A few BIA agents tipped us off to this, and Reader Nina delivered a photo, so we bring you the news: Dusit Thai restaurant on Mission (at Fair) is closing at the end of the month. The reason is a wholesome: The owners are retiring. But the loss will be felt, so get your pad thai on while you still can.
PHOTO: Reader Nina
In winter we wandered Cortland merrily for the Holiday Stroll. Now the days are longer and the weather is (marginally) warmer, so it’s time for the 2011 Summer Solstice Stroll! Come on out tomorrow evening, Tuesday, June 21, starting at 6 pm for a neighborly walkabout on Cortland.
The stroll is sponsored by the Bernal Business Alliance and Bernal Bucks, and there will be yummy food, drinky treats, and cheerful people-watching. (Fashion tip: Per usual, Prada and Louis Vuitton are de rigeur.)
Bernalwood will be there too… look for us and feel free to say hello!
Proprietor Claire Hoyt wrote to Bernalwood to spread the big news about the grand opening of her organic baby food business today, in 331 Cortland:
Wanted to share with you our late, but very real opening announcment.
We will be open everyday except Thursdays, 11-6. Sunday we close at 5.
While pursuing the mystery of the Melody Cafe, Reader Colette also captured some high-quality intel on the future of Al’s Cafe Good Food, a few blocks to the north:
In other news, on my walk I happened upon the new manager of Al’s Cafe Good Food. The place does look much cleaner, and the manager was very nice to let me come in and take a look around. They have a wall with some interesting Hollywood murals on it, which they are trying very hard to save. (I never noticed them before because there was so much stuff inside.) And he said they are hoping to open this week. The Chef is someone who has worked in the hotel business in the past. I told him the restaurant had been much talked about in the Bernalwood Blog, and he was very excited to read about it.
UPDATE!
BIA Agent Otto brings the detail:
They have the new menu on the door, similar to the old one, a little different, and it says they are opening Friday June 10 as Al’s Super Cafe.
UPDATE 2:
I walked by this evening, and it does indeed look like Al’s Super Cafe is almost ready for business. Note the bottles of ketchup on each table, ready for duty!
PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics
Bernalwood has been trying to find out more about the fate of Al’s Cafe Good Food on Mission Street, which closed in late April without any of the local tribute it deserved. In the meantime, Grubstreet brings the basic news:
Here’s a bit of shocking news that took a little bit to reach us across town: Al’s Café Good Food (3286 Mission Street), which has been serving up coffee and eggs to Bernal Heights for 50 years, is closed. Presiding over the place for four decades has been 82-year-old Jean Joseph, better known as Mama, and her 80-year-old sister Joanne, and in a Facebook post they call the closing a “bittersweet goodbye.” Jean Joseph was among a dozen Bay Area waitresses profiled in a 2009 book titled Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress, compiled by Candacy Taylor
As you can see from the snaps above, Al’s looks sad and quiet now, but fortunately there’s a vibrant gallery of photos from the cafe’s last day posted on the Facebook:
There was also this comment:
Thank you to all our customers, who have become more like friends and family over the years… Thanks for the memories and we love you all. Five generations of Al’s Cafe and 50+ years on Mission Street..Definitely a Bittersweet goodbye..
As soon as Bernalwood knows more, we’ll keep you posted on what the “new management” has planned.
PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics and Al’s Cafe
EaterSF tells the creation tale of The Royal Cuckoo — the much-welcomed new cocktail bar at the intersection of Mission and Valencia — and its founder, Paul Miller:
Miller was stretched after the purchase, so to fill the bar he essentially moved his entire apartment into it—furniture, pictures, trinkets, most all of it. Then, with the help of long-time pal Brian—whom Miller worked with over the years at Bruno’s, Foreign Cinema, and Chez Spencer—he gutted it, painted it a deep maroon, and added wooden wall sidings to antiquate the aura. To accent the darker colors, he added 1960’s-era lamps, alternating them with blue, green, and yellow bulbs, and he pushed the mood further with stain glass candleholders and flowered vases about the place. Taking it in for the first time, you might get the feeling you’re at a heady saloon in a mountain town, or in what you’d imagine to be a 1950’s jazz club in New York, ‘round 52nd street. Comparisons make for wasted words though, because Royal Cuckoo isn’t really modeled after anything. It’s just a collection of things that Miller and his friends like—old leather armchairs, salvaged church pews converted to benches and booths, nature paintings in old frames, antlers, vinyl. It’s the red carpet leading you to Cuckoo’s heart and soul—music and cocktails.
Along the way we also learn that The Royal Cuckoo is named after a bar in Long Beach where Miller’s grandfather loved to tie one on, that most of the records on the turntable pre-date the Carter Administration, and that there’s a Hammond organ hidden behind the bar. The EaterSF piece is a good read.
PHOTOS: giggie larue and Telstar Logistics
The Bernalwood reader hotline went ring-a-ding-ding over the weekend, and when we picked up the line this message greeted us:
We received a permit application the other day for a new Cannabis club near Mission St. and Precita. (3139 Mission Street to be exact). And to be even more specific, they want to open a “coffee shop/cannabis dispensary.” It will be directly across the street from Roccapulco, Nap’s and El Rio.
I want to know if other Bernal folks are aware, and if they’re not, I was wondering if you could help spread the word.
I’m sure there will be supporters for the club and the anti-supporters. Either way, I think neighbors should know.
It’s slightly disturbing to hear that they want to couple a cannabis shop with a coffee-shop (Does that mean teens can go in? Does that mean they can have extended hours?). Do we really need another cannabis club? There’s already a cannabis club three streets away (at 29th and Mission).
Really?! A proposal to create a combination cannabis club and coffee shop?! Is Bernal Heights having its Amsterdam Moment??!! Bernalwood dispatched our satellite truck to 3139 Mission to investigate.
Turns out, 3139 Mission was most recently used as an administrative and billing center for St. Luke’s Hospital, and there is a Planning Department permit application notce affixed to the front gate. Sure enough, the notice says the structure is proposed for use as a medical cannabis dispensary and retail coffee store:
The building itself was built in 1969, and it has one of those unfortunate facades that were common during the period, when architects adapted to Vietnam-era protest movements (and/or the arrival of the Planet of the Apes movie franchise) by creating bunker-like structures with few street-level windows to smash during civil unrest. Which is to say, it’s unlikely that the new cannabis will ever offer a warm, welcoming Socha- or Starbucks-style entrace.
It seems clear that our tipster (who asked to remain anonymous) is not a fan of the proposal. Fair enough. But in reference to the specific questions:
Does that mean teens can go in? Does that mean they can have extended hours?
Almost certainly not. The permitting framework that governs all medical cannabis dispensaries in the City would supersede the retail coffee part of the business, and those permitting regulations explicitly prohibit persons under 18 years of age from entering a dispensary, prohibit the sale of alcoholic beverages, and require cannabis dispensaries to close by 10 pm nightly. Likewise, the City Planning Department’s Letter of Determination established that, per code, the proposed facility at 3139 Mission is not within 1000 feet of any primary or secondary schools.
That means there’s no need to press the usual NIMBY hot-buttons of protecting the children and safeguarding the night — regardless of whether or not you think the neighborhood needs another dispensary.
Inevitably, however, the cannabis dispensary/coffee shop will impact local businesses. For example, the proposed facility is just a few doors down from Baby Blues BBQ, which happens to be delicious. It is reasonable to assume that Baby Blues BBQ would profit handsomely from the arrival of the dispensary/coffee shop, as a steady stream of munchie-afflicted patrons from the latter will drift down the street to satiate their cravings for hearty grilled meats.
Indeed, the combination of cannabis, coffee, and BBQ could turn this stretch of Mission Street into a Vortex of Vice, not least because the storefront that today houses Baby Blues BBQ was once home to Disernia’s Pharmacy — and to this day the building retains much of its original drug store signage.
Which brings us to the biggest bombshell of all…
If you stand right in front of the proposed dispensary location at 3139 Mission and look up at the signage left over from the pharmacy days, two of the signs align *perfectly* to conflate DRUGS and LIQUOR in a subliminal acrostic that could play havoc on the weed-addled minds of future dispensary patrons. See for yourself:
Subtle? Yes. Clever? Extremely. Diabolical? Very!
Bernalwood will keep you posted on this cannabis/coffee proposal as it develops.
PHOTOS: Top, illustration via Hocus Locus. All other photos by Telstar Logistics.
As Bernalwood reported earlier, it looks like the renovation of the storefront that will soon become the Precita Park Cafe has finally started at the corner of Precita and Alabama. The plywood is up, construction has started, and we assume all sorts of magic is happening inside.
On a related note, I ran into the always-affable Charlie from Charlie’s Cafe (on the Folsom side of Precita Park) last night while I was taking the photo above. We got to talking about how the Precita Park Cafe might fare, and if it will make Precita Park itself a more sexy and glamorous destination. Time will tell, of course, but I certainly hope that a rising tide will lift all boats.
PHOTO: Telstar Logistics
Kathy Tang, the owner of the Lotus Garden Vietnamese restaurant on Mission Street that was shuttered after last week’s three-alarm fire, posted this desperate SOS on the Facebook page for the benefit concert that was help to help the victims of the blaze:
My name is Kathy Tang, the owner of Lotus Garden Vietnamese Restaurant. The great amount of fire burned my restaurant and will take a few months for them to just rebuild the whole building. oh my god how can my family and i survive. My restaurant is my and my husband’s only income.
My insurance will not pay for any lost income because our business slow we dont make any profit (which makes sense because of the recent recession), they only paid for the damage of the restaurant. Please help us out we will really appreciate all your help. My email address is kathytang268@yahoo.com and my phone number is 415-216-9608 Please help my husband, my two little boys, and I out. We will not have any income until the restaurant is open again which isn’t for months and months.
My own semi-serious suggestion would be to create a pop-up version of Lotus Garden inside an existing (and underutilized) local restaurant. Like, say, Caffe Cozzolino? Mission Chinese Food showed that it can be done, and in the case of the Cozzolino space, I suspect a large number of Bernal Northsiders would be happy to patronize Caffe Lotus Garden.
Any other ideas on how the community might help?
PHOTO: Burrito Justice
I’ll start with a confession: I am not, and have never been a hater when it comes to the new Lowe’s on Bayshore Boulevard. The old Goodman’s was an eyesore, I always disliked driving to the ‘burbs just to buy a few things from a big-box hardware store, I still visit Cole Hardware whenever possible, and Bayshore itself is an ideal location to accommodate this kind of commercial roadside architecture. So bring it, I said back in the planning days.
And for the most part, I still think Lowe’s is a good use for that patch of land. Yet it must also be noted that the portion of the store that faces Bernalwood’s gateway intersection at Cortland is a complete disaster — a blank wall of stucco soullessness doesn’t even attempt to engage the flow of the surrounding streetscape. Total. Design. Fail.
Sure, it photographs well if you want to capture an image that typifies the bland impersonality and brutal aloofness of American big-box architecture. (See Exhibit A, above) But otherwise, it’s pretty heinous — even if the store itself is a net positive.
Yet now that the building is up and what’s done is done, is there any way the Cortland-facing portion of the Lowe’s structure can be redeemed and de-uglified in a neighborly sort of way?
UPDATE: 11 March, 2011
Reader Waldo has come up with an excellent proposal for the wall in question:
Photo: top, Telstar Logistics
Here at Bernalwood, we see it as part of our civic duty to pass along information about worthy neighborhood institutions that could use a little help. Most of the time, that means lending a hand to volunteer nonprofits or mom-and-pop businesses. But today we bring news of a struggling local institution that’s an unlikely candidate to pass around the hat: the Mission San Francisco Credit Union.
It seems the credit union, which is headquartered on our stretch of Mission Street near 29th, made some real estate loans that went bad. So now it needs donations — NOT deposits — to continue operation.
A financially troubled San Francisco credit union is trying to stay afloat by doing something very unusual — unheard of really. Mission S.F. has started a fundraising campaign with the goal of raising $200,000 and many in the community believe it is essential that this credit union survive.
Mission San Francisco Credit Union opened its doors in 1971. Roberto Hernandez is a board member who says the credit union approved small loans the big banks would never consider. […]
However, the nation’s economic downturn has hurt them and capital reserves are low.
“What we really need is donations, it’s not deposits, but donations that we could put straight into capital that would enable the credit union to continue as an independent financial institution,” said Margaret Libby from Mission S.F.
There’s a video segment about the credit union’s plight right here.
UPDATE 12 Feb, 2011: My former sensei, Lydia Chavez from Mission Loc@l, has additional insight on the situation, including the possibility that the credit union may be forced into a merger:
The federal TARP program stepped in to help failing banks, but has done nothing to assist the smaller credit unions that traditionally serve lower-income clients. Recently, they said, regulators had made it even more difficult for the credit union to overcome its current problems.
“Right now that’s what change is — we’re under a much tighter regulatory structure,” said [board treasurer Dave] De Graff. “In the past we were given more time.”
Mission SF’s total outstanding loans grew substantially over the last 10 years, while its membership numbers have fallen. In 2000 it had 2,782 members and outstanding loans of $3.8 million. By June of 2010 outstanding loans had risen to $5.7 million, but they peaked in September 2008 at $7.9. Membership had declined to 2,426 as of September 2010.
Although 10 percent of Mission SF’s second mortgages and 10 percent of its first mortgages could be considered troubled, De Graff said the bank’s portfolio of 129 car loans was doing well.
It’s unclear what will happen over the next few weeks. There were three assisted credit union mergers in 2008, 10 in 2009 and 10 in 2010, according to federal regulators.
Let the record show that as much as I love our local mom-and-pop markets, I am also a fan of our local Safeway on Mission Street. The prices are reasonable and the selection is good, yet the store itself is relatively compact, which makes it faster and less tiresome to navigate than many other supermarkets around the City.
A major renovation a few years ago brought our store up-to-date with the Safeway chain’s “Lifestyle” store concept. (Remember when it used to look like this?) Yet amid all the transformation, I’m glad one thing hasn’t changed: Our Safeway still has those 1960s-era yin-yang logo mosaics embedded in the exterior walls, and they’re a wonderful detail.
And very Taoist: Despite all the change, the essence remains unchanged.
Photo: Telstar Logistics
Over on Mission Street, I spotted this Statue of Liberty dancing in front of SoCha Cafe. Yes, she’s got moves. And yes, she is a beacon of hope for your tired, your poor, and your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But can she navigate a Form 1040?
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