La Lengua

Bernal Merchant Seeks Immediate Removal of 29th Street Bikeshare Station

/ Todd_Lappin / 116 Comments

The San Francisco Examiner reports that the Mission-Bernal Merchants Association is protesting the installation of a bikeshare station on 29th Street:

In June, Ford GoBike launched its newest expansion, providing 3,500 blue bikes available to be rented, or “shared,” by smartphone app. That expansion was met with opposition from neighbors and merchants near Mission District’s 24th Street in community meetings.

At the SFMTA meeting on Tuesday, Ani Rivera, director of Galería De La Raza and a co-coordinator at the Mission Bernal Merchants Association, decried the lack of outreach on the part of Motivate, which administers Ford GoBike.

Kevin Cline, an owner of both Rock Bar and The Front Porch in San Francisco, said a Ford GoBike kiosk near his restaurant on 29th Street prompted drivers to increasingly double park.

“We’re not entirely against bikeshare programs,” he told the SFMTA board. “I do resent a complete lack of outreach. I didn’t get a letter or phone call.”

Cline requested the kiosk “be removed immediately until Ford makes an effort to reach out.”

New York Times Exposes La Lengua’s Diabolical Climate Change Hoax

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

At long last, the simmering geo-political rivalry between Bernal Heights and those meddling rebel separatists from the La Lengua flatlands has reached the pinnacle of the mainstream media.

In the cover story of today’s Sunday New York Times Magazine, former Bernal neighbor Jon Mooallem reveals the shocking climate change conspiracy that prompted forward-looking Bernal Heights speculators to began hoarding prime beachfront property near the top of Bernal Hill.

Jon Mooallem writes:

A few years ago, a locally famous blogger in San Francisco, known as Burrito Justice, created an exquisitely disorienting map, with help from a cartographer named Brian Stokle, and started selling copies of it online. The map imagined the city in the year 2072, after 60 years of rapid sea-level rise totaling 200 feet.

At present, San Francisco is a roughly square-shaped, peninsular city. But on the map, it is severed clean from the mainland and shaved into a long, fat smudge. The shape of the land resembles a sea bird diving underwater for prey, with odd bays chewing into the coastlines and, farther out, a sprawl of bulging and wispy islands that used to be hills. If you lived in San Francisco, it was a map of where you already were and, simultaneously, where you worried you might be heading. “The San Francisco Archipelago,” Burrito Justice called it — a formerly coherent city in shards.

The map wasn’t science; it didn’t even pretend to be. I want to be very clear about that, because I worry it’s reckless to inject any more false facts into a conversation about climate change. Projecting the effect of sea-level rise on a specific location typically involves recondite computer models and calculations; Burrito Justice was just a fascinated hobbyist, futzing around on his laptop in his backyard. His entire premise was unscientific; for now, it is unthinkable that seas will rise so high so quickly. Even as most credible scientific estimates keep increasing and the poles melt faster than imagined, those estimates currently reach only between six and eight feet by the year 2100.

That’s still potentially cataclysmic: Water would push into numerous cities, like Shanghai, London and New York, and displace hundreds of millions of people. And yes, there are some fringe, perfect-storm thought experiments out there that can get you close to 200 feet by the end of the century. But in truth, Burrito Justice settled on that number only because that’s how high he needed to jack up the world’s oceans if he wanted to wash out a particular road near his house. He has a friendly rivalry with another blogger, who lives in an adjacent neighborhood known for being a cloistered hamlet, and Burrito Justice thought it would be funny to see it literally become an island. So again: The map wasn’t science. It didn’t pretend to be. The point, initially, was just to needle this other guy named Todd.

Of course, even if the science remains unsettled, preparation is still the better part of success. That’s why Bernalwood urges all residents to again consider our 2013 proposal to adapt to our waterlogged, island future by redeveloping Bernal Heights as a fashionable beachfront resort destination.

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Motorcycle Rental Chain Store on Mission Will Require Formula Retail Exemption

/ Todd_Lappin / 34 Comments

The former O’Reilly Auto Parts store at 3146 Mission Street (@ Precita), which used to be a Kragen Auto Parts store, which was originally the home of the Mission Chevrolet car dealership, may soon be repurposed for another use: motorcycle rentals.

EagleRider, a worldwide chain of motorcycle rental outlets, has acquired the lease to the building, with an eye toward serving a customer base of European and American tourists. But first, EagleRider will require a Conditional Use Authorization, because as a chain store, it falls under San Francisco’s Formula Retail regulations. To help with that, EagleRider has hired former Supervisor Bevan Dufty to serve as their lobbyist and local envoy.

Here’s the letter Eagle Rider is circulating among local merchants and community leaders:

EAGLERIDER Motorcycles
is looking forward to its new location at
3146 Mission Street
in the Mission/Bernal neighborhood!!

EAGLERIDER, founded in 1992, is a motorcycle rental, tours, sales, and service provider. We have been located for over ten years in SOMA and we are seeking to move to the former O’Reilly’s Auto Parts on Mission St. At our current location, EAGLERIDER receives over 10,000 customers per year for daily and weekly motorcycles rentals to enjoy the Bay Area, Northern California and the rest of country. 50% of our customers are foreign visitors, many of whom come to San Francisco specifically to go motorcycle touring.

We are excited about being part of this great neighborhood as we hope our customers will patronize the restaurants and businesses of the area before and after their motorcycle adventure. We want to work with Mission-Bernal Merchants Association to create a guide that helps our visitors know all the great destinations right here as well as on 24th Street and Cortland.

In order to open our store, we must receive Conditional Use approval by the City Planning Commission as a formula retail use.  In other words, since there are 100+ EAGLERIDER locations worldwide, we need to demonstrate that we will be an asset to the neighborhood.  Our goal will be to open in the next 3-5 months if we receive community support and Planning approval.

In addition to partnering with your businesses to create great experiences for our customers to shop and dine right here, we want to be an active business in the community.  We have met with John O’Connell High School to support their programs training students, we are exploring a mural using local artists and we already participated in the wreath making and delivery for the Mission Bernal Merchant Walk.

PHOTO: 3146 Mission in March, 2017, by Telstar Logistics

Old Bus Tavern Getting a Neighborhood-Focused Makeover

/ Todd_Lappin / 14 Comments

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It’s been 2+ years since Old Bus Tavern opened at 3193 Mission (near Valencia) in the heart of La Lengua’s fashionably low-key restaurant and entertainment district.  Along  the way, Old Bus has garnered a lot of enthusiastic notice and acclaim. Now it’s time to change things up a bit, as Old Bus plans to give itself a more casual makeover, in a way that’ll probably please many hungry and drinky  Bernalese.

Old Bus brewmaster and co-owner Ben Buchanan tells Bernalwood:

Wanted to let you know about some upcoming changes at Old Bus Tavern.

As owners, Jimmy, John and I have decided to take our food program in a more casual direction — a decision that reflects our original vision of building a neighborhood brewpub that offers an easygoing vibe and a comfortable menu of craft beer, cocktails, and food that locals can enjoy often.

The primary driver behind the shift is the rapid growth of our beer program. We recently started distributing OBT beer to a solid list of SF beer bars and restaurants, including Old Devil Moon, Alamo Drafthouse/Bear Vs Bull bar, Wesburger, and Liquid Gold. A more casual approach to our food frees up resources for our beer program, which is the heart of the operation and the original reason we created OBT.

In addition to creating more time for beer-related pursuits, we were motivated by neighborhood feedback, which has been a unanimous vote for more accessible brewpub fare. Although we are dialing down the fine dining factor, the new food program won’t compromise integrity.

We are currently working on the new menu with a longtime friend, culinary consultant Blair Warsham (Adriano Paganini’s The Bird, Christopher Kostow’s American Express Centurion Lounge), who is crafting dishes that are comforting, delicious, and beer-friendly. The menu is still in the works, but we’re keeping favorites like the burger, chili, and cornbread, and introducing new craveable items like Frito Pie with housemade Fritos.

This Saturday, February 25th will be the last day we’re serving our current dinner menu. The brewpub will be closed for two weeks to allow us to make interior updates, train, and transition to the new menu. When we reopen on Sunday, March 12th, OBT will operate seven days a week (up from five), serve an all-day menu on weekends starting at 11 a.m., and offer free live music every Sunday.

We’re really excited about these changes, and we hope the neighborhood will be as well. Basically, the goal is more beer, more accessible and delicious food, and more FUN.

Cheers,
Ben

PHOTO: Old Bus Tavern facade, via InsideScoop

3300 Club Gone for Good, SRO’s Fate Uncertain, as Fire-Damaged Building Up For Sale

/ Todd_Lappin / 9 Comments

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The 3300 Club has operated at 3300 Mission Street, on the corner of Mission Street and 29th, since 1956. It’s been closed since last June, when a devastating fire destroyed the building next door and displaced the 50+ residents of the Graywood Hotel SRO who lived upstairs. The owners of the 3300 Club were determined to rebuild, but now we learn that the classic watering hole probably isn’t coming back because the whole building has been offered for sale.

In a public post on Facebook, Bernal neighbor and 3300 Club co-owner Shukry Lama writes:

3300 Mission Street is now up for sale. The landlords, who had a sit down meeting with us and talked about their plans to rebuild, and offer us a new lease with potentially more space, failed to let us know about this. My mom got to find out when a reporter called and asked about it. Imagine her surprise.

As much as I’d like to keep hoping that we’ll get a lease in that location, I think we all know it would never be the same. Yea, we could try and move to a new location, but the limits on moving a liquor license, the amount of protests you would get from opening a new bar, the amount of capital you would need, the time and effort that none of us have left, it’s just too much. We had such high hopes for a return, bringing our bar back to the neighborhood where we had been a staple for 60 years, but there is no loyalty in the real estate industry.

Dipak Patel, the current property owner, purchased the building for $1.5 million in 2004. MissionLocal spoke to Patel, who adds:

Before the fire struck, Patel was in the process of remodeling the hotel rooms, had done work to the hotel’s hallways and heating system, and had installed sprinklers which ultimately saved the building from more damage, he said.

“We spent about $10,000 a room before fire, so about $200,000 total, and we did electrical upgrades,” he said. “Whatever happens to the building, it will be a 100 percent upgrade.”

Under a sale, the status of the Graywood Hotel SRO, and the rooms where its former tenants lived, also remains uncertain.

The building at 3300 Mission Street is now offered for $3.5 million.  The property listing says:

The property is currently vacated (subject to residential tenant’s rights), stripped down to studs, and in need of a complete rehab. The building consists of 6 tourist licenses and 22 SRO (previously with 2 non-conforming rooms) on the two upper levels. The ground floor previously housed two retail tenants, a bar and a restaurant, and will be delivered free of tenants. There is a full-height basement. This property presents the opportunity for a developer to reconfigure rooms to maximize square footage and income. This beautiful Bernal Heights corner property is waiting to be restored to its former glory and more!

PHOTO: The 3300 Club sign, as it looked after a fresh paint job in 2013. Photo by Burrito Justice. 

Guns to Ganja: Planning Commission Approves New Dispensary on Mission Street

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

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In a unanimous vote, the San Francisco Planning Commission yesterday approved a proposal to re-establish the Bernal Heights Cooperative dispensary at 3185 Mission Street, the storefront that had previously been home to the High Bridge Arms gun shop.

As you may recall, Bernal Heights Cooperative used to operate from 33 29th Street. However, after some internal turmoil and a change of building ownership, Bernal Heights Cooperative had to depart, and a new dispensary called Harvest now occupies the 29th St. space.  Meanwhile, around the corner on Mission Street, the former High Bridge Arms store has been sitting empty ever since San Francisco’s last gun shop closed in late 2015.

Yesterday’s Planning Commission vote was a key step in Bernal Heights Cooperative’s plan to re-open in La Lengua. Joshua Sabatini from the San Francisco Examiner provides additional detail about the business plan:

“It’s been a work in progress ever since 2015 to just put it in a new home,” [Bernal Heights Cooperative’s Sean] Killen said. That included paying $5,000 in rent for the former gun shop site since last year and also maintaining a site outside The City and offering a delivery service to longstanding patients.

The application is also among the first batch of dispensary applications to heard by the Planning Commission since voters approved Proposition 64 in November, which legalized adult recreational use of marijuana.

The application has another distinction. Killen on Tuesday signed an agreement, which was provided to the San Francisco Examiner, with United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 648, a local chapter of labor union United Food and Commercial Workers that represents a growing number workers in the marijuana industry across California.

The union is in talks with City College of San Francisco to create an apprenticeship training program for the medical marijuana industry beginning in the spring 2018 semester.

Killen’s agreement supports employees organizing and agrees to certain worker standards, such as at least $20 an hour in the first year of employment. Killen said it is the first such agreement with UFCW Local 648 and a dispensary. He also committed to hiring local apprentices through UFCW.

Separately, anyone else remember this classic Saturday Night Live skit from 1977?  (Note: young Bill Murray cameo!) Knock on wood, that approach to keeping good-paying jobs in America is no joke today:

IMAGE: Photo and illustration by Bernalwood

Tonight! Rock Your Raingear at the 2016 Mission Bernal Holiday Walk!

/ Todd_Lappin

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Last year, a new tradition began here in the Dominion of Bernalwood, as each of our bountiful commercial districts began to play host to its own holiday celebration.

So now, in addition to the glamorous Cortland Holiday Stroll, the myriad merchants, chefs, and barkeeps along our ridiculously abundant, La Lengua stretch of Mission Street also hold a seasonal Mission Bernal Holiday Walk — and the 2016 edition happens TONIGHT, Thursday, December 15.

The Mission-Bernal Merchants Association says:

Mission Bernal Holiday Walk
Tonight – Thursday, December 15, 6-9pm

Join us tonight from 6 to 9pm for the Mission Bernal Holiday Walk. Yes, it will be rainy, but this is a good chance to rock your rain boots, and winter coat!

The Mission Bernal Merchants Association is excited to invite San Francisco to explore the vibrant Mission Bernal small business community. The numerous locally owned restaurants, bars, galleries, coffee shops, and other businesses that line Mission Street from Cesar Chavez Street to Randall Street—along with businesses on adjacent side streets such as 29th Street—will open their doors and put out their welcome mats to the city at large, in a neighborhood celebration aimed at encouraging neighbors and visitors alike to peruse their wares, get to know local business owners, and sample the neighborhood’s diverse flavors. Emerging and legacy businesses alike would like to welcome you to our festive home.

“We see the Mission Bernal Holiday Walk as a sort of social experiment in supporting the neighborhood’s small business community, and we want to invite everyone to be part of it,” says Eden Stein, president of the Mission Bernal Merchants Association. “The Mission Bernal corridor is a hidden gem of food, art, music, and culture.”

As visitors explore the neighborhood, the MBMA encourages them to post photos and videos of the sights, sounds, and tastes they experience on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with the hashtag #MBMAHW. As an extra incentive, throughout the evening, the MBMA will be monitoring the hashtag and giving away thank-you gifts to those tagging their adventures in Mission Bernal!

Here are some of the specials our neighborhood merchants will offer:

  • Avenue (3361 Mission St.) – Holiday open house with cocktails, a small holiday marketplace, succulent craft station, and live music
  • Baby Blues BBQ (3149 Mission St.) – Fried Chicken Pop-Up
  • Bel (3215 Mission St.) – Bel’s amazing Happy Hour will be extended for the duration of the walk and the San Francisco School of Rock will be singing holiday tunes from 6-7pm
  • Blanca’s Art of Hair – $5 off haircuts and shaves
  • Blue Plate (3218 Mission St.) – Deviled Eggs and a splash of sparkling rose for our early diners
  • Café Seventy8 (78 29th St.) – Extended hours and free 8oz hot chocolate or coffee
  • Café St. Jorge (3438 Mission St.) – Art Show
  • Coronitas (3326 Mission St.) – specials on Coronas and buffalo wings
  • Cole Hardware (3293 Mission St.) – Holiday Pop-Up!
  • Eagle Rider (3146 Mission St.) – Look for the motorcycle out front to learn more about our newest merchant and services
  • El Rio (3158 Mission St.) – Everyone that comes through as a participant in the Holiday Stroll will receive a free hot spiced whiskey cider (21+, one per customer)
  • Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack (3230 Mission St.) – Holiday Sangria and 2 for 1 drinks
  • The Front Porch (65 29th St.) – Delicious sausage balls, mulled wine, and spiced cider to keep you feeling nice (or naughty)
  • Fumi Curry (3303 Mission St.) – Black Curry special. Free Edamame for any order of drinks over $15
  • Harvest: An Alternative Health Collective (33 29th St.) – Harvest will be giving 15% off to all that mention this event. If you don’t yet have a recommendation, you can get a tour of their boutique facility
  • The Knockout (3223 Mission St.) – Drunk BINGO! Also, ask for a Hamm’s Job (a beer and a shot) for $5
  • Melody Cafe (3401 Mission St.) – 15% off dinner
  • Mitchell’s Ice Cream (688 San Jose) – Two cones for the price of one
  • Old Devil Moon (3472 Mission St.) – Lion’s Tail (a classic winter spicy bourbon cocktail), and a wintery gin & tonic of their own making
  • Rock Bar (80 29th St.) – Thirsty Thursday: Singani 63, the ancient Bolivian spirit imported by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh will be poured with specially paired bites. There will also be opportunities to speak with local Singani ambassador Scott Krinsky
  • Secession Art and Design (3235 Mission St.) – The 3300 Club will have t-shirts available for sale, Emmy’s will have their famous meatballs to nosh on, and the art of Hilary Williams and Nicole Bauguss will have art featuring neighborhood bars available for sale.
  • Virgil’s Sea Room (3152 Mission St.) – $5 Hot Toddys with Old Forester Bourbon available from 6-9pm

Tonight: Celebrate the Gorgeous New Mural on Mission Street

/ Todd_Lappin / 2 Comments

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As you may have noticed, there’s a fantastic new mural on Mission Street in La Lengua. It was painted on a wall facing the fashionable Bank of America parking lot between Valencia and 29th Streets, and it was created by artist Amanda Lynn.

Neighbor Eden from Secession Art & Design is also president of the Mission-Bernal Merchants Association, and she invites one and all to an event happening tonight to celebrate the new mural:

Please join us this Tuesday, August 23rd, 6-8pm, in the Bank of America parking lot between Valencia and 29th St to meet mural artist Amanda Lynn, who created our beautiful new mural inspired by her childhood. The theme was “Pursue Growth and Happiness.”

3300 Club will be selling their t-shirts to help them reopen, and Bliss Pops will be giving away popsicles to the first 100 supporters. Thank you to Zappos and Beautify Earth for choosing our neighborhood as one of eight US cities to donate a mural.

You may have noticed the billboard on this wall is hyper-local. Mission Bernal Merchants Association has taken it over for the next year. Our first billboard by artist Jonathan Koshi was a fundraiser for the merchants impacted in the 3300 Block fire in June. The MBMA, with a lot of community support, raised $16,000 for these merchants. We’re so pleased to have our neighborhood come together and celebrate each other.

Stop by and say hello!

PHOTO: Telstar Logistics

Front Porch Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary With Street Party

/ Todd_Lappin

frontporchparty

Yesterday, the Front Porch restaurant on 29th Street in the La Lengua Autonomous Zone celebrated its 10th Anniversary. Blessedly, even after a decade, neither the primal forces of time nor fire have been able to stop the southern-fried deliciousness that is the Front Porch.

Rebel propagandist Burrito Justice was on the scene for the festivities, and he reported:

The back yards of La Lengua [are] echoing with the sounds of horns and drums and cheering from the Front Porch… Whatever you want to call it, this neighborhood does not suck.

So true. Check out this little video to get a taste of the scene:

Big congrats to Team Front Porch on the anniversary, and thanks for all the good food and warm community you’ve brought to 29th Street.

PHOTOS AND VIDEO: Courtesy of @BurritoJustice

Passing the Torch: La Terraza to Become Craft Beer Bar and Restaurant

/ Todd_Lappin / 28 Comments

ODMpartners

There’s been lots of transformation on Mission Street in Bernal Heights, along the northern reaches of the La Lengua Autonomous Zone.

Anchoring the party, El Rio has (blessedly) been there since more or less forever, of course. More recently, the arrival of Blue Plate, Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack, Baby Blues BBQ, Iron and Gold,  The Royal Cuckoo, Virgil’s, ICHI Sushi+Ni Bar, the Pizza Hacker, and a few other 21st century foodie/drinkie institutions have steadily transformed the northern half of Bernal’s stretch of Mission into a destination for folks from all over our City.

Yet so far, this transformation has not extended south beyond 30th Street and our Taoist Safeway. By the time you reach the (Bernalistically symbolic) intersection of Cortland and Mission, for example, you’ll notice that the urban fabric today remains pretty much as it has been since the 1980s. Pretty much.

Now, however, comes news that evolution is coming to our southern part of Mission Street. InsideScoop broke the story yesterday, revealing that at 3472 Mission Street, a new bar/restaurant called Old Devil Moon will soon replace La Terraza.

Google recently captured La Terraza for posterity, in first-rate form, looking awesome and adrift in time:

Laterraza

InsideScoop sez:

Old Devil Moon is in the works at 3472 Mission Street, the location probably best known as La Terraza, which has been owned and operated by brothers Pedro and Isidro Navarette for the last 20 years. La Terraza will remain open for about three to four more months, until the liquor license transfers.

Old Devil Moon will be a craft beer bar, albeit one with a full liquor license and menu of Southern food. The folks behind it are a trio of beer nerds: Chris Cohen (founder-president of the SF Homebrewers Guild), Andrew Kelley and Will Marshall.

That’s Chris, Andrew, and Will in the photo up top (though not necessarily in that order).

At first blush, this probably looks like yet another in a contemporary series of awkward local tales about Old-Timers vs. New People. Gentrification! Hipsters! “Erosion of our San Francisco culture!”

Alas,  this isn’t really one of those kinds of stories. Instead, it’s is a tale of neighborly evolution and passing-of-the-torch.  Old Devil Moon’s Chris Cohen told Bernalwood how the change of ownership went down:

Pedro was my next door neighbor on Tiffany Ave for 5+ years, and I knew he owned la Terraza from talking over the fence over the years.

One day when we were both taking the trash out at the same time I asked him if he knew any bar owners who may want to sell (I’d been looking for a space for months). He said, “I’ve actually been thinking about retiring for a couple years, I’d love to sell you my place.” It took another few months to get the deal done and we finally just posted the ABC notice of license transfer in their window today. Everyone did well and is happy with the results of the deal.

It’s essentially similar to what happened with Emmy’s taking over El Zocalo, and the Nap’s/Virgil’s story. Nap was ready to quit the business, and his bar wasn’t doing as well as it used to because the neighborhood had changed around the business. The process and reason for the changes at our La Terraza location are similar.

Pedro and his brother Isidro have owned La Terraza for about 20 years and are ready to retire. They were happy to sell to a neighbor.

PHOTO: Team Old Devil Moon, via Old Devil Moon

Today at Noon: Listen to Bernalwood on Burrito Justice Radio

/ Todd_Lappin / 3 Comments

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Yes yes, we know… the idea of Bernalwood participating on Burrito Justice Radio is sort of like General Douglas McArthur agreeing to appear as a studio guest with Tokyo Rose. But stranger things have happened…

Today from noon to 2 pm, tune your Internet dial to Bff.fm as La Lengua’s chief agitator Burrito Justice hosts your Bernalwood editor for a mix of talk, music, local history, and seething geo-political rivalry. As Burrito Justice says, “It’s like Twitter on the radio!” (We don’t know what that means either.)

Bernalwood has been granted full diplomatic immunity to participate in the radio show, along with assurances regarding safe passage to and from the BFF.fm studios in the Mission. Just in case, I’ve also gotten a tetanus shot and purchased a Speak Conversational La Lenguan phrasebook.

Listen in today at noon on BFF.fm, and share your questions and snarky comments on the Twitter.

PS: If you’ve never heard Burrito Justice’s exclusive celebrity interview with @KarltheFog, then stop what you’re doing right now and pop it in your earholes. Guaranteed, you will never look at a fog bank rolling over Twin Peaks the same way ever again.

City and CPMC Reach Agreement to Save and Expand St. Luke’s Hospital

/ Todd_Lappin / 9 Comments

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Very good news! Mission Local reports that a new agreement between The City and California Pacific Medical Center will bring new investment and a more secure future for St. Luke’s Hospital in the La Lengua Autonomous Zone:

After many months of strained conversations between California Pacific Medical Center, city officials and neighborhood interest groups, Mayor Ed Lee announced that the parties have reached agreement on a deal to rebuild St. Luke’s Hospital at Cesar Chavez and Valencia streets.

The new, seismically safe hospital will be larger than originally planned and will account for about a quarter of CPMC’s beds in the city.

“St. Luke’s Hospital will now be an integral part of the CPMC system,” said Boudin Bakery co-owner and civic leader Lou Giraudo, who led mediations for the agreement.

The new St. Luke’s will hold 120 beds instead of the 80 first planned, and a second new hospital, on Cathedral Hill at Geary Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue, will support 274 beds with the potential to build an additional 30, rather than the 555 originally planned. The deal, Lee said, is part of a long-term vision for health care in San Francisco.

PHOTO: Rendering of proposed new St. Luke’s hospital facility on Cesar Chavez

SF Chronicle Columnist Calls the La Lengua Autonomous Zone “San Francisco in Miniature” (and “La Lingua”)

/ Todd_Lappin / 13 Comments

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San Francisco Chronicle columnist Carl Nolte recently discovered the tasty abundance and colorful plenty found in the La Lengua Autonomous Zone:

You could argue that parklets are this San Francisco generation’s greatest invention. They are usually near some neighborhood coffee or lunch place and are open to anyone – a man feeding bits of his sandwich to his dog, a mother with a tiny kid in a stroller, older kids with their thumbs flying, texting away, old men soaking up the sun.

This particular parklet is at 29th and Tiffany Avenue, a block off Mission Street, a sidewalk oasis in a neighborhood that is San Francisco in miniature.

Everything is within a block or two: a big supermarket, a hardware emporium, half a dozen restaurants, a branch post office, a UPS store, four or five bars, a marijuana dispensary, an osteopath’s office, a bike repair place, and the Cafe Seventy8, where serious-looking people sit with laptops working on the Great American Novel or the Great American Spreadsheet.

You can have hash for breakfast (at Al’s Good Food), falafel for lunch (at Good Frickin Chicken), Dungeness crab and grits for dinner (at the Front Porch). You can have a sloe gin sour ($9 at the Rock Bar) or a Sailor Jerry rum and Coke ($6 at the 3300 Club). For dessert, an ice cream at Mitchell’s at 29th and San Jose Avenue, one of San Francisco’s secret treasures.

This little neighborhood, tucked between the Mission and Bernal Heights, has no name. There was an attempt a couple of years ago to call the neighborhood SoCha – for South of Cesar Chavez street – or La Lingua [sic], Spanish for “the tongue,” but neither caught on.

“Sometimes we call the neighborhood Safeway Flats, after the supermarket and its big parking lot,” said Rory, the bartender at the Rock Bar. The Rock, which features a selection of eight specialty cocktails, has been open for only a year, and is an example of the demographic shift in the area. It used to be a Nicaraguan place; across the street was another joint with a rough reputation, but that morphed into the Front Porch, which offers fried chicken and what they call “Southern Mission hospitality.”

Hmmm. It is certainly true that there is much to recommend the western flatlands of the Dominion of Bernalwood, and we are most grateful for the recognition.

However, under normal circumstances, we would expect Nolte’s column to generate a rowdy dissent from Burrito Justice, chief spokeblogger of the La Lengua separatists, on the basis of Nolte’s strange misspelling (La Lingua???) and his politically volatile assertion that the preferred nomenclature has not “caught on.”

Yet these are not normal circumstances. Bernalwood has learned that as part of his campaign to secure La Lengua’s patrimony through the demographic logic of elevated birthrates, the Burrito Justice family welcomed a new set of twins into the world last weekend. So feisty rebellion will have to wait, because Burrito Justice is just a little bit busy right now.

Nevertheless, on behalf of all the Citizens of Bernalwood, we send the Burrito Justice family our wary congratulations.

PHOTOS: Top, Paul Chinn for the San Francisco Chronicle. Below, Pete Kiehart for the San Francisco Chronicle