Citizen Cake closed in December after little more than a year on Fillmore Street.
Troya, a Turkish restaurant on Clement Street, will open Troya Fillmore in the space at 2125 Fillmore recently vacated by Citizen Cake. The second location on Fillmore will be “more modern and hipper than the Richmond version,” Inside Scoop reports.
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Maurice Kanbar is back with a new vodka.
SPIRITS | Chris Barnett
Maurice Kanbar is sitting in the cluttered, comfortable living room of his Pacific Heights apartment clipping Safeway coupons.
That seems rather odd for an 80-year-old entrepreneur, property investor and filmmaker-philanthropist who’s no doubt a billionaire plus. But then he also zips around town on a Vespa lookalike motor scooter because he hates to waste time trolling for parking places. And he eats lunch at the same restaurant practically every day when he’s in town: Perry’s on Union Street.
Kanbar is a man in motion — an obsessive, compulsive inventor with a near Midas touch who dreams up many of his ideas in his own kitchen. Then he gives his brainstorms a clever name, an eye-grabbing package and pitches them like a carny barker. No MBA marketing mumbo-jumbo or Silicon Valley techno-babble. Just plain English. A prime example is D-Fuzz-It, a gadget expressly designed to remove fuzz balls from sweaters.
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Photographs of Solstice by Daniel Bahmani
FAVORITE SPOT | Kevin Blum
Like many residents and the great Tony Bennett, I left my heart in San Francisco. But I think it’s fair to say I left my liver at Solstice lounge.
I first discovered the restaurant and bar eight years ago when I moved to the neighborhood. Solstice had just opened at 2801 California, at the corner of Divisadero, in the spot formerly home to Rasselas Jazz Club. We were both new kids on the block, and we liked each other immediately. I quickly became a fan of the friendly bar staff and their classic cocktails. And it was nice to have a neighborhood joint where I could hang out with old friends and meet new ones.
Best of all, it was stumbling distance from my apartment.
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Planning Commission President Christina Olague was sworn in this morning by Mayor Ed Lee as the new member of the Board of Supervisors from District 5, which includes much of the Fillmore.
Read more: “Ed Lee’s pick“
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Le Labo has completely remade the storefront at 2238 Fillmore.
“FRESH PERFUME IS THE BEST,” proclaims Meg Christensen, manager of Le Labo, the scent emporium that opened during the holidays at 2238 Fillmore Street. The spare shop has no perfume in stock, but will mix one of its 12 fragrances on the spot while the customer waits.
Costs range from $58 for a 15-ml. portion — best for newcomers who want to try a scent on for size — to $700 for a 500-ml. grand size.
The most popular offering so far is Santal 33. The 33 signifies the number of ingredients that go into the mix, with the end result said to be conjure up the “sensual universality” of the Marlboro man — or rather the Marlboro person, given that all Le Labo scents are deemed to be unisex.
“Great fragrances don’t have a gender,” says Christensen, noting that some of the scents are also produced in lotions and long-lasting silicone-based balms.
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Los Dedos (The Fingers) photographed by Tom Bergin
FIRST PERSON | Tom Bergin
Life flies by so fast. It has been almost 10 years since I sold Tom Bergin Goldsmith on Fillmore Street to Eric Trabert. I miss the customers — many of whom became friends. I miss the neighbors who popped in to say hello as they passed by on their daily routines — especially people like Rose, who shared her family recipe for Italian gravy, and Bruce, who often brought his latest baked goods for us to try. And of course I miss the ones who came by to keep me informed about the ups and downs of the neighborhood.
I feel honored to have shared in many happy moments as a jewelry designer on Fillmore Street for nine years, and for eight years before that at Union Street Goldsmith, whether it was working with customers to design a wedding ring, resetting a sentimental gemstone or finding a special keepsake. I miss the jewelry business and have fond memories of being involved with the Fillmore Merchants Association — which involved, among other things, climbing up the trees along Fillmore Street like a monkey to wrap them with Christmas lights.
After working hard for so many years, I thought I would just kick back. But life has brought me new adventures. Now I live between San Francisco and Montevideo, Uruguay. I’m in Uruguay because it is the childhood home of my partner of five years, who I met right in front of my house in San Francisco.
Going back and forth to Uruguay the last few years has turned into something of an endless summer. The shortest day of the year in the U.S., December 21, is the longest day of the year in Uruguay and the first day of summer. So while I sometimes miss being in retail at Christmas time, it is fun to spend Christmas near the beach and watch the water drain down the sink in the opposite direction.
In Uruguay, life is quiet. I enjoy doing travel and portrait photography and posting the photos on my Facebook page, Thomas Bergin Photography. The photograph above is part of a series I took in Punta del Este.
I don’t know what is around the next bend, but for now I’ll keep my seat belt fastened and enjoy the ride. My wish is that we all have a new year filled with good health and a happy journey.
Nos vemos amigos. I’ll be seeing you around.
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FIRST PERSON | Amy Bernstein
When we started telling friends that we were moving from San Francisco to Boston, we could count on getting one of two responses: an incredulous “Why?” or “Boston’s great. It’s a lot like San Francisco.”
My partner Nanette Bisher and I were moving because I had just landed a dream job. We’d always sworn we’d never leave San Francisco. After years of hopscotching across the country for work, we’d found our way to the Bay Area in 1999 and for 12 years we were happy — Nanette as the art director first of the Examiner and then the Chronicle, me as an editor at several business magazines. But the new job — as editor of the Harvard Business Review, where I’d get the opportunity to build on the success of a storied publication — was too good to turn down. And it was in Boston.
So we reluctantly agreed to give ourselves three years. In that time, we figure, we’ll either fall in love with Boston or we’ll come back home.
And by home, we mean our place at Bush and Fillmore, because nowhere we’ve ever lived has felt so much like home. We love our apartment in the Amelia. But home is much more than our condo. It’s our daily visit with Gary at Barry for Pets, where he’d ply our Corgis, Harry and Sadie, with treats and sit for a few minutes to discuss our beloved Giants. Home is our daily visit to the Fillmore Bakeshop, where I’d take way too long deciding which cookie to buy, mostly so I could spend a little more time with Elena and Doug, the daughter-father owners. Home is Alta Plaza and Mollie Stone’s, Osaka and Woodhouse Fish Co. The great people and frames at Invision. And home is the neighbors who became dear friends — our family, really.
Leaving was not easy. “Why?” indeed.
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Photograph of Vasilios Kiniris at Zinc Details by Drew Altizer
Q & A | Vasilios Kiniris
Zinc Details has turned 20. How did it all begin?
I was fresh out of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California at Berkeley and simply had an idea and some very strong feelings. At the university, Wendy Nishimura and I had developed an understanding and shared a passion for the modern classics of furniture design. In travels to Europe and Japan, we came face to face with new styles hatched from traditional forms. And naturally, we began to form strong relationships with young artisans and designers in the San Francisco Bay Area who were creating excitement with simply styled, highly functional and innovative pieces.
What led you to put your architectural education to use in a retail design store?
It takes a long time for architecture to actually be realized and influence a person’s life. Retail design is a lot more immediate. You can touch people on an everyday level. Personally, we love to collect, admire and interact with beautifully designed products and the store is a reflection of our vision and taste. Having the knowledge of history of architecture and art is also a great reference when dealing with modern design products. All products designed today have references to the past. We can appreciate all the thought process put in to develop the products. And even when creating a display, we can visualize space relations to the products better.
Read more »
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By Carina Woudenberg
Floyd Trammell — whose position as president of the Fillmore Community Benefit District ended when the group was defunded in mid-December — walked the blocks of Fillmore south of Geary on a recent morning and took note of the changes he was seeing in the neighborhood. The sidewalk was littered with plastic bags and other trash. Here and there were clumps of cigarette butts and piles of leaves. “This used to look spotless,” Trammell said. “Up until November, all this was spotless.”
The community benefit district (CBD) was created in 2006 amid optimism that better days were ahead for the area with the imminent opening of Yoshi’s Jazz Club, the Fillmore Heritage Center and several new restaurants. With city support and a “yes” vote from the area’s property owners, the CBD was poised to help clean up the neighborhood and promote its new attractions. The special property tax brought in annual funding of about $300,000. A board of directors made up of property owners, local residents and business owners took responsibility for using the funds to pay for cleaning, marketing and security.
Initially there was considerable infighting among business owners and local residents. But most board members said the organization had made a positive difference in an area still struggling to move past the devastation of redevelopment in the 1960s.
In mid-December the CBD was up for renewal and many of the 300 property owners in the district supported it. But the votes were weighted based on the size of each owner’s property. Representatives from two major properties — the Fillmore Center and Safeway — were against it, and renewal was defeated by 66 percent to 34 percent.
Read more »
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Self Portrait (1977) by Joan Brown
ART | Jerome Tarshis
Joan Brown (1938-1990) may have thought of herself as an unclassifiable artist. “This Kind of Bird Flies Backward,” the survey of her paintings at the San Jose Museum of Art through March 11, positions her as one who portrayed women’s lives, beginning with her own. Curators need to say something, but it’s an idea that hardly narrows things down. A woman is called upon to play many parts — and Brown tells us that she enjoyed most of them.
Joan Brown (nee Beatty) was born in San Francisco and received a Catholic education through high school. Her teachers seemed to offer her a choice between becoming a nun or becoming a 1950s wife and mother. By sheer chance, she saw an ad for the California School of Fine Arts, now the San Francisco Art Institute, visited its campus, saw people with beards and sandals, and thought an entirely different world had been opened to her.
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'THE NEIGHBORHOOD'S
NEW LIVING ROOM' OPENS
The Fillmore's newest social spot had its grand opening January 11 at 1795 Geary, just across from the Fillmore Auditorium. The Social Study is open daily from 8 a.m. until 11 p.m. for coffee, beer, wine and snacks.
"With a cozy, vintage aesthetic, we aim to be this neighborhood's own little living room," say the owners, "providing you with rustic bites, delicious sips, great music, books, wi-fi, art and an all-around warm experience."
FRENCH BROTHERS
RESURFACE IN MARINA
Jerome and Stephane Meloni — who formerly ran the elegant Cassis restaurant at Sutter and Steiner — have re-emerged in a streamlined new space down the hill in the Marina.
They've opened Castagna — chestnut in Italian — at 2015 Chestnut Street, just west of Fillmore. They open at 8 a.m. weekdays and offer all-day dining for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-between snacks. The food is a simpler and more casual version of the French and Italian favorites they offered at Cassis.
The Castagna decor has a South of France theme, reflecting the Meloni brothers’ hometown of Nice. The design includes custom woodwork in the style of a boat deck, along with other nautical touches. Before they came to the U.S., the brothers operated a family restaurant on the harbor in Antibes.
PROMISING NEWS
FOR THE LONG BAR
What should be one of the liveliest corners on Fillmore — at Clay Street — remains sedate, especially with the restaurant on the southeast corner dark yet again. Most recently it was the Long Bar — and before that Fillmore Grill and the longlasting La Posada. The space briefly had a "for lease" sign posted with an email address, but messages went unanswered.
The sign is gone, and now comes word that Albert Rainer — who first transformed the space into Fillmore Grill nearly a decade ago, and still controls the master lease — will return. Rainer and his brother Klaus operate the wildly successful Leopold's Austrian restaurant and beerfest at Polk and Union.
TWO FILLMORE SHOPS
MOVING, BUT NOT FAR
Blu, the high-end women's boutique across the street from Long Bar on the southwest corner of Fillmore and Clay, is moving to Sacramento Street. Reportedly a major label women's brand will take over the space.
After a brief stay at 1919 Fillmore, the furniture store Ruby Living Design is moving to the big space on Union Street near Van Ness that was previously home to the Ralph Lauren furniture showroom.
COMING & GOING
Her, the clothing boutique for women, closed at the end of the year after 15 years at 2053 Fillmore.
. . . Construction has begun on Chase Bank's new branch in the neighborhood, which squeaked through the Planning Commission on a 4-3 vote in the fall. The branch will be located at 2429 California Street, the longtime home of Esrik Cleaners.
. . . One Medical Group has opened at 2410 California Street, formerly the second location of Zinc Details. Zinc has now consolidated its operations at 1905 Fillmore.
. . . Paolo Shoes at 2000 Fillmore has unveiled a new look and is now once again open for business.
