Sad closure news came this week out of Noe Valley, where local chef and food entrepreneur Azalina Eusope's first brick-and-mortar Malaysian restaurant, Mahila (1320 Castro Street), has permanently closed after just 21 months.

The iconic, nearly 40-year-old SoMa Mexican restaurant Don Ramon's (225 11th Street) has skirted a permanent closure for now as it attempts to escape its current financial woes via Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring. 

Nine-year-old cocktail-focused spot Maven is closing its doors later this month in the Lower Haight, one of the swans at the Palace of Fine Arts has died, and Old Oakland has a new pizza spot and a salad spot on the way.

102-year-old Tosca Cafe (242 Columbus Ave.) is coming alive yet again in North Beach, after a too-brief rebirth last year, and following its much bemoaned 2019 closure.

Mr. Digby's, a casual restaurant and cocktail spot from a couple with established SF restaurant cred in the former Noe's Cantina space (1199 Church St.), is now aiming for an April opening after being delayed nearly a year by the pandemic.

One of the last vestiges of a long-gone era in San Francisco's Chinatown, the worn-in Far East Cafe (631 Grant Ave.), is remaining open after all, following an announcement in December that it might have to close.

A local group of history buffs and conservators is hoping that the collection — at least some of it — can remain together and available for public view, even after the Cliff House potentially becomes a different restaurant.

Two bars, two different fates. Over in Bernal Heights/La Lengua, next-door bars El Rio and Virgil's Sea Room, which almost share a backyard were it not for a fence, have arrived at diverging moments in this COVID year.

Thanks to a streamlined approval process from the city and a proposed law making its way through the state legislature, San Francisco could be looking at an outdoor dining explosion in the coming years — going from a town with very few al fresco dining options to one with several thousand relatively new ones.

A priest has died of COVID-19 at Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach, 27-year-old Muddy's Coffee House has closed at 24th and Valencia, and an East San Jose gym that had remained open in defiance of health orders has temporarily closed.

There's been a massive jump in burglaries in the Richmond District, year over year, according to new data from the SFPD's Richmond Station. And while burglaries are reportedly up in multiple neighborhoods, we're only hearing a definitive report on the first five weeks of 2021 from the Richmond.

Japanese fast-fashion retailer Uniqlo announced Friday — via a filing with the state employment department — that it is closing its nine-year-old Union Square location at 111 Powell Street for good and laying off all 69 employees.

West Portal's beloved arthouse cinema, CineArts at Empire (85 West Portal Ave.), is closing for good due to the pandemic, though the city says it is working to find a new operator for the theater.