News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SALOONS | Chris Barnett Club Mari’s — home of perhaps the city’s only truly authentic Japanese karaoke bars — is so well hidden that most locals likely have never even heard of it, let alone sipped sake there or taken up the mike and belted out I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith…
President Obama will be back in the neighborhood for dinner tonight, after stopping in Chinatown to pick up take-out dim sum for lunch. He’s supping and posing with a few deep-pocketed supporters paying $38,500 each at the contemporary Gold Coast home of Oracle heiress Nicola Miner and author Robert Mailer Anderson. Entertainment will be provided…
[nggallery id=17] By Carina Woudenberg Continuing the influx of new businesses into the Fillmore Jazz District, The Social Study is now serving beverages, snacks and a cool vibe in the stylish brick-lined space at 1795 Geary, just off Fillmore. Along with creatively concocted drinks and locally roasted coffee, owner Harmony Fraga says she hopes to…
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.
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…
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…
PROVING ONCE AGAIN that more casual eateries are gaining in popularity in the neighborhood, a number of new restaurants opened just in time for the new year. Among them are spots helmed by two husband-and-wife teams with impeccable pedigrees: Roostertail — a new restaurant specializing in free-range chicken cooked on a rotisserie spit — is…
BARELY A YEAR after moving to Fillmore Street and then struggling through several changes in concept, Citizen Cake closed just before Christmas. “I can’t do it anymore,” chef-owner Elizabeth Falkner told Inside Scoop. “I just have to start over.” Falkner took over the hallowed brick-walled space occupied for nearly 30 years by Vivande and was…
FIRST PERSON | JAMES DeKOVEN On a recent moonlit night in the neighborhood, darkness having descended much earlier than only a few weeks before, some friends were at my place sipping cocktails and examining life’s more contentious issues: individualism versus conformity, true love, the meaning of life. It was all rather intense. When I tried…
The Fillmore’s own inimitable Mary Risley — longtime proprietor of Tante Marie’s Cooking School — offers a simpler way to prepare the traditional Thanksgiving dinner in this timely new video from the Fillmore’s own Jaded Palate Productions. UPDATE: “The insanity of going f*cking viral” by Faith Wheeler