News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
SOME PEOPLE WILL tell you that Fillmore Street is not known for its food scene. The Chronicle begs to differ. Its new Top 100 restaurant list dropped today, and two of the top five are on Fillmore Street. Nearest the top of the heap at No. 2 is The Progress at 1525 Fillmore — “a…
FIRST PERSON | SHELLEY HANDLER My first cooking memory comes from early in my life. It was a Saturday morning, and I was standing on the counter in our ’50s butter yellow kitchen. I was 3 years old, barefoot, in a T-shirt and poofy panties. I had a small red plastic bowl, into which went…
AFTER YEARS of darkness … the corner spot at Fillmore and Clay is only days away from opening its doors as Palmer’s Tavern. The permits and licenses have been secured, the staff hired, the clubby interior shined and polished. The menu promises high-quality tavern fare, classic cocktails, local craft beers and affordable wines. So we…
LOCAL FAVORITE La Mediterranee cafe, which has been twisting in the wind since its building changed hands earlier this year, has a new lease on life. “We are thrilled to be extending our lease on Fillmore Street as part of the Upper Fillmore Revitalization Project,” said Vanick Der Bedrossian, La Med’s owner. The extension ensures…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS When the nominations for this year’s James Beard Awards were announced in late January, there was a local surprise. Among the semifinalists for Outstanding Bakery: Yasukochi’s Sweet Stop, a small shop in the corner of a Japantown grocery store most noted for keeping alive one of the city’s most beloved creations,…
By CHRIS BARNETT After a 34-year run of flipping pizzas, uncorking wine and telling stories on the northwest corner of Fillmore and California, Dino Stavrakikis is selling the longtime pizza palace known for decades as Dino’s — now renamed after his son as Santino’s Wine Bar — to the owner of Ace Wasabi Sushi in…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT Slammed shut and lifeless for well over two years, the large space housing the once popular Grove cafe and hangout at 2016 Fillmore is stirring again, but the new venture’s backers stubbornly refuse to disclose anything about it. “I can’t say, I can’t say, I can’t say,” insisted a bearded guy…
NEW NEIGHBORS | CHRIS BARNETT It takes brass to open a coffee dispensary in the San Francisco these days. But cuppa joe impresario Aiden Compton has worked in the neighborhood for Peet’s, La Boulangerie and Starbucks, and is blood-related to a family-owned Brooklyn outfit called Variety Coffee. So he took over the tiny Samovar Tea…
NEW NEIGHBORS | 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 at 1870 Fillmore and turning the Wine Jar into a wine bar with music. “I was devastated…
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…