Source

What happened after

Vegan/vegetarian restaurant in SoMa; closed citing San Francisco's rising minimum wage and cost of doing business.

Closure date on record: 2015-01

What happened on the show

Mitch Fox kept hearing that real meat was turning up in his San Francisco vegan restaurant, and he suspected his manager and cashiers. Charles Stiles sent mystery diners Amber, Nate and Brianna in as customers and a food runner. As aired, no one is serving meat, but the staff has other troubles: a cashier lies to customers about the food, a hardcore-vegan cashier refuses service to anyone asking for real cheese the restaurant actually offers, and a cook drinks on shift. The last straw is a cashier eating a fast-food burger out front. The confrontation has that cashier quitting, the vegan cashier warned, and the cook breathalyzed and sent to take time off. Given the scripting claims that later dogged Mystery Diners, this meat-in-the-vegan-kitchen sting is best read as broadcast rather than as independently confirmed.

After the cameras left

Source closed early, and the reason was economics, not the episode. The vegan restaurant in SoMa shut in January 2015, its closure tied by Eater to San Francisco's rising minimum wage and the cost of doing business, per our 2026 pass at 11 Division Street. That is an ordinary casualty of city economics, roughly a year after the episode and unconnected to it. A small independent could not make the numbers work, which is the plain story beneath the sting.