The owners of Zephyr Grill & Bar had hoped to find a path that would "carry the restaurant forward." When Lynn and Randy Tei announced on social media this week that the restaurant would close on Oct. 31, they said plainly that the path "did not come together."
The phrase "carry forward" matters. On First Street this year, closing a restaurant has usually meant passing it to someone else. A working room with its bar, kitchen and lease gets sold to another operator, the old name stays with the seller, and the lights stay on under a new sign. Zephyr tried that route in the spring. Nobody bought it. A downtown fixture that opened in 2004 is going dark because the usual handoff failed, and the room's future is now an open question.
How a First Street room usually changes owners
The best example is a few doors away, at 2470 First St., Suite 100, next to the Bankhead Theater. Since early 2025 that address has had three names and never sat empty for long:
- The Last Word closed temporarily in January 2025 to rebrand.
- The Syndicate, a mafia-themed speakeasy, ran in the same room for about a year and shut down in March 2026.
- Le Nocturne, a French supper club, took over under new owner Gianni Schell, who planned a mid-to-late May opening.
Owners Stewart and Michelle McLean told Livermore Vine that they had been thinking about selling The Syndicate for seven or eight months. "We wanted more time back in our lives," McLean said. The couple kept Mornings on First, their breakfast spot on the same street. The bar went to a buyer who already knew the block.
That buyer matters to the pattern. Schell has run Rebel Kitchen & Libations for 17 years and co-owns The Black Cat, both on First Street. He told Diablo Magazine he wasn't looking for another project. He had always admired the space, and the owners "offered me a deal I couldn't refuse."
The handoffs keep going. When Schell took on Le Nocturne, he and Black Cat co-owner Dina Parks started looking for a managing partner for the bar and said they would probably sell if they couldn't find one. By the time Diablo covered Le Nocturne's opening, Schell said he was in the process of selling The Black Cat to a longtime patron. Its website still uses the name and lists hours. No reporting confirms that the sale has closed.
In a short span, one owner sold a bar, a second operator bought it and reopened it, and that operator began selling a different bar to a regular customer. None of those rooms went dark for a full season.
What the new owners did with the room
Le Nocturne shows what a buyer gets from a handoff: a finished room and the freedom to change the concept completely. Diablo describes a dinner menu of steak tartare, Salad Lyonnaise, escargot, steak frites, coq au vin, trout amandine and Point Reyes oysters. The wine list mixes French and Livermore Valley labels. At 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, the room switches to deep house and EDM until 1 a.m. Schell brought in his son Cameron, who has worked in several Michelin-starred San Francisco kitchens, to help shape the concept and hire chef Raj Desai.
The restaurant's website now says "Now Open." The hours it posts are labeled as summer 2026 hours, so check before planning a late night.
Zephyr tried the same handoff
The Teis listed Zephyr for sale on terms like the Le Nocturne deal. In March, Livermore Vine reported that the business and its assets were listed on LoopNet. The listing didn't name the restaurant, but its photos matched the Zephyr building. The name was not part of the sale:
"While the current concept has operated successfully for many years, the brand name will not transfer with the sale. This creates a unique opportunity for a new owner to introduce a fresh concept or expand an already successful restaurant brand into a prime downtown location."
That is the same arrangement that turned The Syndicate into Le Nocturne. The listing laid out the numbers:
- Asking price: $399,000, including seating, decorative lighting, a built-in bar and backbar, wine storage, refrigeration, the kitchen and prep areas, and service equipment
- Gross revenue cited: more than $2.8 million
- Rent: $14,300 a month
Over a year, that rent comes to $171,600, or about 6 percent of the revenue the listing claimed. The listing called the space "turn-key," meaning a new operator could open quickly without building a restaurant from scratch. Operations manager Jose Ferreira explained the reason for selling simply: "They're trying to shrink it up a little." The Teis also own a Zephyr Grill & Bar in Brentwood and Smith's Landing Seafood Grill in Antioch. Both will stay open.
The timing was hard. A small fire in the prep area in July 2025 closed the restaurant for months and led to a full cleanup. Zephyr reopened in November 2025, and the owners said then that they had "tremendous hope for Zephyr's future." Four months later, the business was for sale. Seven months after that, the closing date was set. "We gave it everything we had, which makes this decision that much more difficult," they wrote. The Teis did not respond to Livermore Vine's request for comment, and no reporting explains why the sale fell through.
No reporting has named anyone for the space after Oct. 31 either. The listing's description of a room ready for a new concept still describes the building. Neither the March sale story nor the October closing story names a successor.
The rooms that filled the usual way this year
Two other 2026 openings were new arrivals rather than handoffs.
Zachary's Chicago Pizza opened on Feb. 2 at 2470 First St., Suite 104, in the same building as Le Nocturne.
Slice House opened at 1948 First St. in late February. It is Tony Gemignani's first Tri-Valley pizzeria and part of his 34-location brand. Pleasanton Weekly reported that people lined up three hours before the grand opening and that 1,300 guests came through that day. Gemignani, a 13-time World Pizza Champion, grew up in Fremont. Some customers from his brother's old Castro Valley pizzeria came to the opening.
Two more projects are in the pipeline, and both are further out than their headlines suggest:
- Traditions Meat Co., a butcher shop with ready-to-go sandwiches, plans to open at 2558 Old First St. The owners told Livermore Vine they are aiming for spring 2027.
- The Storehouse – New Provisions, a proposed micro-food hall at 2455 Railroad Ave. in the former Pennyweight Craft Brewing site, was aiming for a fall opening. As of May reporting, its approvals were still under city review. No later update confirms that it was approved or opened.
Zephyr's final three weeks
Through Oct. 31, Zephyr is open 3 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday. In their farewell post, the owners recalled birthdays, anniversaries, holidays and house specials, and thanked current and former staff who "helped make Zephyr what it has been for more than two decades."
Those last weeks fall during a busy stretch for the valley. Taste: The Livermore Valley Wine Experience runs Thursday, Oct. 15, through Sunday, Oct. 18, according to the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association. It opens at a new location, Wente Family Vineyards, with "Taste Our Terroir," a food-and-wine pairing competition between twenty wineries and local chefs.
Downtown, Livermore Downtown Inc.'s event calendar lists Kidz Town Halloween Hay Day on Saturday, Oct. 24, a week before Zephyr's final night. The calendar then lists Earlier than the Bird on Nov. 21, and the Holiday Sights & Sounds Parade and Tree Lighting on Dec. 5.
Zephyr's last service is Saturday, Oct. 31, and the hours end at 9 p.m.
A sale-ready room with no announced buyer is a familiar problem in any market. Rabeet Noor works on the property side of that problem: quiet, off-market handoffs that keep a deal moving instead of letting it stall. If you're thinking about a sale and want discretion and strong negotiation, book a consultation.
