Events

Meet Bi-Rite’s Sam Mogganam at Heartfelt, Tomorrow

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

We do not suffer, here in Bernal Heights. We have fine food, deep glamour, and countless luxuries. Yet there is one thing that we do not have: Bi-Rite Market.

Oh sure, we get by with very solid approximations. Nevertheless, Bi-Rite is truly one of a kind, and those flatlanders on 18th Street are very lucky to have it. So if we can’t have Bi-Rite in Bernalwood, then at least we can have Bi-Rite founder Sam Mogganam come up the hill for a visit.

Miss Darcy from Heartfelt on Cortland says Sam will be at her store tomorrow night. And (bonus!) Bi-Rite will provide the nibbles. Darcy says:

I am having Sam Mogganam author of “Eat Good Food” in for a talk and book signing at Heartfelt on Tuesday, February 7th at 6pm.

Bi-Rite is making snacks and I am serving hot tea.

Local Literati Will Share Their Work at Bernal Yoga, Saturday

/ Todd_Lappin

It’s a yoga studio. It’s a literary salon. It’s a yoga studio. It’s a literary salon. It’s BOTH, and it’s happening on Saturday night at Bernal Yoga:

It’s the new year, come celebrate with another terrific Bernal Yoga Literary Series event this Saturday, February 4th featuring writers Jeff Hoffman, Li Miao Lovett and Peter Orner.

Three local authors, Tom Comitta, Lara Durback and Marisela Treviño Orta, will also share their work.

As well, there will be a musical performance by Billy & Dolly.

A brief reception will follow the event.

The Bernal Yoga Studio is located on 461 Cortland Avenue (at Andover), in Bernal Heights in San Francisco (directions at www.bernalyoga.com).

The reading begins promptly at 8 p.m.

There is a $5 suggested donation to help cover expenses. Any excess is offered as a contribution to the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center.

Look for details about  the participating writers in the poster above.

City Meeting About Bernal Hill Trail Restoration – Tonight!

/ Todd_Lappin / 7 Comments

Bernal Heights Park

Neighbor Joe Thomas call our attention to things afoot in the park up the hill.

The San Francisco Department of Recreation and Parks will hold a meeting about trail improvements on Bernal Hill, tonight (1/25) at 6 pm in the library on Cortland.

The Recreation and Park Department is hosting a series of community meetings to discuss future trail restoration improvements to the Bernal Heights Trail.

Your input is important and will help us to improve the Bernal Heights Trail in a way that is most beneficial to the community.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Project Excerpt: Bernal Hill rises out of the Mission District, offering 360-degree views of San Francisco and the bay. This grassland has outstanding wildflower displays in spring, and provides abundant hunting grounds for hawks, owls, and coyotes. The Urban Trails Program will improve access and safety throughout Bernal Hill by routing trails away from cliffs and unstable terrain while continuing to provide access to multiple points of interest. To the extent possible, trails will be realigned to grades of 10 percent or less. Park entry points and trailheads will be clearly marked by plants and wayfinding signs.

Joe also points out that this project is budgeted to cost $750,000 (!!!). In the handbill below, note also that future meetings are still to come”

PHOTO: Daniel Ramirez. 

Get Help Planting a Sidewalk Garden in North Bernal

/ Todd_Lappin / 6 Comments

Neighbor Kim writes that Friends of the Urban Forest is offering assistance to North Bernalistas who want to install sidewalk gardens in front of their homes:

Friends of the Urban Forest is doing two sidewalk plantings in Bernal in Feb/Mar and May. If people are interested they should contact Karla Nagy (karla@fuf.net or 268-0788), the FUF project coordinator.

Here’s how Friends of the Urban Forest can help:

Improve your block and meet your neighbors by installing a sidewalk garden with Friends of the Urban Forest. Dealing with the permit process, designing a garden and coordinating all the materials can be expensive and overwhelming on your own. Friends of the Urban Forest coordinates neighborhood plantings, brining neighbors together to share materials and work together to install sidewalk gardens on your block on a Saturday morning.

What does FUF do?

  • Review the sidewalk to determine the best location for a sidewalk garden
  • Locate underground utilities
  • Garden design and site plan
  • File permit paperwork and act as a liaison between the city and the homeowner
  • Arrange for the removal of concrete
  • Coordinate the delivery of all materials, including soil amendment, mulch, plants & trees
  • Provide volunteer support and tools for planting day
  • And most importantly, we help secure funding to subsidize the cost of concrete removal, planting materials and the cost of the permit.

If you’re interested, you might want to attend the meeting at Charlie’s Cafe on Wednesday evening at 6:30 pm:

PHOTO: Friends of the Urban Forest

Bernal Supper Club Expands Schedule at Cafe Cozzolino

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

The Boys of the Bernal Supper Club

While running an errand on Sunday afternoon, I ran into the manly men from the Bernal Supper Club as they were locking up the doors of their new part-time home at Cafe Cozzolino. They were in jovial spirits, and for good reason: The first two “pilot” dinners at Cozzolino were sell-out successes, and the future of their pop-up restaurant looks bright.

The Bernal Supper Club has clearly tapped into a deep vein of pent-up demand for a delicious place to dine on the North Slope, so now the experiment is set to continue.

For the rest of January, the Bernal Supper Club will pop-up at Cafe Cozzolino on Monday and Tuesday nights. And if things continue to go well, the fellas say, it may become even more regular in February and beyond.

In the meantime, check out the menu for this Monday and Tuesday January 9-10, stop in to sample to fare, and set your taste buds to “Yum.”

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Bernal Heights Globetrotter Shows Photos from Worldly Travels

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Bernal resident Ellen Divers left the familiar comfort of our neighborhood behind to travel the world and capture the photos that are now on display at Cafe Seventy8. She writes:

I’m showing my photos now at Cafe Seventy8, at 29th and Tiffany (near the post office). I’ve lived in Bernal Heights for 14 years; I’m a local 🙂 The pictures are from my travels in the US and Europe. The cafe is open 7a-7p daily. Great food and coffee too.

PHOTOS: From top: Ventimilgia, Italy; leaves in New Orleans; Moonzie Castle, Scotland. All photos by Ellen Divers

Occupy Bernal Seeks to Fight Foreclosure; Meeting Wednesday

/ Todd_Lappin / 15 Comments

Occupy Bernal? Apparently, it’s no longer just an absurdist punch line. Neighbor Annie writes:

Our wonderful neighbor “T” is getting his house foreclosed on by the Wells Fargo Bank for falling behind on payments on his unfair ballooning predatory mortgage loan. He’s a lovely, elderly, retired, single man. Sadly as of today, there are 59 other houses in Bernal Heights that are in default and/or foreclosure. So we’ve had a couple of meetings with a some experienced activists to help him save his home. This has evolved into the first OCCUPY BERNAL General Assembly on Dec. 21, Wednesday night, at the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. Together we can find ways to help our neighbors, and by extension, ourselves.

Here’s a nice new web site with more info.

Bring some snacks/deserts if possible for the community building schmooze after the meeting.

PHOTO: Handbill poster at Precita Park, by Telstar Logistics

FINALLY! Bernal Supper Club Will Pop-Up at Cafe Cozzolino

/ Todd_Lappin / 22 Comments

Okay, this is just such a great story. After enduring a “diaspora period” in the Mission District, the pop-up Bernal Supper Club has now found a new home here at home in Bernal Heights. And even more exciting is the location: The Bernal Supper Club will be setting up shop in the underutilized, underdelicious Cafe Cozzolino space on the southwest corner of Precita Park.

The first BSC dinner in the new location will happen this Monday Night, December 19. The second will happen just after the New Year, on January 2. If things go well, the BSC will serve on even more nights, and during more nights each week, in the same spot.

And that would be awesome. I’ve eaten at the Bernal Supper Club twice, and both times the food was great.

Plus, as I wrote earlier:

No less great were the big smiles on the faces of chefs Tony Ferrari, Jonathan Sutton, and Miles Carnahan. “I spend all week looking forward to Monday!” Ferrari said when I grabbed him for a moment to say hello. The restaurant had a healthy crowd, and the gents were clearly having a blast in the kitchen. Their enthusiasm was palpable.

Everyone wins here: The Bernal Supper Club gets a venue in Bernal Heights. The folks who run Cafe Cozzolino get some extra cash. North Bernal gets an amazing place to have dinner. And Precita Park gets a restaurant that could put it on the city’s culinary map.

If you can’t make it on Monday, stay on top of the Bernal Supper Club’s upcoming schedule on their website. But me? I’ll be there on Monday night.

PHOTO: Top, illustration by Telstar Logistics. Below, Jon Hope

Help Plant Green Things on Bernal Hill, Saturday

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

Bernal in Winter 2 (March 09)

If you’re green thumb is itching, wander up to Bernal Hill on Saturday morning to participate in a volunteer planting organized by the City’s Recreation and Park Department. Rachel Kesel, your Bernal neighbor and the Rec and Park gardener assigned to Bernal Hill, says:

The Recreation and Parks Department’s December work party on Bernal Hill is all about planting grasses and wildflowers. We will bring gloves, tools, and light refreshments. Volunteers should dress in layers and because the hill is pretty steep so closed-toed, sturdy shoes are recommended. The event will take place rain or shine.

Saturday, December 17th
10AM to Noon
Meet at the south gate off of Bernal Heights Blvd, on the uphill side, near the only water fountain on the hill. Anderson Street is the closest thru street to this entrance.

For more information, contact Joe Grey at Joe.Grey@sfgov.org or 415-831-6328

PHOTO: Ed Brownson

Bernal Artist Transforms Traffic Lights Into Tableware

/ Todd_Lappin / 4 Comments

Neighbor Lauren Becker has been busy of late, creating industrial-chic tableware from recycled glass. This weekend she’s having an open studio at Recycled Glassworks on Bonview to release some of her new work:

Ever wondered why Bernal Heights doesn’t have any traffic lights once you leave the “flatlands” of Mission/Cesar Chavez/Bayview?

I have them. Sort of.

I just got a good load of traffic lights lenses in — thrown out by surrounding neighborhoods. When they leave my art studio, they have been turned into eye-catching plates. In my Bernal studio, I have been upcycling plate glass into functional tableware for many years. Usually I create artful bowls and dishes from windows, which were discarded by contractors or homeowners nearby.

Occasionally, traffic light lenses come my way. The traffic light dishes are a rare sighting because most glass lenses have already been replaced by more efficient LED lights. If you hate red lights, here is your revenge: eat from them!

This weekend, for the first time, I will open the doors for a Holiday Open Studio where the neighbors can see the entire collection:

Saturday/Sunday (Dec 17/18), noon to 5pm at 238 Bonview St (half a block from Cortland Ave, around the corner from Avedanos).

PHOTOS: Recycled Glassworks

TONIGHT: City Hall Hearing on Lucky Horseshoe’s Entertainment Permit

/ Todd_Lappin / 5 Comments

Lucky Horseshoe

**Hearing Date Corrected from Previous Version**

Eric Embry, co-owner of the Lucky Horseshoe bar on Cortland, is getting ready for a big evening *tonight* at City Hall. That’s when a hearing will be held to consider his application to get an entertainment permit for the bar, a move which would enable the Lucky Horseshoe to host live music.

In an email to Bernalwood, Eric writes:

We hope lots of folks will come to City Hall, Room 400, Tuesday evening at 6:30 to let the Entertainment Commissioners know that Bernal Heights wants live music at The Lucky Horseshoe. We’ve collected hundreds of signatures and letters of support, and we have a rock-solid plan that will integrate live music into the community in a positive way that was previously unknown at the venue. The entertainment we host will be as warm and welcoming as The Lucky Horseshoe is, making the bar an even more integral part the community.

I’ve been watching the hearings online and it’s actually going to be fun, in a civics lesson kind of way. Maybe not fun in some other ways but…The Commission will no doubt ask some tough questions, as the music scene at Skip’s Tavern in years past was far from cherished by the neighborhood at large. The folks at City Hall need to hear about the positive changes we’ve brought to the bar, and not just from us. Lisa Marie and I dearly appreciate all of the support and kind words that so many of you have given us, and we want the Commissioners to hear about it first hand. Come on down to City Hall and let’s bring live music back to Cortland Avenue!

PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics