WALNUT CREEK, CALIFORNIA – When chef-owner Nora Haron announced last week that Indonesian restaurant SanDai and its sibling KOPI Bar were shutting their doors after two years on North Main Street, most diners assumed slow week-night traffic was to blame.
That was only half the story. Haron revealed the businesses were shelling out more than $28,500 in rent every single month—a figure that left even veteran restaurateurs gasping.
At that price, a healthy 10 percent rent-to-sales ratio (typical for restaurants) would require roughly $3.4 million in annual sales—an Everest-sized target for an independent operator still building brand awareness.
Is $28.5 K an outlier? Not really.
Commercial listings show Walnut Creek’s average asking rent at $45-48 per square foot per year—already among the highest in the East Bay.
Prime storefronts can soar far higher.
| Address | Asking rent (annualized) | Space size |
|---|---|---|
| 1372 N Main St (corner micro-retail) | $75 / sf / yr | 400 sf |
| 1601 N Main St (modified gross) | $3.95 / sf / mo ≈ $47.40 / yr | 1,553 sf |
Multiply those rates by 4,000-6,000 square feet—common for full-service eateries—and you quickly reach SanDai’s eye-watering lease.
What “NNN” really means
Several neighbors on Nextdoor asked what “triple-net (NNN)” charges are, as they were mentioned as a potential reason for Kopi Bar and SanDai’s extremely high rent. In most Walnut Creek retail leases, tenants pay base rent plus a pro-rata share of:
- Net property taxes
- Net insurance
- Net common-area maintenance (repaving, HVAC, roof repairs, etc.)
Those pass-through costs can add $0.75 – $1.25 per square foot per month, silently inflating a headline rent of, say, $6.25/sf to well over $7.25/sf—exactly the $28.5 K that SanDai/Kopi paid.
Residents weigh in: “Greedy landlords” vs. “risky business math”
A 25+ comment thread on Nextdoor captured the community’s whiplash:
- “That’s a disgusting amount of money for rent.” —Buena Vista neighbor
- “If you want nice things like KOPI Bar, you need the population density and foot traffic to support them.” —Parkmead resident
- “Restaurateurs aren’t in the real-estate business; they operate restaurants.” —Camino Pablo commenter
Others noted that chains—backed by deeper pockets or corporate guarantees—can weather seven-dollar-per-square-foot rents that crush independents. It’s one reason downtown storefronts increasingly resemble “every shopping area everywhere,” as one Lafayette poster lamented.
Some people blamed landlords, but others pointed out that rents are high because businesses are willing to pay them–some businesses can make the rents work, while others cannot.
The bottom line
SanDai’s demise has turned the abstract question of commercial rents into Main-Street dinner-table talk. Whether the shock translates into zoning changes, new lease models—or simply more chains replacing beloved independents—will determine what downtown Walnut Creek tastes like in five years.
