‘Bacon Bacon’ Restaurant Closing After Bacon Aroma Plagues Community

San Francisco, CA – A restaurant called Bacon Bacon is being forced to close after complaints of an intoxicating obnoxious bacon aroma caused the Health Department to shut the operation down.

The popular pork-based restaurant in the Upper Haight is being forced to shut down this week after months of failed negotiations with neighbors and the Health Department.

It started like this: A handful of really uncool neighbors of Bacon Bacon complained of a constant “porcine aroma,” which is a $10 way to say “we hate the smell of bacon.”

Since you can’t lodge a formal complaint with the Department of Public Health over the smell of bacon, the instead expressed concerns about… grease disposal.

Sounds pretty lame, but the complainants ended up having a real point. The Department of Public Health showed up and poked around, and wouldn’t you know it, they found that the Bacon Bacon restaurant wasn’t exactly up to snuff.

It was the permits that did Bacon Bacon in, but the Health Dept. gave the owners 75 days to set things right before they’d be forced to shutter the place for good.

Despite a swell of online support from Bay Area residents who love the restaurant, Bacon Bacon is closing and won’t be able to appeal at a public hearing until July.

Owner Jim Angelus has tried to work out his differences with his unhappy neighbors to no avail.

“It’s frustrating,” Angelus said. “Two weeks ago, the health department showed up saying we had no permits. So we had a hearing and one person showed up saying they were opposed. They told us we had long enough to resolve these issues — and as a result, we have to cease operations May 17.”

Those neighbors, who were not identified, alleged that the Bacon Bacon restaurant was pumping bacon grease directly into the sewer system and apparently even offered to pay for an air filtration system for the restaurant’s owners. That seems kind of sketchy, but that’s what their lawyer said.

But at the end of the day, Bacon Bacon needs to follow the rules to stay in business, says Ted Loewenberg, president of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association. If they’d just get their papers in order, they could re-open, and there’s an online petition with about 1,800 signatures belonging to people who would like to see that happen.

Have you ever eaten at the Bacon Bacon restaurant? What do you think of the smell of bacon?

[Image via: Anna Hoychuk, Shutterstock]