News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
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…
CHANDLER TANG is living her dream — curating and stocking what she describes as “very fun things” for Post Script, a new shop she’s just opened in a neighborhood she knows and loves. Tang describes her new endeavor at 2413 California Street, near Fillmore — most recently habited by the women’s clothing boutique De Novo…
PACIFIC HEIGHTS HEALTH CLUB, with its lofty-sounding name and low-key vibe — where designer workout garb is not required — will close its doors for the last time on November 27, the day before Thanksgiving, at precisely 3 p.m. Amy Lang, who took ownership of the club 15 years ago and appointed herself chief motivating…
PEOPLE OFTEN JOKE that there are more dogs than children in San Francisco. Statistics show it’s true: There were about 115,000 children under age 18 living in the city in 2016, according to the American Community Survey. San Francisco Animal Care and Control estimated that at the same time, there were about 120,000 to 150,000…
FLASHBACK | JO MANCUSO The windows at the Brown Bag, the quirky office supply store long on the corner at 2000 Fillmore Street, were the topic of an item in Image magazine in 1991: This is the store that breaks all the rules. Its Fillmore Street windows are really shadow boxes, maybe 4 feet square…
By BARBARA KATE REPA Traci Teraoka, the personable proprietor of Poetica Art & Antiques at 3461 Sacramento Street, believes in synchronicity. Growing up, her family moved every few years to accommodate her dad’s career in air freight. But after she landed in San Francisco two dozen years ago, she noticed roots growing out of the…
FIRST PERSON | TRACI TERAOKA Over the years, many artists asked me to consider showing their work at my shop, Poetica Art & Antiques. One day a woman walked in who was looking for a place to present a special print, which she called “1,000 Monks.” Andrea Speer Hibbard was visiting from her home in…
RETAIL REPORT | RICHARD SPRITZER Fillmore is losing three more of its independently owned small businesses. The Elizabeth Charles boutique is down to its final days, after 12 years at 2056 Fillmore, and March is the final month for the gift shop named for its address at 1906 Fillmore. They join the pioneering Brooklyn Circus…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT For years, a treasure was hidden away on the second floor of Pets Unlimited, now a branch of the SPCA, at 2343 Fillmore. You could adopt a cat or dog to take home — or you could just stop by to pet a puppy, or to cuddle with a kitty.…