Bissap Baobab SF
Live music venue · Mission ·
Senegalese spot with exotic cocktails, world music & dancing
Senegalese spot with exotic cocktails, world music & dancing
"A Mission favorite restaurant and music venue will close on Sunday, December 28; in an Instagram post, owner Marco Senghor called the decision “incredibly emotional,” saying “sustaining such a large space has become too difficult in these times.” The team is looking for a new space and plans a final party for Saturday, December 20: “The baobab bends, but it never breaks.”" - Dianne de Guzman
"I met Marco Senghor, proprietor of Bissap Baobab, an 18-year-old West African/Senegalese restaurant and club in the Mission, and learned that he arrived in San Francisco in 1989 as Marc Olivier Senghor—the grandson of Léopold Senghor—and adopted the nickname Marco to create an independent identity. He settled in the Mission, discovered familiar ingredients like tamarind and hibiscus, found a welcoming, diverse community, and even moved into an abandoned building on 19th Street between Mission and Capp that temporarily served as his home and later became Little Baobab." - Eater Staff
"Bissap Baobab is a Senegalese restaurant in the Mission that has persevered through a lot of adversity within the past two years. In 2019, the owner, Marco, was arrested based on some unfounded claims about his immigration status. And he basically had his restaurant shut down for almost the whole year. He also lost the club, which was attached to the restaurant, due to these fallacious claims laid against him. Baobab was such a huge melting pot of West African culture in San Francisco. When I first moved here from Lagos in 2016, I was always at Baobab, because they would play Senegalese music, Nigerian music, Ghanian music - and it just felt like home away from home. And so it was so heartbreaking to see him go through that. But he was able to come back. Now he only owns 40% of the space he owned before - he had to sell off the rest of it to be able to pay his legal fees due to that battle. But he’s back and he’s doing takeout and delivery and also working on the nonprofit program which I’m working on as well, the SF New Deal. And the food is amazing. Try the chicken yassa - they’ll do it with fried plantains as well, which is delicious. I love anything with fried plantains." - simileoluwa adebajo 1
"I learned that the Mission Street West African restaurant Bissap Baobab — a late-night hotspot for Afrobeats, live music, and dancing — can now stay open until 4 a.m. on weekend nights after a unanimous vote by the San Francisco Entertainment Commission (the vote took about five minutes); the extended hours are expected to bring even more dancing, including flamenco and salsa nights, though the restaurant will still stop serving alcohol at 2 a.m. per state law." - Justine Jones
"In San Francisco one Senegalese spot that many diners can name is Bissap Baobab, known for affordable food, pitcher cocktails, and for doubling as a lively music scene and fun dance party." - Becky Duffett
