12 long-lived Bay Area restaurants we said goodbye to in 2024

During tumultuous times, we look for comfort. And we often find it in our go-to dishes at our longtime favorite restaurants.

But every year we say goodbye to many of those establishments. The ones we pay tribute to here had been landmarks for years, even generations. Some chefs and owners decided to retire or take a break. Others couldn’t weather the costs of doing business in this inflationary, post-pandemic era. Or ran up against redevelopment plans.

Here, in order of longevity, are 12 businesses that shut their doors after 25 years or more, plus a few revivals and relocations that we’re thrilled about. Let us know if we missed one of your favorite legacy restaurants.

CASPERS HOT DOGS, Hayward, 76 years

Customers line up outside Caspers Hot Dogs on C Street in downtown Hayward on June 26, 2024. The diner that company founders built in the 1940s closed July 13, but other locations remain open.. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group) 

In late June, folks began rushing to the Caspers on C Street in downtown Hayward not just to savor one of the chain’s classic hot dogs — after all, there are five other Caspers, including a location just across town — but to eat one at this landmark spot.

This location was the , a Hopper-esque diner with a neon sign — an architectural stunner — that had been in operation since founders Rose and Paul Agajan built it in 1948.

oldest surviving restaurant in the chain

The family described the planned closure as an economic decision made to “strengthen the health and future sustainability of the company.” Their five other Caspers, which remain in operation, are located in Pleasant Hill, Dublin, Richmond, on Oakland’s Telegraph Avenue and on Hayward’s Foothill Boulevard.

BURGER PIT, San Jose (the last one) and Cupertino (the first one), 71 years

Bacon cheese Steerburger with fries on a customer’s table at the Burger Pit on Blossom Hill Road on April 17, a week before the last of the South Bay’s Burger Pit restaurants closed for good. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group) 

Who better to operate a burger empire than a family named Berger? Oakland native Albert Berger launched the business with a few partners in 1953 as the Burger Bar. That walk-up stand at First and Keyes streets in downtown San Jose famously sold a bag of 10 burgers for a buck — an appealing deal for hungry students at then-San Jose State College.

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