News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
THE LAST TRACES of the legendary Elite Cafe — a beacon of hospitality on Fillmore Street for decades — have disappeared. The lettering on the vintage neon sign has now been removed, along with the wooden booths inside. The Elite’s new name: The Tailor’s Son, in honor of owner Adrianno Paganini ’s father, who was…
DEMOLITION OF THE interior of the 110-year-old Clay Theatre on Fillmore Street began today, with workers hauling out the seats, the projectors and the popcorn machine. Landmark Theatres, the company that operated the Clay in recent decades, has instructed its staff to leave the building empty by the end of the month. The theater closed…
By ALISON OWINGS The audience gasped. Eleanor Coppola’s triptych, “Love is Love is Love,” comprised of three shortish California-based films, was having a solo showing a few weeks ago at Dolby Laboratory’s splendid theater in downtown San Francisco, her purpose partly to thank people involved in the production. The longest and final of the three,…
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…
DRAGGED-OUT negotiations between Andy Chun, who held the lease on the now-dark Elite Cafe, and serial restaurateur Adriano Paganini have finally been resolved, and renovation work has begun. The new owner of the iconic Fillmore building, Rick Howard — who also owns Harry’s Bar across the street — hopes to strip off some of Chun’s black paint and…
FILLMORE BEAT | CHRIS BARNETT Noosh, the hot new California-inspired Mediterranean restaurant at Fillmore and Pine, rocketed off the launch pad in February and soared to great heights, only to explode the week before Thanksgiving when the money partner suddenly announced he was firing and suing his two highly lauded chef partners. CEO John Litz…
LOCAL HISTORY | THOMAS REYNOLDS For decades local residents have walked down the block of Fillmore between Bush and Sutter and wondered about the sign hanging out over the sidewalk: Palace Cafe, it says, above a bright red Dr Pepper logo. The cafe has been closed at least 30 years. For many of those years…
ARCHITECT Aaron Green, who lived in a neighborhood apartment overlooking Lafayette Park for many years, helped Frank Lloyd Wright establish a San Francisco office in 1951 at 319 Grant Avenue. Green’s mother-in-law, Jeannette Pauson Haber, lived at 2510 Jackson Street, on Alta Plaza Park, with her sister, Rose Pauson, who was a former client of…
FIRST PERSON | MARK J. MITCHELL I arrived in the neighborhood in September 1978, following the woman I’m still lucky enough to love. I had dreams of being a San Francisco poet. We moved into the Preston Apartments above what is now Santino’s Vino, but was Uncle Vito’s in those days. I was fresh out…
IN THE LATE ’80s, Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts began an archival journey to resurrect a piece of San Francisco’s cultural history that had been bulldozed into oblivion. The Harlem of the West Project sought to make visible the rich history of the Fillmore District — one of the few neighborhoods in the Bay…