Did Carte415 Close Up Shop for Good?

J. Birdsall

The cart brought street food with a chef's touch to lunch patrons downtown.

Has downtown street-food vendor Carte415 quietly folded? SFoodie paid its last visit to the mobile kiosk in the Atrium Lobby of 101 Second St. (at Mission) a week before Thanksgiving (when we tasted the mushroom-Madeira soup we blogged about in yesterday's Morning Buzz). But, tipped off by a commenter, we checked out Yelp: Looks like Carte415 rolled it up for the Thanksgiving weekend, and never returned (its last tweet was Nov. 24). Even more ominous, Carte415's phone seems to have been disconnected, and e-mail bounced back. Chef-proprietor Joshua Skenes didn't return SFoodie's call yesterday.

If Carte415 has folded, it wouldn't exactly be a surprise. In September, Skenes' prix-fixe fine dining pop-up Saison expanded from one night per week to three, and it no doubt started to take up more and more of the chef's attention. Or if it has failed, is it a comment on the viability of legal street-food carts, which incur huge up-front expenses?

If Skenes ever calls us back, we'll let you know.