News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
STREET TALK | CYNTHIA TRAINA A new year has brought its familiar mix of closings, reopenings, price adjustments and quiet repositioning along Fillmore Street and nearby blocks — plus a turnover in ownership of some commercial properties. The building at 2232 Bush Street that’s now home to Mattina restaurant — created as the home of…
LIFTING THE VEIL a bit on plans to restore Fillmore Street’s historic Clay Theater, the new owners have begun offering small groups of neighborhood residents a look inside — and a preview of what’s to come. Last week project director Cody Allen — point man for local investor Neil Mehta, who put up the money…
STREET TALK | CYNTHIA TRAINA Holiday sparkle is officially here. Window displays are brighter than they’ve been in years, and shoppers are already out hunting for early gifts. At D&M Wines & Liquors, the longtime neighborhood Champagne headquarters, the holiday rush is underway. One-third of their sales this time of year are Champagne — and…
FIRST PERSON | SHELLEY HANDLER My first cooking memory comes from early in my life. It was a Saturday morning, and I was standing on the counter in our ’50s butter yellow kitchen. I was 3 years old, barefoot, in a T-shirt and poofy panties. I had a small red plastic bowl, into which went…
FINALLY THERE’S A proposal to replace the shuttered Safeway grocery store on Webster Street — with more than 1,800 new units of housing. Four buildings that could reach a height of 300 feet, or 30 stories, would replace the store and parking lot, according to a preliminary application developer Align Real Estate has submitted to…
STREET TALK | CYNTHIA TRAINA Sutter Street’s first block off Fillmore is having a moment. It’s fully reinvigorated now that Saliin Thai Massage & Wellness spa has opened next door to Michelin-starred 7 Adams restaurant. Saliin, at 1955 Sutter, provides a range of massage treatments in a serene, minimalist space. On the menu of services…
FIRST PERSON | RYAN TONKOVICH When libraries closed in the spring of 2020 due to the pandemic, my sister Natalie and I wondered how families with young children would get access to books. We contacted a family friend who was a principal at a local school in San Francisco. She told us many of her…
Story and Photographs by CYNTHIA TRAINA In a stylishly appointed Victorian just steps from Fillmore Street, with opera drifting through rooms overflowing with art, Mark Evans spends his days transforming salvaged frames into convex mirrors encrusted with dazzle that sell for thousands of dollars. In rooms that double as both studio and gallery, he blends…
By FRAN MORELAND JOHNS Almost from the moment they bought their graceful, four-level 1901 Victorian across from Alamo Square Park, Owen and Kris O’Donnell have opened it to outsiders. When their sons were growing up in the 1970s and ’80s there were nannies and au pairs from abroad. Later there were friends of friends who…
STREET TALK | CYNTHIA TRAINA Things come and go on Fillmore Street, but rarely with such suddenness as the latest departures. The Starbucks just south of Geary closed with only two days’ notice. Alexis Bittar’s boutique at Fillmore and California disappeared just as abruptly. So did the Byredo cosmetics emporium at Fillmore and Pine. The…