Pacific Heights Health Club ends its 35-year run

Posted on November 4, 2019 by editors
A retractable roof in the weight room has been one of the club’s distinctions.

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 officer, announced the move in a letter to members on November 1.

“San Francisco has changed. Retail has changed. The fitness industry has changed,” Lang said in an interview. 

The club’s personal training program will continue in the fitness center of the nearby 2000 Post Street apartments, between Steiner and Pierce.

Lang intends to focus, mostly in online sessions, on coaching women from 45 to 55 interested in weight loss — especially those in tech, who share her work roots.

A longtime neighborhood institution, the urban gym at 2356 Pine, just west of Fillmore, has gone through a number of incarnations. It opened in 1984 — when the city had only six health clubs — as a men-only club that offered massages, a hot tub, and was staffed with locker room attendants. It was frequented by a number of celebrity clients, including, for a time, John F. Kennedy Jr.

David Kirk opened the front part of the club to women when he took ownership in 1990. A dozen years later he opened the entire club to all. 

Fleeing a worklife in finance and tech, Amy Lang took over as owner in 2004, adding a cheeky sense of marketing along with yoga, Zumba and Pilates classes. Later she discontinued the classes and focused on small group training for older people, a change that didn’t sit well with some of the regulars. 

“It created a bit of a kerfuffle,” Lang acknowledges, but also revealed a deeper truth. “It was then that I realized the club is a better place for a person who is a do-it-yourself type of exerciser,” Lang says. “I didn’t know you don’t morph a health club into what you want it to be. But what I’ve learned now allows me to do what I’ve always wanted to do.”

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Modern designs for foggy dogs

Posted on August 1, 2019 by editors

A new firm based in the neighborhood manufactures premium dog beds and accessories.

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 dogs.

One local, Rose Shattuck, has launched a new business she hopes will make good on that reality.

Shattuck is the founder of The Foggy Dog, a two-year-old brand of premium goods for dogs headquartered in the neighborhood. She got the idea for the company when she couldn’t find a dog bed for her goldendoodle, Utah. “I couldn’t understand why every dog bed had paw prints or was khaki colored,” she says. “So I found some upholstery fabric that I loved and hired a seamstress from Craigslist to make my dream dog bed.”

Then she realized she was on to something. So Shattuck left her role as vice president for merchandising at Minted — an online design marketplace for stationery and art with a shop at 1919 Fillmore — to focus full time on The Foggy Dog. The product line now includes dog beds, collars, leashes, toys and accessories. Her passion is to make pet products that are not only functional, but also beautiful. “At Minted, I was surrounded by amazing design every day,” she says. “I wanted to bring that same level of fresh, modern aesthetic to the pet industry.”

Living in the neighborhood, Shattuck was surrounded by other “dog moms” in their 20s and 30s who were dissatisfied with the choices they had when it came to their pets. She realized there was a market for attractive, made-in-the-U.S. pet products that appeal to a more modern customer. “People are having children later in life, and their dogs are their babies. Pet parents want the best for their fur kids,” she says. “And there isn’t another brand right now that seems to serve their needs.”

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Brown Bag broke all the rules

Posted on May 2, 2019 by editors

Michael May took the owner’s ideas and turned them into windows.

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 but only about 6 inches deep, so the displays look more like collages. The employees, all collectors of various kinds, bring their own stuff in to use as props. The store itself, which is supposed to be a stationery shop, sells dishes and tiny plastic eyeballs.

“We don’t want to be commercial,” says owner Dawn Christensen. “There’s nothing I won’t buy.” She is considering a “national mammogram week” window this spring using greeting cards with voluptuous Victorian women.

Employee Michael May takes Christensen’s ideas and turns them into windows. A scissors window. A cowboy window. A magnet window. A recent gold window included crowns, swans, pencils, dice, stamp holders and doilies. “It’s a far cry from forming men’s suits,” says May, a former men’s retail display worker.

“We don’t just pull merchandise from the store — we buy things for the windows and then sell them,” says Christensen.

A window sometimes has a hidden message, she says, but “the people who would be offended don’t get it.”

EARLIER: “Practical supplies and wildly impractical baubles“

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She’s pulling up her roots

Posted on April 4, 2019 by editors

Traci Teraoka and her hound, Huckleberry, made Sacramento Street a more neighborly place.

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 container of a lemon tree she’d bought.

“I took that as a metaphor that it was time for me to put down real roots here,” she says. And she did — sending her son Alexander to nearby Town School and Drew School, establishing a small business and living upstairs above her eclectic shop, taking a leadership role in neighborhood organizations.

“I really let myself be here on Sacramento Street more than any other place in my life,” she says. She even planted the lemon tree in her back yard — in the ground.

But now she’s being uprooted. Teraoka and her business partner had an agreement that when Alexander was a year out of high school, she would buy out her partner, or they would sell the building.

And now the time has come.

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‘1,000 Monks’ helped create a community

Posted on April 4, 2019 by editors

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 Santa Rosa. She had created the original artwork back in 2001, and her son had encouraged her to make prints to make it more widely available.

Little did I know how important that serendipitous encounter would become.

Andrea and I quickly reached an agreement, and soon “1,000 Monks” was for sale in my shop. It has been my best-selling item, and one of the single greatest contributions my small business has made to the community. Andrea has been wonderful to work with, often hand-delivering prints so we can visit.

The giclee prints have been a source of joy and happiness, connection, strength and contemplation since the day they first arrived. Many people stop in their tracks once they make eye contact with “1,000 Monks.” They look, find a monk looking back and soon are transported, looking at different monks. The piece is instantly engaging. And that happens time and time again, day after day. Some people have told me they walk by just by hoping they can visit the monks through the window. 

For many years, the only sales I had on the website for the Poetica shop was the print of “1,000 Monks. “ I don’t sell them by the thousands, but when the bell on my phone sounds, notifying me of a sale coming through, more often than not it’s still for “1,000 Monks.”

Sales are often the result of someone seeing the piece in a friend’s home, creating a little chain reaction. A friend bought one and had it shipped to Jonesboro, Arkansas. That purchase led to several of her friends acquiring the piece in several cities in the South.

Sometimes the piece provides needed comfort. In 2015, three young people went on a murderous rampage beginning at Golden Gate Park after Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Their next stop was Marin, where they shot Steve Carter and his dog Coco multiple times. Coco survived. Steve did not. Steve’s wife, Lokita Carter, suddenly a widow, was also grappling with intense chemo treatments for a rare late-stage cancer. I heard the familiar bell notification on my cell phone that “1,000 Monks” had been ordered. It was Lokita. Andrea and I refunded Lokita’s purchase and gifted it to her. She recently told me the monks continue to be a cornerstone in her life.

Another story: Last fall, I was talking to a neighbor in front of the shop when a man stopped to look in the window and became mesmerized by the framed “1,000 Monks.” He said he was having a difficult and challenging week, and really wanted the piece. As I was processing his sale, he confided he was James Roche — a roommate at Yale of Brett Kavanaugh, then battling for confirmation as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Though raised in an ultra-conservative family — his father owned a MAGA hat — Roche said he had taken a leap of faith and gone public with his belief that Kavanaugh had lied repeatedly under oath and sexually assaulted another woman who was a friend.

There is something in this piece that creates connection, happiness, contentment — and solace.

The giclee print of “1,000 Monks” is $85. It’s in stock at Poetica, at 3461 Sacramento Street.

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‘Retail is dead’ for 3 independents; not for brands

Posted on March 1, 2019 by editors

The fashion label Veronica Beard is opening a stand-alone shop at 2441 Fillmore.

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 shop at 1521 Fillmore in saying farewell to Fillmore Street.

“With the way consumers have been proving to shop in the last couple years, retail is dead, but experience and service are alive,” says Gabe Garcia, co-owner of Booklyn Circus. “I’ve been developing an exciting concept and solution to this challenge that I know the neighborhood would love and appreciate and I want to bring back to my retail space where I’ve spent 11 years.” But nothing is certain yet.

Elizabeth Charles moved to New York with her family three years ago and has decided to give up the commute. And while Victoria Dunham’s 1906 shop will close, she’s still going great guns next door at HiHo Silver.

At the same time, Fillmore Street says hello to two new fashion labels: Koio, the hot line of Italian leather sneakers, has opened its sixth shop at 2029 Fillmore. And the women’s fashion label Veronica Beard, available in department stores, will open its own stand-alone shop at 2241 Fillmore, where Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop popped up during the holidays.

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No more pet therapy

Posted on February 28, 2019 by editors

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. The adoption floor was the purrfect “therapy center” for folks who just wanted to spend time with the furry little ones, but didn’t want to make a commitment.

No more. The SPCA has changed the rules. The animal hospital will stay put, but not the petting. Now there will be “adoption events” only on certain days each month, but no more one-on-one getting-to-know-and-enjoy-you gatherings upstairs. Starting on Tuesday, March 12, and every Tuesday thereafter, a noon to 5 p.m. adoption session is planned, with similar events on Saturdays beginning March 23.

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Zuri pops up to stay

Posted on January 2, 2019 by editors

Zuri owners Ashleigh Miller and Sandra Zhao found a home on Fillmore Street.

By SHELLEY HANDLER

After popping up for four months at 2029 Fillmore, the just-one-dress women’s boutique Zuri has now put down permanent roots a block south at 1902 Fillmore in the small storefront that was home to Narumi Japanese Antiques for nearly four decades.

The clothing company sells mainly one style: a loose-fitting, below-knee-length frock with three-quarter-length sleeves that can be worn as a dress, jacket or duster. Fashioned from African wax fabric, Zuri’s signature fashion item proved to be a hit with locals.

Owners and founders Ashleigh Miller and Sandra Zhao say they carefully sought out their setting. The two were looking for a shopping street both eclectic and active enough to bring the devoted and the curious their way. They methodically searched for a location that would be both showcase and gathering place, much like their flagship shop on Bleeker Street in New York.

They found what they were looking for on Fillmore Street.

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Pop-up gifts from Gwyneth

Posted on December 1, 2018 by editors

Goop Gifts offers a 24-karat golden dildo named Olga.

POPPING UP at 2241 Fillmore, next door to the Clay Theatre, and slated to remain there only until Christmas Eve, is a hot new spot for holiday shoppers: Goop Gifts. Shop curator and company founder actress Gwyneth Paltrow is both revered for her attention — and reviled for her overattention — to self-care.

She’s stocked the Fillmore shop with a collection from this year’s Goop Holiday Gift Guide — part of the lifestyle brand she started, she says, “as just sort of a way to share information.” One of her suggestions: a doctor-supervised treatment involving bee venom injections. “I had it done on my cesarean scar,” says Paltrow. “I had some buckling in the scar, and it really evened it out.” Outfitted with a moving conveyor belt laden with wrapped and displayed gifts, the Fillmore pop-up offers many quintessentially Paltrow items: dietary supplements, bath salts, makeup remover pads, edible pre-probiotic skin refiner and lots of things in pink and gold.

It also has on hand some gifts you might not have realized that person on your list really needs: a sneaker cleaning kit, a gold champagne cork puller, a digital luggage scale for those prone to overpacking, 24-karat gold rolling papers, as well as a 24-karat golden dildo named Olga, available for $3,490.

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A buying trip to Southeast Asia

Posted on April 6, 2018 by editors

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