News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SPIRITS | Chris Barnett Ales Unlimited, the neighborhood store on the corner of Webster and Jackson, stocks more than 900 beers and ales on its shelves and in its coolers. And owners Steve and Betty Smith don’t cater to the couch potato crowd or the party-throwers who buy six-packs of a mass-manufactured bland brand for…
RUNNING A RESTAURANT — even an intimate space like Curbside Cafe at 2417 California Street, just off Fillmore — is a tall order. And Olivier Perrier has been doing it all — from greeting and seating customers, detailing the daily specials and overseeing the kitchen — since he shifted gears two years ago from merely…
STARBUCKS BROUGHT its new line of juice bars to the neighborhood today when it opened an Evolution Fresh store at the corner of Fillmore and Sacramento. Evolution Fresh peels, cracks, squeezes and presses whole fruits and vegetables to offer cold-crafted juice with nutrition, taste and color. The store also offers smoothies and menu items that…
By CHRISTINE LUNDE On their honeymoon in Italy, neighborhood residents Olivia Dillan and Ben Balzer floated by Marco Polo’s house on a canal in Venice, which inspired Dillan to leave the tech industry behind. Then serendipity took charge. Three weeks after Dillan and Balzer decided to start a shop of their own, the space at…
SALOONS | Chris Barnett Legend has it that Liverpool Lil’s, the saucy saloon and gastropub just outside the eastern gate of the Presidio, is named after a trollop who prowled the cobblestone streets of Britain’s notorious port city entertaining affection-starved sailors and dockworkers in the dark corners of ale houses. Not exactly true, confesses Ralph…
A SAMPLING TOUR | DONNA GILLESPIE Chocolate chip cookies abound at many of the bakeries in the Fillmore, and I’ve long been a fan of this particular type of cookie. So I went on a sampling tour — one cookie per day — to compare and rate the chocolate chip cookies in the neighborhood. First,…
ROAM, WHICH JUST opened its doors — and windows — at 1923 Fillmore Street, is not your run of the mill burger joint. And business partners Lynn Gorfinkle and Josh Spiegelman have spared no detail to make sure that’s true. “We wanted to create a better-for-you burger concept using high quality ingredients,” says Gorfinkle. “It’s…
FORMER FILLMORE resident Andrea Ballus had been scoping out the neighborhood for a location for her fourth Sift Cake and Dessert Bar. She found the perfect setting when Dumplings & Buns abruptly left the cozy space at 2411 California, just around the corner from Fillmore, and opened her doors on August 23. Ballus opened her…
“PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I ate over several visits to State Bird Provisions — the nine-month-old restaurant that Stuart Brioza and his wife, pastry chef Nicole Krasinski, run in the Western Addition neighborhood of San Francisco — had me clamoring for more. And to think the place almost never happened.” Bon Appetit: “The Hot 10: America’s…
By CHRIS BARNETT Fillmore Street’s oldest coffeehouse is gussying itself up, and there’s a whiff of concern in the air. Royal Ground, a funky haunt for neighborhood caffeine addicts for 25 years, last month rearranged its milk and sugar stand and its refrigerated juice display. Hardly a full facelift, but some customers were flummoxed. Loyalists…