
The situation in the attached Chuck's Takeaway space at 3332 18th St. was cited separately under its own permit, but the inspector's notes make clear the two share a physical footprint. Inspectors found vacuum seal bags under a sealing machine with rodent droppings on top of, below, and near the bags; the bags were voluntarily discarded on the spot. A large fly was also observed on an actively-used prep sink. The inspection report noted that the most recent pest control service on record was dated May 29, 2026 — just two weeks before the closure — indicating this wasn't a situation where pest management had been abandoned, but rather one that had gotten out of hand anyway.
Beyond the rodent violations, inspectors flagged food safety issues including raw eggs stored above ready-to-eat dairy products in a four-door cooler, a reduced-oxygen-packaged gochujang without a date code in the walk-in (corrected on site), leaking hand sinks in the vacuum sealing area and main cooking area, a plastic drain pipe under the ice machine lacking a required air gap, and dust on fan guards in the walk-in cooler. Inspectors also found a bucket dated 7/14/23 that staff said the owner had been using to attempt to make fish sauce — ordered discarded on site. Separately, the commissary's HACCP compliance for specialized processes, including reduced-oxygen packaging, was flagged as out of compliance, though corrected on site; inspectors noted the facility packages foods for sale through Good Eggs and distributes ingredients to Slanted Door restaurants outside of San Francisco County — a detail flagged as under review pending a scheduled reinspection.
Closed in the Morning, Cleared by Afternoon
The SFDPH issued an immediate health permit suspension under California Health and Safety Code sections 114405 and 114409, posting a closure placard that legally cannot be removed by anyone other than a department inspector. Under state law, any owner, manager, or operator who fails to comply with such a closure notice can be found guilty of a misdemeanor, with a possible fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to six months' imprisonment per offense. The facility was ordered to eliminate rodents, remove droppings, deep clean and degrease all surfaces, seal gaps — specifically at the walk-in cooler wall behind the blast chiller and above the cookline near the ice machine — and retain a licensed pest control operator within 24 hours.
In a notably swift turnaround, Inspector Dea returned to both addresses that same afternoon. By 3:45 p.m. at Chuck's Takeaway and 4:05 p.m. at Charles Phan Events, she found enough corrective action had occurred to reinstate operating permits and issue green "pass" placards at both locations. At the commissary, a few lingering rodent droppings were cleaned on-site during the reinspection visit, and the vacuum sealer area had been cleaned and contaminated bags discarded. Holes behind the blast chiller had been sealed. Still outstanding: the pipe gaps above the cookline near the ice machine, remaining hard-to-reach sealing work, and the broader HACCP and specialized process review, for which a follow-up reinspection was scheduled for on or after Monday, June 15.
It's worth noting that the rodent violation at Charles Phan Events was flagged as a repeat violation — meaning this wasn't the first time the facility had been cited for pest activity. That context makes the continuing pest control contract (twice-monthly service) look less reassuring; something more aggressive than routine service was clearly needed.
Chuck's Takeaway: Still Dark, Still Permitted
The inspection report for Chuck's Takeaway, Charles Phan's beloved banh mi shop that Mission Local welcomed back with genuine neighborhood enthusiasm when it opened in February 2022, contains an eyebrow-raising disclosure. Inspectors noted that the sandwich shop had not been in operation for "several months" and that staff were unsure when — or whether — it would reopen, but said the group wanted to keep the health permit active. That health permit, it should be noted, had an expiration date of March 31, 2026 — meaning it was already expired at the time of inspection. The Yelp page for Chuck's Takeaway is currently marked "Temp. Closed."
This is a complicated picture for a concept that was always more than just a sandwich shop. As SF Standard noted at the time of Charles Phan's death from cardiac arrest in January 2025 at age 62, Chuck's Takeaway — which Phan launched in 2022 to showcase a banh mi baguette he famously obsessed over for years, including two trips to Vietnam to track down a baker who could share the recipe — was the only active San Francisco brick-and-mortar operation the Slanted Door Group had in the city when he died. That it is now apparently dormant, with an expired permit, and sharing a space that just failed a health inspection, doesn't inspire confidence about the concept's near-term future.
The Slanted Door Group After Charles Phan
The 18th Street commissary has been the operational backbone of Charles Phan's restaurant group for well over a decade, used to supply stocks, steamed buns, sauces, and prepped ingredients to his restaurants, according to SF Standard. It's also where — per the inspection report — the group currently packages products sold through Good Eggs and preps ingredients distributed to Slanted Door locations outside of San Francisco County. In other words, this isn't just a catering kitchen: it's the central production hub keeping the group's broader operations running, which makes the severity of the rodent infestation all the more significant from a food safety standpoint.
The Slanted Door Group has been navigating difficult terrain since Phan's sudden death. As SFist reported in February, the group — now led by executive chef Dong Choi — confirmed plans to reopen the flagship Slanted Door at its original 584 Valencia Street location in early 2027, honoring Phan's own vision before he died. That would end a seven-year absence from San Francisco's fine-dining Vietnamese scene. Slanted Door locations in San Ramon, Napa, and Beaune, France remain open. But the Valencia Street relaunch is still in the planning stages, and the timeline remains aspirational rather than locked in.
Meanwhile, a health inspection closure at the very commissary feeding that operation — even one resolved the same day — is exactly the kind of distraction and reputational complication a restaurant group doesn't need when it's already under a spotlight and trying to prove it can carry on without its legendary founder. Phan built the Slanted Door from a 45-seat Mission District storefront in 1995 into a James Beard Award-winning institution that, according to Wikipedia, won Outstanding Restaurant in America in 2014 and is widely credited with elevating Vietnamese cuisine into the fine-dining conversation. A rat problem at the commissary is not the legacy anyone wants to associate with that name.
San Francisco's Ongoing Rodent Problem
The closure isn't an isolated incident in the broader San Francisco restaurant landscape. The city has seen a steady drumbeat of rodent-related health closures in recent years, with the SFDPH regularly shuttering establishments across neighborhoods for similar violations. In 2025 alone, closures for rodent infestations hit spots ranging from a pizza restaurant in the Sunset to Chinese and Filipino restaurants in the Mission, according to reporting by WhatNow. San Francisco's rodent population has long been a known challenge for restaurants with commissary-scale kitchens, particularly those with heavy food storage, walk-in coolers, and equipment-dense layouts that create harborage opportunities — exactly the profile of a 10,000-square-foot commissary kitchen like the one at 18th and Capp.
The fact that the Slanted Door Group had a pest control operator on a twice-monthly contract — and still ended up with droppings documented in more than a dozen distinct locations — suggests the scale of infestation had outpaced routine preventive maintenance. Inspectors specifically ordered entry-point sealing using durable materials (not spray foam), pest control within 24 hours, and a report to the SFDPH, all standard corrective measures. The commissary's compliance with those demands on the same day as the closure likely helped earn the same-day reinstatement — but the repeat nature of the violation raises a real question about whether the underlying conditions driving pest activity have been truly addressed, or just cleaned up for the reinspector.
