Mission Social Hall &Cafe, chef Mark “Gooch” Noguchi’s lunch restaurant on the grounds of the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, is closing Dec. 14.

The departure is due to a 48 percent rise in operating costs, said Amanda Corby Noguchi, wife of the chef and co-founder of the couple’s Pili Group, which runs the cafe.

“We are barely making it in the black without the increase,” she said.

Executive Director Tom Woods said the museum is sorry to see the cafe go.

“They provide a wonderful, welcoming group and wonderful food for both our visitors and our neighbors. They’ve been valuable to the site,” he said.

But having a for-profit business on site is costly for the nonprofit museum, Woods said. A city ordinance makes the cafe space subject to property taxes — which keep going up — because it doesn’t directly relate to the mission of the museum, he said.

The museum had been charging Pili according to 2012 rates, but, beginning next year, would have begun passing on half of the hikes since 2012.

Noguchi said she sought to collaborate with the museum to align the cafe’s menu with existing programs, but Woods declined.

For instance, she said, an evening music series could have been paired with a special menu from the cafe, which is required to stay open for such events. Dishes inspired by the specific music presented would not only directly relate food to the program, but also could elicit more public interest, Noguchi said.

“We thought that by supporting their mission, we could both be more successful. We bring with us our network, and I thought we could have shared our outreach with them,” she said.

But Woods said programming cannot be driven by another organization.

“We can’t, as a nonprofit, raise money from our donors for a for-profit business,” he said. “Programming must be driven by our mission and the theme of our museum.”

Mission opened in March 2015 and serves about 200 customers daily, with a menu centered on locally grown and raised products, a hallmark of Pili’s cuisine.

There are no immediate plans to relocate the cafe.

One event she is dedicated to continuing elsewhere is Uncle Wayne’s Family Pau Hana, a monthly event that has featured family-friendly food, live music by Uncle Wayne and the Howling Dog Band, and storytelling through song.

Woods said the museum will begin a search “very soon” for a replacement food vendor.