Five blocks from the new Sunset Dunes park, Celia’s by the Beach stands largely unchanged by the passing of time. The scene inside the 65-year-old Mexican restaurant feels reassuringly retro: Chips and guac fly out of the kitchen; heavy plates of enchiladas land on the table, piping hot; a  group of diners cheer as a pitcher of margaritas hits the table.

But beneath the surface, owner Phil Havlicek is on edge. The third-generation proprietor has been anxiously waiting to see the ripple effects of President Donald Trump’s vacillating stance on tariffs. He fears that Celia’s will have to weather another recession. The good news: He’s done this before.

The Great Recession, which lasted roughly from late 2007 to mid-2009, posed tremendous challenges for restaurants. As the housing market crashed and unemployment ballooned to 10%, cash-strapped diners had less disposable income. The restaurateurs who survived learned to adapt and find creative solutions to keep their businesses afloat.

The Standard spoke to six owners of long-running restaurants, asking those who weathered the storm more than 15 years ago to offer kernels of wisdom on outlasting the next one.

In 2009, Celia’s by the Beach was on the verge of bankruptcy. Like many restaurants, it operated on razor-thin margins (and still does), and despite its decades as an Outer Sunset neighborhood staple, the Great Recession pushed it to the brink. 

Phil Havlicek had worked at his grandmother’s restaurant as a server and busser since he was 13 and took over the business, along with his cousin, in 2010. The duo knew that skimping on portion sizes or ingredient quality was out of the question, so they got creative about ways to sell more of the frosty margaritas and hard-shell tacos customers already knew and loved. “With a recession, there’s two things: Either you’ve got a really good deal on food, or you’ve got a really good deal on booze,” Havlicek says. “One’s going to help people feed their families. The other one’s going to help them forget about their problems.”

His solution: dollar tacos on Tuesdays; “Familia Wednesdays,” when two kids eat free for every paying adult; and all-day happy hour on Thursdays. Creating incentives for customers to visit on what used to be the slowest days helped Celia’s to succeed — and the deals haven’t gone away in the years since. “Recession or not, consistency is what’s going to carry you through the hard times,” he says. “Make sure people don’t feel like you’re taking advantage of them.”

In the early aughts, Boulevard was a hot spot for corporate diners with company credit cards and tourists seeking an upscale dining experience with views of the Bay. Fifteen years after its 1993 opening, however, the Great Recession was in full swing, and chef-owner Nancy Oakes saw a “noticeable decline in business” and a less reliable lunch rush.

Oakes wasn’t willing to compromise on her use of seasonal produce, like tender spring asparagus and rhubarb, or local products, like Humboldt Fog goat cheese. Instead, she learned to make cuts that didn’t undermine Boulevard’s culinary integrity or take away from the guest experience. “Save in places that the public never sees, like kitchen linens or the kind of plastic wrap used,” she says. Her team made operational adjustments, too, such as looking for ways to decrease glass breakage and bringing out condiments, creamer, or sugar only if they were wanted by customers, in an effort to reduce waste. 

Maintaining the high-quality experience the restaurant’s regulars expected was critical, Oakes says: “When tourists dry up and business expense accounts go away and nobody is doing martini lunches, the people that have supported you year after year show up to help keep you afloat.”

One of the oldest restaurants in the country, Sam’s Grill has outlived far more than the Great Recession. Owner Peter Quartaroli, who started working at the restaurant as a waiter in 1994 and became managing partner 20 years later, says that’s because Sam’s has always taken a long view. The restaurant, which opened in 1867, is known for its loyal clientele (including former Mayor Willie Brown), and during downturns becomes even more focused on catering to those fans. 

The same mindset applies to the staff. When sales dip, “there’s a little shrinkage that happens with staffing,” Quartaroli acknowledges. “You have to control the schedule and payroll.” When it comes to slashing hours and, in a worst-case scenario, laying off employees, Quartaroli takes seniority into account. During the pandemic, for example, the restaurant slimmed down to a bare-bones staff but was able to retain some employees who’d been there for decades. “We have great community support, and I think that comes from people knowing the people who work here,” he says. 

Paris native Kais Bouzidi opened his first restaurant — Sens, an upscale Mediterranean spot with views of the Ferry Building and San Francisco Bay — in October 2007. The recession started just two months later, but Bouzidi wasn’t worried. “I was 22 at the time,” he says. “I wasn’t paying attention. I was too young to understand what was going on.”

Instead of panicking about everything happening outside the restaurant’s four walls, he remained laser-focused on making sure diners had a great experience. That meant offering consistently high-quality food and drinks, plus warm hospitality that helped customers forget about their troubles, if only for the length of the meal. “We try to provide a contrast of experience when they come into the restaurant,” he says. “Create a positive experience within a negative time.”

Looking back, he says his youthful ignorance to the seriousness of the economic crisis worked in his favor. “Today, I’d be more concerned,” says Bouzidi, who now owns Sens, Barcha, and French bistro Bon Délire. “But I’d probably use that mindset: Ignore what you can’t control.”

Kathy Fang grew up at her parent’s Chinatown restaurant House of Nanking before attending Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles. When she came back to San Francisco, she worked with her father, chef Peter Fang, to open a second restaurant, Fang. She envisioned Fang as a more upscale version of the family business, with a larger menu inspired by her travels and formal kitchen education. 

But by the time they opened the doors in September 2009, the neighborhood around Moscone Center was “pretty much empty,” she says. “We basically told ourselves to expect months with no customers.”

They committed to a simple mantra: “If you get them through the door, you’ve already won.” Rather than prioritize her dream of what the restaurant should be, she made changes to the menu to try to capture as many budget-conscious diners as possible. She created a dish called Brown Rice Delight — essentially, a build-your-own bowl of fried rice — that she sold for just $12. She added a side menu of sandwiches to cater to the takeout crowd. “A lower check is better than no check,” she says.

Chef Dennis Leary opened Canteen, an acclaimed 20-seat New American restaurant in the Commodore Hotel, in 2005. It earned glowing reviews and spurred calls for him to open bigger restaurants. Instead, as the recession loomed and people were “shying away from fancier dining experiences,” Leary went in the opposite direction.

In May 2008, he doubled down on the “lean and mean model” he had honed at Canteen and opened Sentinel. The 250-square-foot, takeout-only sandwich shop sells items like an $8 roast beef sandwich with horseradish cream, which amassed a cult following among the Financial District crowd. 

In the wake of the recession, however, the costs of running restaurants continued to accelerate. So in 2010, Leary shifted his trajectory to focus less on developing restaurants and more on opening bars, starting with the century-old House of Shields next door to his sandwich shop. He closed Canteen in 2013. “After all, the margin on a bottle of vodka is way better than on a sandwich,” he says.