Author: Todd_Lappin

Sunday: Celebrate a First Anniversary for Heartfelt &

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If you don’t plan to spend your Sunday marching. protesting, or drowning your politcal sorrows in the bottom of a bottle of strong liquor, Neighbor Darcy invites you to come share some cheer as she celebrates the first anniversary of her offshoot Heartfelt & store at 409 Cortland (at Bennington).

Darcy tells Bernalwood:

We’re having a party for our wee store on Sunday, January 22, starting at 5 pm.

A belated 1st birthday!

Two women will be reading their poems, and we will serve sherry, cookies, and some bubbly.

There will be a special offer for an hour before the event starts.

One of the women is my friend, and she was part of the WW2 Kindertransport.

In any case I am going to start using the Heartfelt & space for these events to let folks from the neighborhood share their creativity, especially writers.

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PHOTO: Courtesy of Heartfelt &

Local Restaurants to Host Tasty Benefit for Chef Tim from Ichi Sushi

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As you may recall, all-star Bernal neighbors Tim and Erin Archuleta, the husband and wife team behind the fabulous Ichi Sushi, have been navigating a rough patch lately, owing to Chef Tim’s health crisis. That’s why Ichi re-relocated to its original location at 3369 Mission at the beginning of the year, and the Archuletas have been doing some crowdfunding to help defray the cost of medical expenses.

Now, some of Chef Tim’s friends in the local restaurant biz are joining forces to lend a hand as well, as InsideScoop reports:

To help support the couple during this rough time, local chefs and restaurateurs are banding together for an evening, offering up a walk-around food/drink event and raffle tickets.

“They are the nicest people of all time,” says Corridor partner Ryan Cole. “And they do so much for everyone else. ”

The fundraiser will take place on the (al fresco) rooftop above Cole’s three-star Corridor (100 Van Ness), and will include food and drink from the following places:

  • Blue Plate
  • CatHead’s BBQ
  • Deli Board
  • Flour + Water
  • The Front Porch
  • Lolinda
  • Mission Chinese
  • Namu
  • PizzaHacker
  • Waterbar
  • The Riddler
  • Mr. Tipple’s Recording Studio

The restaurants will each have food stations, and the Riddler and Mr. Tipple’s will be serving up drinks. Tickets cost $60 and are available here. Oh, and do note that if you can’t attend, you can still buy a raffle ticket. All proceeds will go to the Archuletas to help pay their hospital bills and help them “prosper in Ichi Sushi’s latest location.”

You’ll notice, of course, that there are many Bernal-based restaurants on the list of participants, as well as some Bernal-owned restaurants around town.

Get tickets for the event right here.  And even if you can’t attend, you can still support Chef Tim and Neighbor Erin the traditional, tasy way, by stopping by Ichi to have some of their amazing food. All the old-skool favorites are still on offer, and there’s a new lunch menu as well.

Feel better soon, Neighbor Chef Tim!

PHOTO: Tim and Erin Archuleta, via their crowdfunding page

Former Bocana Tenant Receives $400,000 in Settlement With Landlord

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The awful tale of the Bernal Heights resident who was forced from her home at 355 Bocana after receiving a $6500-per-month rent increase came to a conclusion yesterday, as lawyers agreed to settle a lawsuit stemming from the incident.

As you may recall, back in March 2015, Bernal renter Deborah Follingstad  was hit with a shocking315% rent increase by property owner and lifelong Bernal resident Nadia Lama.  At the time, Lama was receiving legal counsel from lawyer Denise A. Ledbetter.

The 315% rent increase forced Follingstad to move from 355 Bocana, and Lama moved in. Yet in August 2015, Follingstad filed a wrongful eviction lawsuit,  and yesterday the matter was put to rest, shortly before the case was set to go to trial. The result: Lama will pay Follingstad a $400,000 settlement to end the lawsuit.

Reporter Dan Brekke from KQED writes:

In the August 2015 lawsuit, Follingstad and her lawyer, Joe Tobener, accused Lama of trying to get around a city ordinance that requires payments for tenants displaced in an “owner-move-in” eviction.

That litigation proceeded without gaining much attention — until now.

Tobener announced Tuesday that, with a jury trial scheduled to begin next week, Lama had settled for the staggering-sounding sum of $400,000.

Tobener said the high settlement amount reflected both what he called Lama’s “egregious” behavior in raising the rent and the risk Lama ran in allowing the case to go to trial, where a jury could award triple damages for his client’s emotional distress claims.

“It’s the highest constructive-eviction-by-rent-increase case we’ve ever had,” Tobener said, adding that such cases typically settle for amounts “in the high five figures.”

Tobener said that under the city’s owner-move-in ordinance, Lama would have been required to pay Follingstad $9,522 for forcing her to move.

Lamar Anderson from San Francisco Magazine spoke to former Bernal neighbor Deb Follingstad, and he reports she’s had a difficult odyssey:

After [Follingstad moved out], Lama moved in. Follingstad spent the next year bouncing from place to place, house-sitting and staying with friends. As an independent contractor, she had a hard time applying for apartments, because she lacked the paystubs landlords frequently ask for. The places she could rent easily were too much of a compromise. “I was looking at efficiencies with no kitchen, just a hot plate,” she says. And sometimes her story followed her: “I had landlords be like, when they found out who I was, they hated me. They’d never even met me, but I represented this class of person who got evicted. It was weird, the way they looked at me.”

Last May, a year after her displacement, Follingstad was diagnosed with breast cancer. In July she moved in with her boyfriend. She went through months of litigation while undergoing radiation treatments. “I looked like the Michelin tire man, I had so many coats on, and drinking hot tea,” she says. “I was there because I had to be, but I was basically curled up in an office chair, in these meetings that went on for, like, eight hours.” Last month, she finished her radiation treatments. Her hair is coming back, and she’s styling it to look like leopard spots.

San Francisco Magazine adds that after lawyer fees, Follingstad will receive about $280,000, which will then be taxed. Much of the remaining funds, she says, will likely be used to pay medical expenses.

PHOTO: 355 Bocana in 2015, by Telstar Logistics

SF Chronicle Reports on Bernal Family’s Struggle With Housing Shortage

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A few weeks ago, Bernal neighbor and Bernalwood contributor Heather Hawkins sent a sad email announcing that she was having a garage sale. “As the struggle becomes too real to be worthwhile for us any longer,” she told Bernalwood, “our family is calling it quits from the City and heading for the hills (Truckee, to be exact).”

Bernal Heights is famous as a great place to raise children, in part because our neighborhood is packed with single-family homes and open spaces. Yet the median price of a single-family home in Bernal now hovers at around $1.3 million, and that’s way more than many middle-class families with kids can afford.

In this morning’s paper, reporter Heather Knight at the San Francisco Chronicle introduces Neighbor Heather Hawkins in the context of San Francisco’s ongoing housing shortage, and the toll it takes on young families:

San Francisco has no official definition of “family housing,” but Heather Hawkins knows what it isn’t.

It isn’t the little two-bedroom flat in Bernal Heights that she paid more than $4,000 a month to rent, where her baby slept in the closet of her sister’s room, and where space was so tight she knew the number of steps between every point. Seven steps from her bed to the toilet. Thirteen steps from her bed to the girls’ room.

Hawkins, her husband and girls, like so many other San Francisco families, have packed up to head for the hills — well, the mountains. Her family is renting an apartment in Truckee while they look for a house to buy. They’ll probably get twice as much space for half the price of anything they could find in San Francisco.

“It’s hard when your kid comes home and says, ‘But I love my little blue house!’ It’s this sinking feeling of, ‘This isn’t yours. This isn’t ours.’ That’s never going to happen for us in this city,” said Hawkins, a 42-year-old consultant in the health and outdoors industry whose husband works in tech. “I roll my eyes when people say it’s the techies. Nope! We’re leaving too.”

San Francisco notoriously has the smallest percentage of kids — 13.4 percent — of any city in the nation. But while San Francisco officials sweat and bicker over affordable housing, they rarely talk about family housing.

Read the whole thing at the San Francisco Chronicle.

PHOTO: Neighbor Heather preparing for her garage sale. Photo by Lea Suzuki from The Chronicle

Wednesday: Celebrate Bernal Neighbor Kelsey Crowe’s New Book

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Neighbor Kelsey Crowe from Anderson Street has a new book out today, and it’s very timely.  Neighbor Mike, her husband, invites all Bernalese to the  book party tomorrow, Wednesday, Jan. 18 at Books Inc.:

My wife and Bernal resident Kelsey Crowe’s event next week for her new book There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love.

Here’s the book summary:

Written in a how-to, relatable, we’ve-all- been-there style, There Is No Good Card for This isn’t a spiritual treatise on how to make you a better person or a scientific argument about why compassion matters. Crowe and McDowell have created an essential illustrated guide to active compassion that takes you, step by step by step, past the paralysis of thinking about someone in a difficult time to actually doing something (or nothing) with good judgment instead of fear.

Kelsey will be at Books Inc Opera Plaza (601 Van Ness Ave.) on Wednesday evening, Jan 18 for a reading and Q&A — it should be a really nice event and all are very welcome!!

PHOTO: Courtesy of Neighbor Mike

Café St Jorge Getting New Ownership

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Andrea de Francisco created something lovely when she opened Café St Jorge at 3438 Mission Street (near Kingston) in 2013: She created the kind of establishment that became the focal point for a community at the southern end of La Lengua. But now change is afoot, as Andrea tells Bernalwood:

Andrea de Francisco, owner of Café St Jorge, has announced that her beloved Californian/Portuguese café will soon change ownership.

The new owners, the Saleh family, are expected to keep the warm, welcoming café exactly as is. The staff, menu, décor and programing will all remain. Opening in 2013, Café St Jorge quickly became one of the core businesses in Mission/Bernal and San Francisco.

With a fresh menu featuring the best local and organic ingredients in a creative take on California/Portuguese cuisine, alongside traditional Portuguese pastries and dishes, Portuguese wines and Stumptown coffee, people and especially neighbors and the Portuguese community fill Café St. Jorge’s tables from morning to night, each and every day of the week. The happy hours, art shows, music performances and game nights have entertained and delighted people of all ages.

All of which are expected to continue under the new ownership of the Salehs. “We are honored to steward this amazing café that Andrea has built. Café St. Jorge is a warm, inviting, frankly perfect café and we are so excited to continue to work with the amazing staff that makes it the great neighborhood spot that it is. We can’t wait to meet our customers and neighbors.”

“Creating Café St. Jorge was always my dream, and I couldn’t be more proud of the café. I have loved serving our amazing customers that I will truly miss, and being a part of the Mission Bernal community,” said Andrea de Francisco, current owner of Café St. Jorge. “I’m so sad to move on, but delighted the café will be run by an amazing family who truly values it and the special place it holds for our customers. As for me, I will continue to consult and I’m looking forward to spending more time with my family and more time in Portugal, and dreaming up my next adventure.”

The transfer of license is expected to be complete at the end of February.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Café St. Jorge

Deadline Extended to Apply for Free Street Tree Planting

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If you’d like Friends of the Urban Forest to plant a tree in front of your glamorous Bernal Heights home, then you’re in luck: The deadline to apply for a tree-planting has been extended until January 18.

Esmeralda Martinez, a volunteer coordinator with the fabulous Friends of the Urban Forest says:

Exciting news! Our next big tree planting in Bernal Heights is just around the corner, coming up on February 25th.

We need more trees requests! The deadline for neighbors to apply to green your street has been extended one more week. The new deadline to submit forms is Wednesday January 18th. If you know anybody interested in getting a new tree, please have them contact me at 415 268 0772.

Your neighbors can sign up for a free, no-obligation site visit from our arborist team here.

Check out our community pages for more information.

Thanks for all your help greening your neighborhood!

Cheers,
Esmeralda

Hat Tip: Neighbor Vitaliy.
PHOTO: Tree planting, courtesy of FUF

Proposed Pinball Center Mired in City Permit Purgatory

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Last November, many Bernal neighbors were thrilled to hear about Bernal Neighbors Christian and Elisabeth’s plan to open Skillshot Pinball at 1000 Cortland Avenue, on the corner of Folsom. However,  it seems some nearby neighbors were decidedly less-thrilled about the plan, and now Skillshot Pinball’s grand opening faces significant delays as the proposal grinds its way through San Francisco’s bureaucratic maw.

In a newsletter, Neighbors Christian and Elisabeth write:

This is our first letter and we were hoping it might be more exciting, but it’s mostly about bureaucracy and the fact that we may not be opening as soon as we’d originally suggested.

The space we’re seeking to occupy was not previously an eatery or drinkery so though it’s allowed by zoning, we have to apply for a change of use. This isn’t that big of a deal, except for anyone who’s not crazy about having an eatery or drinkery in the neighborhood, these applications allow them opportunities to protest the changes. And that’s what’s happening. We’ve had such a wonderful outpouring of support from Bernal neighbors and families, but all complaints, rightly so, must be properly heard out. Most of the issues surround concerns about noise and the effect on the neighborhood, but some concern mixing sales of beer with proximity to children. On our website we’ve got a list of those concerns and our approaches to how we deal with those issues. And we’ve met with some of the complainants, but we’ve been unsuccessful at changing their minds. They say they love the concept, they think it’s right for Bernal, and they like us, but they don’t want it right next to them. Ahem.

So we’ve had, or are expecting to have, protests against our Change of Use with the Planning dept, our alcohol application with the ABC and separately with the ALU, and the Board of Supervisors approval of our alcohol application. Add that all up and it could be quite a while before we’re able to open. We’re trying to push things along, but it’s probably more like a year now, or even longer. The protests don’t usually keep you from getting the permit, they just significantly slow things down and put conditions on operations (like hours) so you guys don’t have too much to worry about. We’re still totally dedicated to opening up here on The Hill!

PHOTO:: Williams San Francisco pinball machine (1964) at the Pacific Pinball Museum, by Telstar Logistics

Hard-Working Bernal Heights Storm Drains Need Your Love and Attention

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It’s another rainy, wet day, which begs the question: Have you given your nearest storm drain some love today?

Keeping storm drains free from obstruction and debris is an important way to prevent local flooding during heavy rains. Neighbor Susan tells Bernalwood about San Francisco’s adorable Adopt-a-Drain program, and how you can help keep our streets flood-free. She says:

I’m not sure how I heard about adoptadrain.sfwater.org – it has a nifty website that shows where storm drains are as you move through a map o the city. Of course I moved the cursor south to check out Bernal Heights. Drains everywhere! – and some adopted, on Banks Street. Upon inspecting the drains at the intersection nearest to my home, I decided this would be a good civic responsibility to take on. (Some people will argue that “the city should” but I prefer action to waiting.)

The photo above shows my “bad” drain, on the northwest corner of Banks, along with the implements I use to give it care – a broom, a dust pan with a long handle, and a bucket. The third photo is my bad drain, cleaned. The activity took about ten minutes and afforded me some pleasant conversation with people walking by – always good to find a new way to connect with others in the neighborhood.

A couple of keys to success: Check on street sweeping days to be sure that stuff near your drain is in the street to be swept. If rain is coming, clear the drain ahead of time. It doesn’t take long, and you’ll look at all drains differently from now on. As an added plus, no one will have to jump over or wade through a giant puddle caused by your drain being stopped up!

PHOTOS: Courtesy of Neighbor Susan

Big Winter Storm Knocks Down Trees Around Bernal Heights

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None shall pass! Neighbor Amy encounters the tree blocking Bernal Heights Blvd.

The big winter storm that blew through San Francisco on Sunday generally spared Bernal Heights from too much biblical-grade havoc, but it did get the best of our trees (and a few parked cars). Luckily, no one was injured.

The leafy mayhem kicked off on the Richland Avenue, where Neighbor Audra shared this photo of a big limb that fell across the Bernal Cut bridge, cutting off access to our ancestral kin in Bernal-Glen:

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DPW quickly cleared the branch from the Richland bridge (thank you!), but that was not the end of our arboreal mayhem.

Neighbor Darcy shared this photo of a tree eating a Nissan on the 100 block of Bradford, near Powhattan:

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On Wool Street, Neighbor Bernard reports that a tree had it out for this Audi:

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The Revenge of the Trees continued in Precita Park, where Neighbor Maria captured another tree munching on the hood of a Mazda, as a neighbor raised her fist in solidarity with the fallen foliage:

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But the biggest drama unfolded on the south side of Bernal Hill, where a very big tree fell across Bernal Heights Boulevard, rendering our scenic artery impassable. Neighbor Markus shared a dramatic photo of the fallen tree’s root structure:

treedown-markusMeanwhile, on the western side of the roadblock, Neighbor James captured a neighbor pausing for a stylish moment of chaos chic. Never mind the Golden Globes; What’s the it-look for Bernal Heights storm-chasing in 2017?  Why, it’s slip-on sneakers, cranberry tights, and a slim-fitting winter coat in navy — obviously!

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Pop-Up “Eye of the Avocado” Serving Breakfast & Lunch at 833 Cortland

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Someday soon, Black Jet Baking Company will hang its sign above the former Pinkie’s/Sandbox space. But in the meantime, Chef Jes Taber has opened up a pop-up eatery at 833 Cortland called Eye of the Avocado that’s serving gorgeous breakfast and lunch sandwiches right now.

Chef Jes says:

Eye Of The Avocado, is a Pop Up Cafe at 833 Cortland @ Gates, the old Pinkies Bakery. We are excited to part of the beloved Bernal Heights community. We offer one of the best dang egg sandwiches you will ever have, the “Roy G. Biv Sandi”. Plus we have: coffee, lattes, tea, scones, chocolate chip cookies, and etcetera. We are strictly locally sourced & organic. Check out the Pay It Forward program & inquire for details. Can’t wait to meet you!

Eye of the Avocado is already crushing it on Yelp, and the cafe is open from Wednesday to Sunday from 8 am to 2 pm, with plans to remain at 833 Cortland until the end of the month.

(Also, If you have tips about potential permanent locations around greater Bernal, Chef Jes would love to hear them.)

PHOTO: The the Roy G. Biv Sandi + Bacon, courtesy of Eye of the Avocado

Struggling Chloe’s Closet Plans Cutbacks at Cortland Store

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Chloe’s Closet, the consignment store at 451 Cortland specializing in clothes for kids and expectant moms, has been a cherished resource for budget-conscious Bernal parents for more than a decade. Yet recently the business has been struggling, and today Chloe’s Closet announced a series of changes intended to keep the Cortland store afloat.

In an email to customers, Chloe’s writes:

It is no secret that San Francisco has a rapidly declining population of the people Chloe’s Closet really depends on: middle class and working class families. Many of those families just can’t afford to live here any longer and it shows in our sales. The last three years have seen decreasing revenue at both our San Francisco locations, especially in Bernal Heights. While sales have dropped steadily, costs have risen – rent, insurance, taxes and payroll go up and up. We are just barely hanging on.

At this time we are considering our options. We have 18 months left on our lease in Bernal Heights and the next few months will determine whether we can turn things around in Bernal. If we can’t make it work, then unfortunately we will need to find a tenant and close that location down. (We will continue in the Inner Sunset as well as in Berkeley)

In order to hang on in the meantime, we have no other option but to decrease our overhead. To this end, we will be reducing our employee hours at all three locations, and doing a partial shutdown of the “Toy” side at our Bernal Heights location. We are having a sale on our remaining Women’s and Maternity clothing, then we will close that section down. This will allow us to have one fewer person on the payroll per day.

We are also considering going to limited drop off days/hours and/or closing one day per week at all of our locations.

In addition, Chloe’s Closet will implement changes to its consignment policy in order to reduce the quantity of unsellable items dropped off at the store.

 

New Preschool Opening on Cortland Today

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There’s a new preschool opening at 610 Cortland today (right next to the Wells Fargo banking robot), and it’s called Little Angels Nursery School. Neighbor Jen’s child has been attending Little Angels at another location, and she bring the 411 on the new Cortland facility:

Little Angels nursery/preschool will be opening their 610 Cortland Avenue location on January 3rd, 2017. School founder Rabab and many of the students’ families are very excited!

Little Angels will accept children aged 18 months to 6 years, and has a sister school in Sunnyside for infants. The Bernal location has two main play rooms including an invitingly cozy reading nook by the Cortland-facing windows, a new play kitchen, and enough blocks, train tracks, and Magna-tiles for everyone.

In the back, there’s a good-sized yard with a redwood playhouse and a large sandbox, all shaded by a generous avocado tree. My personal favorite thing about the school is the full kitchen: Rabab and the other teachers do fun baking projects and make tasty, healthy, homemade lunches for the children. (They got my picky kid to happily eat vegetables and soup! I can’t express how amazing that is to me.)

Bernalese grow-ups can expect to see the kids at the local library, playground, and around the neighborhood. There was an open house at Little Angels before the holiday break, and it had a ton of walk-in traffic, so I expect the school will fill up quickly — if it’s not full already. This is a great neighborhood for kids. If anyone wants to ask Rabab questions or apply, the school’s site is here.

PHOTO: The Little Angels on Cortland, courtesy of Neighbor Jen