Sausalito's Huge Waterfront Restaurant Just Closed — Sort Of
Nikita Khandheria was 19 years old at the time she launched Ditas in 2023, starting it with money from a series of investors. The waterfront restaurant was the first outpost of mini restaurant-and-bar chain Ditas, based in India. But now, relaunched as Eria, it's both a showcase for Khandheria's new consumer goods brand of the same name and a morning cafe. In a note posted to the restaurant's website by Khanderia, the idea behind the change is to thrust into a bold, consumer products horizon. Now, the Ditas homepage redirects to a new website set up for Eria. It's a new cafe in the same space, open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.
That said, Eria won't be open past September.
Khanderia tells Eater SF that Ditas isn't shutting down, but rather pivoting. She says she bought out the Ditas investors in January 2025, allowing for the name change. The Eria Cafe arm began in mid-February, per the Pacific Sun . Now, it's an events venue that Khandheria says has events booked through 2025 and 2026. She told Eater SF that making it on Forbes's 30 Under 30 got her a lot of bookings, though she was unable to provide her Forbes coverage and Eater SF could not verify that information. She says she wants Eria Cafe to be for the locals, but admits that it was always meant to be temporary. By September, Khandheria says private events will take over the space full time.
On the farewell note posted to the Ditas website, Khandheria says she 'rescues food businesses.' On the Listening with Leaders podcast in May 2025, Khandheria tells host Doug Noll she doesn't see herself as a restaurateur. When Ditas opened, she'd fly to Marin to 'help with opening,' but built the restaurant to be 'self-sustaining.' Upon graduation, she says she wasn't sure what to do with all her time. 'The restaurant was on autopilot,' she says.
Khanderia tells Eater SF that Ditas isn't shutting down, but rather pivoting. She says she bought out the Ditas investors in January 2025, allowing for the name change. The Eria Cafe arm began in mid-February, per the Pacific Sun. Now, it's an events venue that Khandheria says has events booked through 2025 and 2026. She told Eater SF making it on Forbes's 30 Under 30 got her a lot of bookings, though she was unable to provide her Forbes coverage and Eater SF could not verify that information. She says she wants Eria Cafe to be for the locals, but admits that it was always meant to be temporary. By September, Khandheria says private events will take over the space full time.
More than that, her conversation with Noll indicated a change in the owners' dining habits coming from her time in the restaurant game. She recounts an oyster shipment that needed recalling due to a possible norovirus contamination. Further, she says she will not eat seed oils, echoing a larger food industry trend fueled by wellness influencers and the MAHA movement. 'To this day I do not go out to eat that often because I know restaurants are going through a hard time, using seed oils and stuff, and I will not put that in my body,' she told the podcaster.
It was in late 2024 that she bought Judy Love Sticks. It was a more than 30-year-old Marin County consumer goods business selling breadsticks to grocery stores and restaurants in the area. For her, she said the purchase was to get further into food production rather than just service. She rebranded the business into Eria. Now, showcasing Eria products at the cafe, Khandheria said on the podcast the waterfront views paired with mushroom toast work like 'a billboard' for this new brand. Her plan for summer 2025 is to take the company through national distributors.
As for Ditas, Yelp reviews in winter and spring 2025 indicate the restaurant's winding down has been downright confusing. Diners wrote about receiving text-based confirmations from the restaurant up to an hour before their reservation, only to arrive to an empty parking lot and no one inside. Currently, the website and Google Map venue for Cafe Eria show different hours, while an Instagram post for the business says 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Khandheria says she hosted an event to announce the winding down and sent out emails, but points to issues with city permits as the reason behind any confusion over the Eria pivot. See More: San Francisco Restaurant Closings
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