The New Fillmore

Coming soon: wine, a woman, and song

Posted on July 1, 2021 by editors

Victoria Wasserman is bringing wine and music to 1870 Fillmore.

By CHASE ROBERTS

There will be no jazz festival on Fillmore this Fourth of July weekend, but Victoria Wasserman is determined to bring music back to one block of the street. Wasserman is opening Vic’s Winehouse this month at 1870 Fillmore and turning the Wine Jar into a wine bar with music.

“I was devastated to see all the closures on Fillmore Street,” Wasserman says, “and given its rich history of music and culture, I decided it was time to fulfill my lifelong dream of opening my own bar.”

The new name, Vic’s Winehouse, has a double meaning. Not only will there be locally sourced wines not found in stores. The name also reflects Wasserman’s love for the late singer Amy Winehouse, and her music — jazz, R&B, blues and hip hop — will set the theme for the bar.

Wasserman previously led an eight-piece Amy Winehouse tribute band, “The Back to Black Band,” which played at the Blue Note in Napa and other venues. Wasserman sings and plays the ukulele, and her husband, Jacinto Castaneda, sings and plays bass and guitar. Both are rooted in the Bay Area music scene.

Most of the wines will be from small family-owned wineries in the Russian River, Sonoma, Lodi and Paso Robles. Happy hour specials will be offered daily from 3 to 6 p.m. Flights will be offered from Argentina and from Balletto Vineyards, a family-owned winery in the Russian River Valley that grows its own grapes on what was once the largest vegetable farm in Northern California.

Vic’s will also offer Argentine empanadas handmade and baked locally by Nuchal Empanadas, a family-run business in San Francisco. Brunch will feature its quiche and frittatas.

Wasserman says a familial and community spirit will be at the heart of her new venture, and that she hopes to create “a neighborhood place for gatherings and community events such as art exhibits and CD releases.”

Updates on the opening date and the offerings are on the Vic’s Winehouse website.

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Sunrise at Alta Plaza

Posted on May 8, 2021 by editors

By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

While most of his neighbors are still asleep, Robert Starkey can be found roaming Alta Plaza Park, searching for new angles to photograph the dawn.

“Walking to Alta Plaza to photograph the sunrise I get exercise, connection with nature, the unconditional love of dogs — and a feeling of accomplishment,” he says. He shares his photographs of the sunrise on Flickr with those who slept through it.

The sunrise photography project began in January after Starkey moved from Sonoma County back to San Francisco. It was occasioned by the darkest period of his life.

“My entire body collapsed with Stage 4 bone cancer,” he says. “I was in hospitals, nursing homes and care facilities for a year and a half, and lost everything.” When he finally recovered, he was offered a place to live in a friend’s home near Alta Plaza.

“One of the most important aspects of my healing is to find purpose in each day,” he says. Shooting the sunrise and sharing the photographs helps provide that purpose.

Photography has been a lifelong passion for the committed globetrotter. Sunrise at Alta Plaza is only the latest of his photographic obsessions. His work in series began in earnest when he moved to the Oakmont community in Sonoma County.

“I found myself in the middle of 12,000 acres of protected land, with wildlife everywhere to photograph,” he says. “Also at Oakmont there is a polo field, where I found I could photograph beautiful sunrises.”

Now he is inspired by the sunrise at Alta Plaza.

“This morning it was clear, with beautiful blue skies when I left home,” he says. “But about the time I got to the park, the fog had rolled in and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees.” Still, he managed a few great photos of the fog-infused sunrise before heading back home to warm up.

“I keep thinking I’ll run out of new perspectives,” Starkey says, “but that hasn’t happened yet.”

MORE: Robert Sta r key’s photographs on Flickr

Filed under: Art & Design, Body & Soul, Parks | Leave a Comment »

Like a good neighbor …

Posted on April 15, 2021 by editors

SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT

Harry’s Bar at 2020 Fillmore has rolled out the welcome mat to merrymakers who live and work within a five-block radius. The venerable saloon has created a “Fillmore Street Neighbor” card that gives locals a 10 percent discount on all food and drink.

The idea is the brainchild of Harry’s personable general manager, Charles Johnson, who is on the sidewalk daily schmoozing the crowd, seating guests and serving drinks.

“We want our neighbors to think of Harry’s as their go-to place — which it has been for well over 30 years,” he says. “So we’re trying to show our appreciation in creative ways.”

In addition to the discount card, he’s also extended the weekday 4 to 6 p.m. happy hour to seven days a week.

“Harry’s Bar prides itself on being a good neighbor,” Johnson says.

To prove it, Harry’s has now chopped 21 feet off its palatial parklet, after the owner of the empty storefront next door filed a complaint with the city. More than 2,000 fans of Harry’s signed a petition favoring the parklet, which helped keep the bar alive during the pandemic. But as indoor dining and drinking returned, Harry’s agreed to a compromise that reduced the size of the parklet, but made it permanent.

Johnson is happy. Harry’s is buzzing.

EARLIER: “A third of $30,000 parklet may be removed”

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Signs of life on a boulevard of broken leases

Posted on March 18, 2021 by editors

A new Italian restaurant, The Tailor’s Son, will soon open in the former Elite Cafe. Photograph by Jonathan Pontell

FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT

Empty stores, boarded-up windows, people sleeping in abandoned doorways, shoplifting and break-ins all testify that Fillmore Street is going though hard times one year after Covid hit with full fury.

But conversations with die-hard merchants and a reopening for some indoor dining signals an eventual turnaround in the fortunes of the once-booming upper Fillmore commercial district, which is now a boulevard of broken leases.

Vas Kiniris, a longtime Fillmore merchant who is now executive director of the Fillmore Merchants Association, is optimistic yet candid in offering his views on the state of the street.

Crime has long been a problem on Fillmore, but Kiniris reports that Northern Station has a newish captain in charge — Paul Yep — who gave the street back its own foot patrol, which was shared at one point with Japantown. More cops are visible.

Walgreens at Fillmore and Pine — regularly hit with swarms of grab-and-dash young shoplifters — now has an SFPD officer posted inside the front door, with a black and white squad car parked conspicuously outside the front door. There were recent rumbles that Walgreens might close its Fillmore store, as it closed others suffering a steady stream of thefts. But staffers say nothing is definite.

♦

A peek inside the late, once-great Elite Cafe reveals a nearly completed interior makeover. A year after he planned to open, serial restaurateur Adriano Paganini will soon unveil The Tailor’s Son, his newest Italian restaurant, which pays homage to his childhood near Milan.

“My mom and dad are both working tailors, and my grandmother and grandfather were tailors as well,” Paganini says, hence the name. Paganini says that contrary to recent rumors, he “has no interest” in taking over long-shuttered Grove next door to Harry’s Bar. A reliable source maintains the Grove “will reopen eventually.”

From Hoodline: “An interview with Adriano Paganini“

♦

Another rumor turned out to be just that — only a rumor. Delfina, the uber-popular pizzeria on California Street, is not dead, despite the window boardings. Kiniris says it is simply undergoing a remodeling.

♦

John Litz’s Noosh, on the corner of Filllmore and Pine, has re-opened for pick-up, delivery and indoor-outdoor dining after being temporarily closed. Noosh is launching a multi-course tasting brunch on the weekend, which will feature its signature Mediterranean delicacies for $45 per person. At night, a multi-course Noosh dinner tasting menu will be offered at a price point, Litz insists, below similar San Francisco restaurants. The front windows of the restaurant have re-opened to the street, offering its full “fine casual menu,” including craft cocktails.

♦

Many stores and brands on Fillmore have pulled up stakes during the pandemic. Kiniris lists International Orange, Dosa, Goop, Prana, the Repeat Performance resale shop, Illestiva, Frame, Ralph Lauren, Space NK, Alexis Bitter, Ministry of Supply, Samovar Tea, Asmbly Hall, Sunhee Moon, Atelier de Cologne, Flor, James Perse, Lexe, Alice and Olivia, Cotelac, Minted and the Artists Inn.

But there have been some openings: Liberty Cannabis is now open for business in the former Unity Church around the corner on Bush Street. Byredo, a Swedish fragrance emporium has taken over the former Space NK location at Pine and Fillmore. And Compton’s Coffee House now occupies the former Samovar Tea shop. Many restaurants have added seating outside.

As for activity at the old Clay Theatre? Absolutely nothing.

Filed under: Food, Drink & Lodging, Retail Report | Leave a Comment »

Minnie’s Can-Do Club was a gathering spot

Posted on November 24, 2020 by editors

Photograph of Minnie in the 1970s by Ed Brooks

FIRST PERSON | DENISE KORN

’Net surfing can get you into a whole lot of trouble. That’s what happened to me. I rarely get bored — even during these crazy pandemic days. But, one night, Netflix just wasn’t doing it for me. It was late and there I was in bed scrolling again under the glare of my phone’s blue light. I wasn’t really searching for anything in particular. I was just … looking.

I happened to run across an article on the New Fillmore website. The piece, dated several years ago, was about my neighborhood — the Fillmore.

When I was young, there was no “upper” or “lower” Fillmore. It was just the Fillmore. Lots of people called this area the Western Addition. But for the thousands of African-Americans who strolled past the old Melrose Record Shop, or got their ’fros tightened up at the barbershop near the corner of Geary, or browsed the jumble of shops between Geary and Sutter; this didn’t happen in the Western Addition. We lived the rhythm of our lives in the Fillmore.

The night I discovered the New Fillmore website, I scrolled through looking at old pictures and articles about a time I remember so well. Then I happened upon an article and — even better — a painting featuring an old family friend, Minnie Carrington. I couldn’t believe it!

I live in Atlanta now, and seeing someone I knew so long ago, looking just as I remembered her, pulled me down the rabbit hole of my memory. I decided to see if the once-famous proprietor of Minnie’s Can-Do Club on Fillmore was still around.

I’m happy to report that I was able to track down a phone number and speak with Minnie. She’s over 80 now, and living in an East Bay senior facility with her daughter, Felita. Minnie is confined to her bed, but she still loves to talk. She’s the true old-school San Franciscan, interested in everything and interesting to everyone. San Franciscans are natural storytellers.

So, here’s mine.

Filed under: First Person, Food, Drink & Lodging, Locals, Neighborhood History | Leave a Comment »

He created the Elite Cafe

Posted on November 15, 2020 by editors

SAM DuVALL | 1940 – 2020

In the 1970s, the two blocks of Fillmore Street between Clay and California were the prime blocks for retailers; south of California was a desolate strip of lifeless shops and joints. Leasing broker Carol Chait broke through that barrier when she listed the Art Deco Asia Cafe space that had been vacant for a couple of years. She narrowed it down to two prospective tenants.

“Restaurateur Sam DuVall saw the space as a diamond in the rough,” Chait says. “It was a bookie joint with a card room and the Croatians from Tadich Grill used to hang out there.” Jeremiah Tower — the former Chez Panisse chef who later opened Stars near City Hall — was the other bidder for the space. Chait had to choose between the two, who were both willing to pay $2 a foot plus a percentage of the gross revenue.

Her decision was driven by one thing: a dead rat.

“I was showing the space to Jeremiah,” Chait says. “There was crap all over the floor and all of a sudden I saw this rat in the corner. It was dead, but I was afraid to pick it up. I asked Jeremiah to put it in the trash, but he didn’t want to touch it either. Later that day, I was showing the space to Mr. DuVall and I said ‘Sam, would you do me a favor and get rid of that thing?’ He did — and he also had the best ideas for revitalizing the restaurant. I said to the owner, ‘Sam’s your guy.’ ”

Chait adds that DuVall did a painstaking restoration of the space, renaming it the Elite Cafe. “The Elite did such enormous volume even on that block that the owner, with his rent and percentage, got this windfall of cash,” she says.

— Chris Barnett

FAREWELL: “Restaurateur Sam DuVall dies at 80“
EARLIER: “There’s a reason they call it the Elite“

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Harry’s comes alive outside

Posted on September 5, 2020 by editors

Harry’s Bar’s expansive new parklet announces itself streetside.

SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT

As Fillmore Street continues to come alive again, Harry’s Bar has reopened with a palatial new parklet for outside drinking and dining, a revised menu and an expanded happy hour — now from 4 to 6 p.m. seven days a week, rather than five.

And the owners hope to make the outside expansion permanent.

Harry’s has created “a socially distanced beer garden,” mused Dan Max, the congenial retired globetrotting professor of art, a regular at Harry’s who has lived across the street from the popular sports saloon for more than 50 years.

The parklet has 38 chairs and tables for two and four, separated from the street by a nicely stained wooden enclosure topped with plexiglas to shield guests from the wind. Five tall heaters throw off a flame when lit, providing warmth, and a new exterior sound system pumps out the music, but not so loud it drowns out conversations. There’s even a big-screen television hanging in the window facing outside.

The parklet has 38 seats at tables for two and four.

On a recent Friday afternoon around 5 p.m., the al fresco incarnation of Harry’s Bar was practically full as patrons ducked in. Two locals — Mecca, who works for a fashion store, and her friend Rhea, a personal trainer — were soaking up the sunshine and sipping Aperol spritzers. Said Rhea: “They’ve done an excellent job. We love the classic Harry’s vibe and the Aperol is the best I’ve ever had.”

They were also eating. City reopening rules allow eating and drinking establishments to have outside seating and service, but patrons must also have food with their drink.

Harry’s new general manager, Charles Johnson, formerly sous chef and GM of Fred’s, the restaurant in the late Barney’s New York department store near San Francisco’s Union Square — and a former U.S. naval officer who once ran the legendary officers’ club at Subic Bay in the Philippines — has created eight new house cocktails for $12 to $13.

Examples: The North Beach — with gin, Cointreau, limoncello, sweet vermouth with a lemon twist — and The Fillmore, with cucumber vodka, lemon juice, fresh watermelon and a cucumber garnish. Other drinks feature Ving Kale Vodka, Gold Bar San Francisco Bourbon and Hendricks Midsummer Solstice Gin, and some have bell pepper and cilantro garnishes.

For suds lovers, Johnson has added Screaming Hand Red IPA, Hell or High Watermelon Wheat, El Sully Mexican Lager and the Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA from Oregon, all on draught, at $9 for a 15-ounce glass. A slew of other beers in cans and bottles start at $6.

The menu also has new offerings, including a smoked salmon crostini, a chef’s select cheese plate and a bacon-wrapped hickory hot dog, all $13; an impossible meatball sub at $15, smoked salmon salad, $15, and a Mediterranean chicken salad, $16, plus two new pasta dishes. The tater tots and Harry’s deluxe cheeseburger remain.

Harry’s has also been remodeled inside, although not drastically, with a new ceiling, mural, bathrooms and a tricked-out kitchen, plus new finishes.

“Being shut down gave us an opportunity to make all these improvements,” said co-owner Rick Howard. “We would like to keep the new outside area permanently, but we don’t know what the city’s position will be.”

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No more Polo in Pacific Heights

Posted on August 27, 2020 by editors

The Ralph Lauren store on Fillmore Street.

FASHION DESIGNER Ralph Lauren’s elegant emporium at 2040 Fillmore — which replaced a former Goodwill store and paved the way for the street’s transformation into an upscale shopping strip of clothing and cosmetics boutiques — is now permanently closed.

The Polo shop had reopened only a few weeks ago, along with other Fillmore retailers, when the city gave the go-ahead for limited shopping and sidewalk dining after a three-month shutdown. August 22 was the final day of business at the shop, which has now been emptied.

A staffer referred questions to corporate headquarters in New York, which did not respond to repeated inquiries. The Fillmore store survived an earlier round of closings in 2015 and 2016, when Polo shuttered nearly 100 other stores.

When Polo Ralph Lauren opened in 2008, it was the first international brand to get a permit under San Francisco’s new formula retail ordinance, intended to limit chain stores in the city’s neighborhoods. Polo was first rejected, but later approved unanimously after it worked out a written agreement with local groups promising to play an active role in the neighborhood and be a role model for other retailers.

Most of Polo’s promises went unfulfilled, and no other formula retail business seeking to open on Fillmore was ever rejected by the city’s Planning Commission. More than two dozen more international fashion and personal care brands followed during the next decade.

Filed under: Retail Report | Leave a Comment »

The legacy of Fillmore jazz

Posted on August 8, 2020 by editors

Local favorite pianist Tammy Hall is featured in a new video on Fillmore jazz.

SAN FRANCISCO’S Fillmore District — known as the “Harlem of the West” in the 1940s and ’50s — was once a cathedral of jazz, its dozens of clubs inhabited by celestial beings such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker.

The Fillmore’s heyday marked an important chapter not only in jazz history but also in the Black American experience; its legacy lives on in the work of passionate artists who believe jazz — its freedom, movement and expression — is a state of mind, a way of life.

In a new video in its “Currents” series, the San Francisco Symphony tells the story of the Fillmore’s rich jazz history and explores its legacy.

CURRENTS: Bay Area Blue Notes from San Francisco Symphony on Vimeo.

Filed under: Music, Neighborhood History | Leave a Comment »

Farewell to the Artists Inn

Posted on August 5, 2020 by editors

The Artists Inn at 2231 Pine Street, near Fillmore.

By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS

Even during the first weeks of the virus lockdown in early April, the Artists Inn at 2231 Pine Street was at full occupancy, brimming with love and laughter. But it was a bittersweet time.

Beloved owner Denise Shields had recently returned from her second home in Mexico with an ache that turned out to be pancreatic cancer. The cozy little blue house half a block from Fillmore, behind a white picket fence, quickly filled with her two sons, Will and Jason, daughter-in-law Lily and five granddaughters. Will’s partner Elisabeth was home in San Diego awaiting the birth of grandchild No. 6. “We’re sort of hoping for a boy,” Denise said during a brief break from a family Parcheesi game, “but we’ll be delighted with any healthy baby.”

Two months later, on June 6, the family welcomed a sixth granddaughter into the world. Three days after that, Denise died.

Now the Artists Inn, in one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood, is ending an era as a center of warmth and hospitality for guests from around the globe. Following the death of their mother on June 9, Denise’s sons reluctantly decided to permanently close the four-room inn. They will host a garage sale — masked and socially distanced — from August 14 to 16.

Filed under: Art & Design, Food, Drink & Lodging, Locals | Leave a Comment »

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