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Mom and pop shop bucks the trends

By BARBARA KATE REPA Five years ago, when many saw the neighborhood becoming inhospitable to mom-and-pop businesses as ever more corporate chains moved in, Tricia and Ron Benitez turned a deaf ear to the naysayers and opened their one-of-a-kind clothing boutique at 1850 Fillmore Street. They stocked it with pieces for men and women by…

From Blue Bottle, prolonged silence

NEARLY TWO YEARS ago, the firm announced: “Blue Bottle Coffee is excited to be pursuing a new cafe located at Jackson and Fillmore Streets.” Since then, nada. A PR rep says only what she has said for months: “I will be in touch as soon as I have more details.” Confirmation, of a sort, that…

Fillmore shops empty, but leased

W ITH THE CONTINUING onrush of national and international fashion and cosmetics brands onto upper Fillmore Street, retail space has become so sought after that corporate tenants are willing to pay rent for months while their storefronts sit empty, waiting for city permits to be approved. A dozen storefronts north of Bush Street are now vacant, but…

The jewelry bros

LOCALS | JENNIFER BLOT “He can sell ice to an Eskimo,” says Eric Trabert of Gary Mureta, his next-door neighbor at the top of Fillmore Street. But Mureta doesn’t hear his friend’s admiring endorsement. He’s busy juggling the demands of what appears, at first, to be a small and sleepy antique store. But the store…

Facing the future in Japantown

By TOMO HIRAI Nichi Bei Weekly At the dawn of its 110th year, San Francisco’s Japantown faces challenges in maintaining its identity as a regional hub of Japanese and Japanese American culture. About five decades since the Japan Center was built, many of the neighborhood’s longtime business owners have come of retirement age. As these…

Rising from the ashes

By JENNIFER BLOT For a small retailer to survive in San Francisco for 40 years — and rebound from earthquake and fire — takes something more than luck. For Union Street Goldsmith, scheduled to reopen November 14 after a fire in early June shut down its longtime Union Street home, the key to longevity is no…

Wells Fargo bank heist takes ATMs

By CHRIS BARNETT The biggest neighborhood bank heist in decades has left many customers feeling shortchanged. Three automatic teller machines outside the Wells Fargo Bank at Fillmore and California recently vanished, depriving customers of the convenience of withdrawing cash and doing limited banking when the branch was closed. Now Wells Fargo customers or anyone with…