SF Liquor Licenses, Once Worth $250K, Now Trade for Around $100K

San Francisco full liquor licenses, including Type 47 licenses that were historically traded on a secondary market, are now worth about a third of their pre-pandemic prices. Type 47 licenses that once sold for $250,000 or more are now valued around $100,000, with late 2025 prices reported near $95,000. Prices remain higher than in other parts of California, where the same license can cost about $20,000. The decline is attributed to reduced demand, and license prices are described as an indicator of beliefs about San Francisco and the restaurant industry. Brokers also note that slumps in license prices often precede a broader recession.

"In a sign of weak demand for restaurants overall, the once highly valued "full" liquor licenses in San Francisco, which could only be obtained on the secondary market due to a longstanding legal exception, are now worth about a third of what they were before the pandemic. You might not think that the market price for a liquor license would fluctuate, or that the price could tank in a matter of just a few years. It's not like people have stopped drinking Gen Z maybe has and it's not like the local restaurant scene is in the doldrums like it was in 2021."

"The coveted Type 47 liquor licenses, which once traded hands in San Francisco for $250,000 or more, are now valued at around $100,000, the Chronicle explains. That's still far more than the $20,000 that the same license would cost in other parts of California. But it marks a serious decline in value that is being driven by a decline in demand. "The price of a liquor license is an index of what people believe about San Francisco and the restaurant industry," says Thad Vogler."

""They've stayed down. They're not going up." A broker who has traded in SF Type 47 liquor licenses for years, Cameron DeRuosi, confirms this to the Chronicle, saying that the rock-bottom price of $95,000 in late 2025, but has come up slightly since then. And, DuRuosi adds in speaking to the Chronicle that such slumps in the price of licenses usually presage a larger recession on the way."

Read at sfist.com