We are open Wednesday through Sunday. People ask about the other two days often enough that it deserves a proper answer, and the answer is not complicated: the kitchen needs them, and so do we.
First, the practical part. We are open Wednesday through Saturday from 11am to 8:30pm, and Sunday from 11am to 8pm. We are closed Monday and Tuesday. If you are reading this on a Tuesday evening while standing outside our door, we are sorry, and we will see you tomorrow.
Fairfax Keeps a Five Day Week
We are not unusual in this. Walk Bolinas Road on a Monday and a good number of doors are dark. Small towns have a rhythm, and ours is weighted heavily toward the back half of the week. Saturday is busy. Sunday is busy in a slower, sunnier way. Monday is quiet.
Opening anyway would mean staffing a full kitchen for a room that does not fill, prepping food that does not sell, and throwing a share of it away at the end of the night. That is a poor outcome for everyone: for the people who grew the produce, for a team standing around waiting, and for the business. Being honest about which days work is not a lack of ambition. It is how a small kitchen stays open for the long run.
Two Days Is What the Prep Actually Takes
Almost nothing on our menu is quick. The corn is cooked, steeped, rinsed and ground. The pork for al pastor sits in guajillo adobo. The beef for birria braises for hours. The chicken cooks down in achiote. The escabeche needs real time in the pickle before the carrots and the cauliflower are worth eating. Beans take what beans take.
None of that fits into the gaps between a lunch rush and a dinner rush. It needs days when the kitchen belongs to the cooks rather than to the counter. So Monday and Tuesday are grinding days, braising days, pickling days, ordering days and cleaning days. By the time we unlock on Wednesday, most of the week is already built.
This is also why the al pastor sometimes runs out before close. We make a set amount from a set piece of meat, and there is no second one waiting in the back. Coming early on a Saturday is a genuine strategy.
And Because People Need Rest
Restaurants have earned their reputation for wearing people down. Long shifts, split days off, a schedule that lands on Thursday for a week beginning Friday. We decided early that we were not going to run ours that way.
Two days off in a row is not the same thing as two days off apart. One lets you recover. Two lets you have a life: a trip, a family thing, a whole Monday where nobody needs anything from you. Our team knows which days those are, every week, without having to ask. That kind of predictability is worth more to a cook than most of the perks a place our size could offer.
The same thinking runs through the rest of it. The team eats the same food we serve, because we do not think a staff meal should be made out of whatever is left.
If You Need Us on a Closed Day
Catering enquiries are welcome and the answer is sometimes yes. Email hello@eatmasmasa.com or call (415) 295-7443 and we will tell you honestly whether we can make it work.
Otherwise we will be here Wednesday at eleven with fresh masa and a hot griddle, which is really the entire point of the two days before.
