A Mediterranean restaurant that fed downtown San Francisco office workers chicken shawarma wraps and salmon kebabs for almost 30 years has closed its doors after its landlord declined to renew the lease. Oasis Grill's location at 100 1st St., across from Salesforce Tower, shut down at the end of October after the building's owner handed the space to a competing restaurant.
Owners Muna Azzghayer and Mohammad Zughaiyir, who have run Oasis Grill since 1999, say they never saw it coming. “We were blindsided,” Azzghayer told The San Francisco Standard, which first reported the closure. According to the outlet, landlord Kilroy Realty did not offer to renew the lease when it expired at the end of October, and later notified the owners that the space had gone to a different restaurant entirely.
The warning signs started at the beginning of 2026, the outlet reports, when Kilroy Realty began showing the space to prospective tenants. Azzghayer said the company declined to give her information about what was happening, and she believes the incoming restaurant simply outbid them. “They're looking for more rent than what we're paying,” she said, per the same report.
A Build-Out That Took a Year and $2 Million
The loss stings in part because of how much the owners sank into the space. Azzghayer and Zughaiyir built out the counter-service restaurant in 2015, a renovation that included installing new gas lines and took a full year to complete. “We spent a year building it,” Azzghayer said. The pair estimate the total cost of those renovations at around $2 million.
That investment came not long before the business faced another gut-punch: the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit hard as downtown foot traffic cratered, according to the Standard's reporting. Azzghayer has described Oasis Grill as a trailblazer for Mediterranean food in San Francisco, a reputation built over nearly three decades of serving the lunch crowd near the Financial District.
Three Locations Remain Open
Oasis Grill isn't disappearing from San Francisco. The restaurant still operates three other locations in the city, at 47 Drumm St., 200 4th St., and 711 Market St. Kilroy Realty did not respond to requests for comment from the Standard about its decision not to renew the 1st Street lease.
Azzghayer told the outlet that the way the situation played out left a bad taste, saying the treatment by the landlord was difficult and that both parties could have benefited from handling it differently.
Part of a Rough Stretch for Bay Area Restaurants
Oasis Grill's exit adds to a string of Bay Area restaurant closures tied to lease troubles and rising costs. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 2025 was another difficult year for the industry, with high overhead and operating costs continuing to squeeze operators across the region. Grande Crêperie at the Ferry Building closed last June after management there declined to renew its lease, a decision the Chronicle says reflected the market's preference for tenants that could stay open into the evening; Red Bay Coffee later moved into that space.
Other closures followed a similar pattern. Lord Stanley shut down in May 2025 after owners Rupert and Carrie Blease chose not to renew their 10-year lease, and Ragazza closed at the end of March 2025 after its owner opted against renewal when Friday night sales fell roughly $2,000 below pre-pandemic levels. In San Mateo, Wursthall closed for good amid a broader business downturn that led general manager Xian Choi to let the lease lapse.
For now, Azzghayer and Zughaiyir are left running Oasis Grill's three remaining San Francisco storefronts, still serving the shawarma and kebabs that built the brand's following, even as the original 1st Street counter they spent a year and millions of dollars building sits empty, awaiting its next tenant.
