News from the Heart & Soul of San Francisco
While other San Francisco neighborhoods are resisting the new high-tech parking meters that now line Fillmore Street, they are generally finding favor with local residents and merchants, despite being difficult to use. And a new report suggests that the experimental SFpark program is having at least some of its intended effects. At the new meters…
[nggallery id=17] By Carina Woudenberg Continuing the influx of new businesses into the Fillmore Jazz District, The Social Study is now serving beverages, snacks and a cool vibe in the stylish brick-lined space at 1795 Geary, just off Fillmore. Along with creatively concocted drinks and locally roasted coffee, owner Harmony Fraga says she hopes to…
Troya, a Turkish restaurant on Clement Street, will open Troya Fillmore in the space at 2125 Fillmore recently vacated by Citizen Cake. The second location on Fillmore will be “more modern and hipper than the Richmond version,” Inside Scoop reports.
EXCERPT | By Etta James Uncle Frank showed up in his car and whisked us up to San Francisco when I was 12. We dropped [my mother] Dorothy off in the Fillmore District, which looked like a hell-hole to me. L.A. was a vine-covered cottage compared to these slums. After the sunny skies of southern…
SPIRITS | Chris Barnett Maurice Kanbar is sitting in the cluttered, comfortable living room of his Pacific Heights apartment clipping Safeway coupons. That seems rather odd for an 80-year-old entrepreneur, property investor and filmmaker-philanthropist who’s no doubt a billionaire plus. But then he also zips around town on a Vespa lookalike motor scooter because he…
FAVORITE SPOT | KEVIN BLUM Like many residents and the great Tony Bennett, I left my heart in San Francisco. But I think it’s fair to say I left my liver at Solstice lounge. I first discovered the restaurant and bar eight years ago when I moved to the neighborhood. Solstice had just opened at…
Planning Commission President Christina Olague was sworn in this morning by Mayor Ed Lee as the new member of the Board of Supervisors from District 5, which includes much of the Fillmore. Read more: “Ed Lee’s pick“
“FRESH PERFUME IS THE BEST,” proclaims Meg Christensen, manager of Le Labo, the scent emporium that opened during the holidays at 2238 Fillmore Street. The spare shop has no perfume in stock, but will mix one of its 12 fragrances on the spot while the customer waits. Costs range from $58 for a 15-ml. portion…
FIRST PERSON | Tom Bergin Life flies by so fast. It has been almost 10 years since I sold Tom Bergin Goldsmith on Fillmore Street to Eric Trabert. I miss the customers — many of whom became friends. I miss the neighbors who popped in to say hello as they passed by on their daily…
FIRST PERSON | Amy Bernstein When we started telling friends that we were moving from San Francisco to Boston, we could count on getting one of two responses: an incredulous “Why?” or “Boston’s great. It’s a lot like San Francisco.” My partner Nanette Bisher and I were moving because I had just landed a dream…