The New Fillmore

Black Bark owners Monetta White and David Lawrence

THE CITY’S DITHERING over the future of the Fillmore Heritage Center has claimed another casualty: Black Bark, the modern barbecue joint at 1325 Fillmore, did not reopen after a holiday break.

Only weeks after ending regular dinner service across the street at their upscale 1300 on Fillmore restaurant, owners Monetta White and David Lawrence decided to remain closed as they continue negotiations to move Black Bark to another location.

Since it opened two years ago, much of Black Bark’s thriving takeout business has come through delivery services, and they are preparing to launch a line of sauces and other products.

But they want more foot traffic, and that may take years on a block where the entire east side is occupied by massive empty spaces that for a few years housed Yoshi’s restaurant and jazz club, plus a gallery and screening room.

In November the city threw out the bids from five potential buyers and said the process of finding a future for the heritage center will begin all over again.

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The Snug opened November 29 at the corner of Fillmore and Clay.

SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT

The Snug conjures up a cozy corner in a centuries-old smoky pub where big-bellied Brits and tweedy types quaff suds, trade insults and argue politics The new Snug, at 2301 Fillmore, is the polar opposite — a sleek, fun, split-level cocktail bar with friendly skilled staffers mixing, pouring and serving classic and creative libations at reasonable prices.

In a stylish makeover of the former Mehfil Indian restaurant, the centerpiece here is a 31-foot-long bar fashioned of the trunk of a single Douglas fir. The barstools spin. There’s plenty of table seating for a couple, a foursome or a crowd. Mercifully, there’s not a single blaring TV on the premises. To justify its name, the owners have a carved out a small snug that seats four, but frankly it looks a little uncomfortable.

The Snug has more than a dozen craft beers and ciders on tap, five wines by the glass and six or seven house cocktails ranging from a White Lily #2 — gin, rum, orange liqueur, absinthe and curry leaf — to a timeless Old Fashioned, with bourbon, bitters and sugar. A tall wall of every spirit imaginable overlooks the airy space. There’s no happy hour.

The kitchen puts out snacks and a few inventive small and large plates. A burger and a $16 Cobb salad top the list. Brunch is coming soon.

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The Thai Stick at Fillmore and Pine.

UPDATE: The much buzzed about bid by the two owners of Harry’s Bar to take over the Thai Stick has collapsed. Rick Howard and George Karas reportedly pulled out of the deal, with no reasons given. The bar stays open, but food service has been cut back somewhat while Thai Stick owner Paul Polemasuppapol looks for new buyers.

SALOONS | CHRIS BARNETT

Three bar-restaurants with well over 100 years of experience in mixing, pouring, cooking and serving on Fillmore Street are shaking things up in the 2000 block between California and Pine.

• Harry’s Bar, now in its 31st year, is negotiating to take over the Thai Stick, which has been in operation for 21 years at the corner of Fillmore and Pine.

• Harry’s will also remain in its longtime location at 2020 Fillmore. For a few weeks, Harry’s outsourced its kitchen to an independent chef, who revamped the menu and upped the prices. That arrangement has now ended. A remodeling is also in the works.

• Across the street at 2043 Fillmore, the Elite Cafe is quietly tiptoeing back to some of its more familiar roots since its black-and-gray hipster makeover last year — and finally repairing its fire-damaged classic neon sign.

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Tim Schuyler Hayman (center) welcomes guests to Scopo Divino.

By FAITH WHEELER

Some may mistake it for a hole in the wall, tucked away near the bustling corner of California and Divisadero, but to those in the know, the Scopo Divino wine bar has become a neighborhood institution during its first year in business. And the food has turned out to be just as important as the wine — surprising even owner Tim Schuyler Hayman.

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Grant Ike is the new manager of the market — its fourth in the past two years.

By FRANCINE BREVETTI

February’s raucous rains may have limited the ingredients you’ve tossed into your summer salad bowl.

The Fillmore Farmers Market is still trying to recoup the fruit and vegetable vendors it lost because of the rising waters on farmland this past winter.

To help lead the resurgence, Grant Ike has been named as the new manager of the market — the fourth since popular founding manager Tom Nichol was removed and later died in 2015.

“I’ve got some big shoes to fill — but I wear a size 14,” says Ike, himself a former nut vendor at other markets.

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THEIR FANS WERE almost ready to give up, but not the mother-daughter duo Sheila and Toni Young.

Their labor of love — Bumzy’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, at 1460 Fillmore — was shut down by flooding last September and stayed closed for nine long months.

But just in time for Fillmore’s annual Juneteenth Festival, their cheery pink balloons were back on the sidewalk and an entirely new Bumzy’s was baking all-natural, handmade cookies.

“We had to start all over,” says Toni Young. “It was a real nightmare. But we’re back better and stronger than before. Something positive always comes out of something negative.”

Their chocolate chip cookies have been hailed as the best in the neighborhood.

“We make homemade products,” she says. “So we want it to feel like home.”

In addition to a dozen kinds of cookies, made one small batch at a time, they also churn homemade ice cream. And now they’ve added Hawaiian shave ice — snow cones to the locals.

“It’s a happy thing,” says Young. “My mom says people come in as an adult and skip out as a happy kid.”

EARLIER: “Cookie lovers in the jazz district“

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Photograph of Crown & Crumpet co-owner Amy Dean by Frank Wing

By FRAN JOHNS

Proper English tea in the heart of Japantown? It happens on any given day from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Crown & Crumpet in the New People building at 1746 Post Street.

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“Bread is part of our heritage,” says Pascal Rigo. “I’d like to restore that for my country.”

“THE PROBLEM IS with the economics of the boulangerie, not the bread,” Fillmore’s Pascal Rigo tells The New York Times today. “I’m going to show that you can make good bread and good money.”

Both older and richer than he was in 1999 when he began a bakery empire on Pine Street he later sold to Starbuck’s for $100 million — and then got back again — Rigo’s newest venture is back home in France.

Reports the Times: “Mr. Rigo, an ebullient baker with a seemingly perpetual gaptoothed grin, has embarked on a personal crusade to rescue this pillar of French cuisine one bakery at a time, starting with La P’tite Boulangerie du Ferret, a shop that he opened last summer. He sees it as the first in a nationwide chain of what he calls microboulangeries.”

MORE: “Let them eat cake“

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