Prelude Will Serve Its Last Dinner in the Financial District on September 19

Prelude, the Southern-inspired restaurant on the ground floor of The Jay hotel in the Financial District, will serve its final dinner on Saturday, September 19, 2026. Omakase Restaurant Group, which opened it in 2024, confirmed the closing date in a statement to WhatNow on August 28, and told the San Francisco Chronicle the restaurant was not drawing enough customers, as SFist reported the same day.

What Prelude was

The restaurant is at 333 Battery Street, inside the hotel now branded The Jay, Autograph Collection, whose main entrance is around the corner at 433 Clay Street. Executive chef Celtin Hendrickson-Jones built the menu on Southern cooking he learned from his maternal grandmothers, who came from Alabama, and he came to the job from Niku Steakhouse, Commis, Verdant and Morimoto, according to the Downtown SF Partnership listing for the restaurant. The bar program was led by Franco Bilbaeno, the wine list was put together by the team behind Maison Healdsburg, and the room was designed by AvroKO.

Prelude was listed in the Michelin Guide California in 2025, and Bon Appetit named its bar one of the nine best new bars in America that year.

Why it’s closing, and what comes next

Omakase Restaurant Group founder and chief executive Kash Feng said in the group’s statement that recognition and a following were not enough to keep the restaurant going. “We’re incredibly proud of what Celtin and the entire Prelude team created,” Feng said. “Prelude gave Celtin an opportunity to tell a deeply personal story through his extraordinary cooking, and we’re grateful to our guests, our team, and The Jay for supporting the restaurant.”

The group says it will reopen the same space this fall with a new restaurant concept, with details to come, and that Hendrickson-Jones stays with the company alongside culinary director Dustin Falcon. Omakase Restaurant Group also runs Omakase, Okane, Niku Steakhouse and The Butcher Shop.

If you want to go before it closes

Prelude is at 333 Battery Street, at Clay Street on the edge of Jackson Square, and reservations run through the restaurant’s own site. The Third Floor is a separate restaurant upstairs in the same hotel, and the announcement covered Prelude only. The Downtown SF Partnership lists the 275 Battery Street and 475 Sansome Street garages as the closest parking, both roughly a block away.

For more on what is opening and closing around the city, see our guide to things to do in San Francisco in September 2026.

Photo: Blackguard SF, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.