As Klay Thompson Departs From the Golden State Warriors, The Ramp Will Still ‘Serve’ Boaters

A sailor and local marine business owner had hoped that his friend, boating enthusiast Klay Thompson, would stay with the Golden State Warriors when free agency came calling for the NBA superstar. SFGATE even went so far as to write the headline: “Klay Thompson leaving the Warriors would decimate one legendary S.F. bar,” referring to The Ramp Restaurant.

Sports can be so dramatic.

Though Klay Thompson signed with the Dallas Mavericks on Monday and ended his 13-season stint with the Warriors, The Ramp is still open, despite a dispute with the Port of San Francisco a few years ago, and despite the shocking contraction of the working waterfront. We can be dramatic, too. (An earlier version of this story had suggested that The Ramp’s docks were open to boaters. The restaurant’s website clearly states: PLEASE NO DOCKING AT THE RAMP.)

Arvind Patel, who owns The Ramp and adjoining San Francisco Boatworks — the city’s only working boatyard — befriended Klay Thompson a few years ago when the NBA All-Star was still recovering from two major injuries that kept him off the court for two seasons. During his long rehab, Thompson became “Captain Klay” when he purchased an Axopar from Latitude advertiser Seattle Yachts.

Klay was seen zipping around the Bay and all over social media. The Warriors even won their fourth championship in eight years after Thompson returned in 2022.

Thompson began commuting in his boat from Marin to Chase Center, the Warriors’ new arena set in the post-industrial, rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of Mission Bay. Thompson would dock at The Ramp (about a one-minute bike ride away from Chase) unaware that he needed permission to do so. “Arvind Patel enlightened Thompson on the protocols and was so charmed by him that he invited him to dock next to his own 60-ft sailboat,” the New York Times wrote in 2021.

“An avid boater himself who has circumnavigated the globe twice, Patel taught Thompson some boating tips and took him fishing,” SFGATE wrote in their dramatically headlined story last week. Patel was apparently going to “at least” one Warriors game each month with tickets Thompson gave him. “We really want him to stay, we love him that much,” Patel told SFGATE last week, before Thompson signed with Dallas. “He’s really wormed his way into our hearts.”

The Ramp has apparently wormed its way into the hearts of San Franciscans.

“For more than three decades, San Francisco Boatworks and the adjacent Ramp Restaurant have survived as a bastion of saltiness in a fast-changing waterfront, a place where bottoms of vessels are painted, beer mugs drained and halibut fried up moments after being reeled in from the Bay,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote in 2022, just after The Ramp was served notice by the Port of San Francisco.

The Port said that Patel owed nearly $800,000 “under the terms of a lease that requires him to pay a percentage of gross receipts of both businesses. It also claims Patel’s operations are ‘not currently in good standing’ because of noise violations and a renovation of the restaurant.” Patel obtained retroactive permits and admitted that he was in arrears, but was trying to renegotiate with the Port because his boatyard rent was more than double the market rate. “Boatyards have margins of less than 10%, and most on the West Coast pay less than 3% of sales, according to a study San Francisco Boatworks did of boatyards.” Patel was paying 8.75% of sales from the boatyard.

“It’s a dying business,'” Patel told the Chronicle of S.F. Boatworks. “It’s difficult to find qualified workers and to charge enough to survive.

“‘There is something about this place, funky as it is, that hits a nerve with people,'” Patel told the Chronicle. “‘It’s a waterfront dive. It’s an everyman’s hangout. Lots of music and dance. It’s an institution that, if it’s damaged or we lose it, we lose a tiny bit of what makes San Francisco San Francisco.'”

Will San Francisco still be San Francisco without Klay Thompson? Players come and go all the time, but few fans get to see superstars stick around for over a decade. “A player who is so beloved that all of us likely thought he’d retire here instead felt the magnetic need to sail away from the only professional team he’s ever known,” wrote an SFGATE columnist. “Klay will always be royalty in the Bay Area.”

Check out Latitude 38’s list of boat-in dining spots around the Bay Area.