San Francisco Jack within the Field closes to repair plumbing leaks that shut down blues venue

The Jack in the Box restaurant in San Francisco’s Union Square neighborhood, which earlier this week was told by a San Francisco Superior Court judge to fix its faulty plumbing, has temporarily closed.

A note on the restaurant’s door Thursday morning said the location was “closed due to maintenance until further notice.”

The closure comes one day after The Chronicle reported an injunction had been ordered to make Jack in the Box “stop any leaks from the refrigerators and freezers up to and including unplugging the appliances” at the restaurant. The owner of the fast food restaurant did not respond to The Chronicle’s initial requests for comment.

Jack in the Box shares a building at Geary and Mason streets with Biscuits and Blues, which opened in 1995 and is one of the oldest blues venues in the city. For several months last year, the burger joint’s plumbing leaked water and feces into Biscuits and Blues, forcing the blues business to shut down. It remains closed.

The order does not specifically state which repairs need to be made at Jack in the Box. During a Jan. 29 court hearing, Gordon J. Calhoun, who represents the franchisee of Union Square’s Jack in the Box, Saeed Khan, said fixing the plumbing could require structural work on the building’s foundation, which would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The two businesses have spent the last 10 months in court trying to decide who should pay to fix the plumbing. Over the course of several hearings, Biscuits and Blues claimed it was Jack in the Box’s responsibility. The fast-food restaurant owner said it was the duty of the landlord. The landlord said the operator should pay for the work.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @JustMrPhillips