News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
By CHRIS BARNETT After nearly three decades of involvement with the Fillmore Merchants Association — as board member, vice president, president and the last five years as executive director — Vasilios Kiniris, the personable man-in-perpetual-motion known to some as Mr. Fillmore and to all as Vas, is exiting stage left. For most of that time,…
CRIME WATCH SOME PEOPLE took a holiday over the Labor Day weekend, but not the thieves who have been plaguing Fillmore Street merchants. At least six businesses — Ruti, Post Script, Velvet, Heidi Says, Aesop and the UPS Store — were attacked over the long weekend, some suffering loss of merchandise, and all rushing to…
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…
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…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT In 1971, carpenter Mark Johnson moved into a Victorian flat at 2254 Bush Street, just off Fillmore, and stayed for 25 years. “It was not the most attractive place to live in the early ’70s,” he says. “But by the time I moved out, it had changed dramatically — and…
FRYE BOOTS at 2047 Fillmore Street has become the first neighborhood shop to announce it will close permanently. “We were told last Friday [March 27] that we will not reopen our beautiful store,” says Frye manager and longtime local Cris Mcquay, who formerly managed Kiehl’s on Fillmore. “We will stay permanently closed going forward. We…
LIBERTY SAN FRANCISCO has been granted a permit to open the neighborhood’s first cannabis dispensary. On December 12, the Planning Commission unanimously approved Liberty’s application for a conditional use permit to open a retail dispensary just west of Fillmore at 2222 Bush Street, formerly the home of Unity Church. The church sold its longtime home…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT Despite the fierce turnover among well-heeled retailers, is Fillmore Street still Mecca for merchants? Jon Levy, an exec with Leap — a New York-based firm that creates and launches traditional retail stores for web-based digital brands — is convinced of it. He just snapped up a second storefront on the…
A NEIGHBOR, out for a walk one night soon after Plants and Friends opened its new shop at 1906 Fillmore in early October, stopped to admire the greenery in the window. “It’s fun,” she said to another neighbor walking by. “It makes you smile.” And so it does. Who would think — in the age…