Ghost of Steve Jobs Saves Building from Fallen Bernal Tree

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Compounding the chaos of this week’s storm, a tree fell yesterday on Peralta just south of Cortland. Previously, the tree had stood next to the “iPad House” — the venerable old house hidden behind the Apple billboard you see as you cross over Cortland on US101 south.

Well, yesterday the tree fell down, but the fall was arrested by the Apple billboard, preventing more serious damage to the structures below.  Neighbor Darcy was on the scene, and she filed an immediate report from her, uh, iPhone:

Storm news! Tree falls down, only thing holding up is the Apple billboard!

Of course, it wasn’t merely the Apple billboard that arrested the trees fall. Bernalwood’s sources tell us it was the ghost of Steve Jobs himself that reached into our world from the next to protect lives and property from harm. Extra Bonus: No appointment at the Genius Bar required!

So thank you, Ghost of Steve Jobs, for saving Bernal Heights from the falling tree.

PHOTOS: Neighbor Darcy

Bernal Youths Complete Waterway Project in Precita Playground

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Neighbor Ledia reports that with help from the recent rains, the Bernal Heights Junior Civil Engineering Corps has completed an important new infrastructure project in Precita Park:

Children have been working night and day for weeks building a navigable channel from Lago Precita Park Playground to the Precita Park Cafe.

Attention, SF Department of Public Works: These kids are ready for an internship.

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PHOTOS: Neighbor Ledia

Bernal Neighbors Seek to Film Gravity-Defying Vertical Dance in High Sierra

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Neighbors Amanda Moran and Amelia Rudolph are involved with the world-famous Bandaloop vertical dance company, and they’re holding a fundraiser to support their (magnificently insane) new project. As part of that effort, you’re invited a glamorous downtown party that takes place on Friday evening, Dec. 5.

Neighbor Amanda writes:

Wanted to let you know about a very cool project Bandaloop is doing. Bandaloop founder/artistic director Amelia Rudolph and myself are both Bernal residents. Bandaloop is the Bay Area’s premiere vertical dance company, and in 2015 we are re-mounting the seminal mountain work “Crossing” in the Sierra. We have seed funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, but we need to more than double it to build the piece. We started a RocketHub campaign and are about 30% funded, with a goal of $25,000 by 12/17/14.

In a nutshell, the Bandaloop posse wants to re-shoot their much-admired vertical dance piece from 2001 to take advantage of a) a decade of dance technique refinement, and b) the advent of the GoPro Age.

Like this:

Team Bandeloop adds:

Through the creation of the “Crossing” performance on-site along the Sierra crest, and through the associated film, BANDALOOP will transport the aesthetic of dance created in nature back to the city, and bring this work to large and diverse audiences worldwide; both online and through live multimedia performance. The project will also include education modules for the classroom, addressing issues of environment and sustainability through the unique lens of BANDALOOP’s site-reactive dance. BANDALOOP is nearing the end of their fundraising campaign on Rockethub to raise $25,000 for “Crossing.” There is still time to donate and help them reach their goal!

This Friday, December 5th, 6 – 8 pm @ The Hall, there will be an event associated with the RocketHub Campaign. Please come join!

See you at The Hall!
1028 Market Street (between 6th + Jones)
San Francisco

Storm Clouds Animate Fiery Sunset on Bernal Hill

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Storm clouds and a setting sun often make for a stylish pairing, and yesterday’s weather did not disappoint.  Neighbor Charlie shared the photo above, taken on Bernal Hill yesterday as the sky lit up in an intense swirl of orange and black.

Not far away, Jenna Bilotta snapped this handsome profile of Bernal Hill.  Don’t you love how the orange sky accentuates our dashingly handsome profile?

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PHOTOS: Top, Neighbor Charlie. Below, Jenna Bilotta

Heavy Rains Turn Cars into Submarines at 101 Hairball Onramp

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The (much welcomed) rains were intense last night — so much so that a storm drain for the Hairball interchange clogged up and flooded the 101 South onramp from eastbound Cesar Chavez.

When I drove past the site at about 8:45 am this morning, the onramp was closed and a DPW crew was vacuuming out the offending storm drain with a giant sucker-truck.

But a tweet from Neighbor Brian informed us that the flooding had been so intense before sunrise that a few cars became thoroughly submerged:

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Meanwhile, Neighbor Anita reports things looked similar around the Alemany 101/280 Spaghetti Bowl:

 

PHOTO: @brianhollinger

Thursday: Come All Ye Bernal, to the 2014 Cortland Holiday Stroll!

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Tens of thousnads of years ago, in the time of our Bernal ancestors, a joyous community of elves lived on Bernal Hill. Each year, during the winter equinox, these proto-Bernalese would gather on the land we now call Cortlandia to celebrate the arrival of the rains and the season of lights.

Today, the Bernal Business Alliance has revived this ancient ritual, in the form of the glamorous Cortland Holiday Stroll. The 2014 Stroll happens this Thursday, December 4, from 6 to 9 pm, and it is incumbent upon you to partake of the many spectacles.

Bernalwood is told:

This Thursday, Bernal neighbors and guests will have the perfect opportunity to kick off the holiday shopping season! There will be fantastic drinks, deals, art, live music, and more!

The Bernal Business Alliance, this year teaming up with The Bold Italic, is hosting the Bernal Heights Microhood Holiday Stroll on December 4th, 6pm-9pm.

Here are some highlights of what you’ll find throughout the event:

The Holiday Marketplace is open again in the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. Come enjoy festive decorations, holiday music, and free cookies and punch.

You’ll meet:

Sandy Owens Massage and Healing
CLIMB Real Estate
Legal Shield
Bernal Bucks
Bernal Business Alliance
TownSquared
SF Custom Chiropractic
The Levia Project
Pelindaba Lavender SF
12 Small Things
Cortland Businesses and ART WALK

While visiting local businesses, mix and mingle with talented Bernal based artists. See what our neighborhood artists have been working on. Now is the perfect time to pick up some home grown art for the holidays!

The New Wheel will have oodles of Holiday cheer, a Christmas tree, and fabulous warm eggnog.

Vinorosso will host artist Todd Berman in their parklet.

Kingmond Young Photography will be serving drinks and snacks during the event. They’re also offering a special ALL DAY: free mat boards (from selected styles) on any frame order 32″ x 40″ or smaller (square or rectangle cuts only).

Bernal Star will be hosting artist Notty Bumbo.

Pinhole Coffee will be showcasing Recycled Glassworks.

Integral Body will have a holiday feel-good herbal elixir, 5 minute massage demos, 10 minute ear acupuncture demos, visiting relatives cancellation feature acu-ear seeds, and a meet your local doctor Q&A.

Vega Pizzeria will have half-off bottles of wine.

Inclusions Gallery will be celebrating it’s 7 year anniversary with the opening of their annual Retrospective show, featuring artists Sawyer Rose, Josie Iselin, Quinn Scheibal, Kim Smith, Aaron Zube, Sarah M. Newton, Peter Arvidson, Jenny Phillips and Natasha Juelicher.
They’ll also feature live music by Bernal’s own talented jazz duo, Gary Zellerbech & Carl Herder.

More art and holiday cheer at Bernal Branch Library, Chloe’s Closet, fit BERNAL fit, Good Life Grocery, Heartfelt, Little Bee Baking, Lucky Horseshoe, State Farm Insurance, Succulence, Wild Side West!

Also, a reminder: SFPD Capt. McFadden and Ingleside officers will be attending the Stroll as well.

This is a great chance to meet Capt. McFadden in a casual setting and to let him know of any safety concerns you have in the neighborhood – criminal activity, “problem” houses, unsafe environments, etc.
He will be there from about 6pm-7pm and will be visiting merchants on Cortland between Andover and Bennington (the central part of Cortland with Heartfelt, the Good Life, New Wheel, etc).

PHOTO: Top, Holiday Stroll 2011,  by Telstar Logistics

Bernal Neighbor Installs Sutro Tower Garden Sculpture, Adorns It With Seasonal Cheer

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After months of patient design and fabrication, Neighbor Orlando has finally installed his iron model of Sutro Tower in front of his Folsom Street home.

Fabricated by artist Mario Cro, Neighbor Orlando’s Sutro Tower stands around 5′ tall — versus 977′ for that other one on Twin Peaks — and he intends to use it as a permanent piece of garden sculpture. He tells Bernalwood:

In the end, this was well worth the wait. Good things take time, you know? This was one of them.

The names of the heads of households of the prior two generations of my family members have been stamped on the piece itself. The original motivation for the project was to have something permanent placed at the forefront of the home, remembering and commemorating those who came before me who were ultimately responsible for giving me the opportunity to be raised in this warm and beautiful neighborhood. Their names are located on the bottom truss. with space left for my name just directly below.

Impressive. Also, to give the piece some seasonal flair, Neighbor Orlando has decorated his Sutro Tower and surrounding garden in a Christmas theme.

Here are a few more photos of Neighbor Orlando’s awesome iron model of Sutro Tower, shown during it’s Holiday 2014 debut. Someday you can tell your grandkids you saw it when it was new:

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PHOTOS: Telstar Logistics

 

Your Autumn 2014 Bernal Heights Real Estate Summary: Historically Bonkers, with a Chance of Maybe Somewhat Less Bonkers

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Let’s review some fresh-squeezed real estate data, shall we? We begin with a summary of recent Bernal Heights home sales, compiled by Downing & Company:

October proved to be the busiest month of 2014 (so far) for home sales in Bernal Heights. Last month 20 homes traded hands, which was a spike compared to most months, where the number of transactions often register in the low to mid teens.

With cheap debt available (mortgage interest rates are hovering around 4%) home prices remain elevated. During October the average price in Bernal Heights clocked in at a $1,251,550 relatively close to the record high recorded in July at $1.3 million.

The market remains hot, yielding very quick transactions. The homes that sold last month in Bernal Heights were on the market for an average of only 20 days before going under contract.

Visit the Downing website for more smutty detail on each of the homes in the stylish October 2014 Bernal Sales Mix mosaic, shown above.

Meanwhile, the number-crunchers at Paragon have been thinking about how sparkly Bernal Heights looks right now, in the context of the overall San Francisco residential market. Paragon’s exceptionally smutty San Francisco Home Price Appreciation report reveals that Bernal has experienced the City’s third-highest rate of home appreciation since the crash, up 24% since its previous 2008 peak:

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Paragon’s analysis:

Bernal Heights: Up 57% since market bottom; up 24% from its previous market peak in 2007. Bernal Heights has become one of the most popular, more affordable, go-to neighborhoods for house buyers who like the neighborhood ambiance of the general Noe Valley area, but were priced out there by its rocketing prices. Bernal Heights’ houses – with a median price about 45% lower than Noe Valley’s – have looked likeextremely good values in comparison. Buyer competition for new listings became particularly fierce in the past year or so.

That quest for the  “ambiance of Noe Valley” thing seems rather suspect, but your motivations may vary.

Our bloggy journo-friends at Mission Local pulled together some data from Redfin that puts Bernal real estate in neighborly context. Overall, Bernal has moved in line with overall trends, though we do appear to have gained a little bit of mojo relative to Potrero Hill:

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In another recent Paragon report, we spotted this longer-term snapshot of contemporary Bernal Heights real estate history:

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Though no visualization was provided, some of the budding data scientists among us may notice a rather pronounced up-and-to-the-right trend in the historical data.

Yesterday, however, the SF Chronicle reported that things may be settling down somewhat. Maybe:

Listen up, beleaguered buyers. According to Paragon Real Estate, rationality may be returning to the San Francisco property market. “The San Francisco market definitely cooled after the overheated feeding frenzy of the first half of the year,” according to the real-estate firm’s November report. “The competition between buyers for new listings declined to more rational levels: Homes that might have received 5 to 10 offers earlier in the year received 1 or 2 or 3.”

While getting three offers is still something sellers in most other marketplaces can only dream of, in San Francisco it could be a sign that pricing has finally reached its peak.

IMAGE: Top. October 2014 Bernal homes sold, via Downing & Company

Bernal Skyspotters Confirm Intense Rainbow Strikes in Downtown San Francisco

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The rest of the world may be chaotic and menacing, but Sunday’s on-and-off rainstorms interspersed with periods of sunshine resulted in a Category Two Rainbow Warning for all of Bernal Heights.

Scientists from the Bernalwood Rainbow Situation Control Facility were on duty in the likely event that a rainbow might touch down in our area:

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Sure enough, at around 11:30 am Bernal Heights neighbor and celebrity sci-fi writer M. Luke McDonell documented the above, a confirmed Full-Arc Rainbow, as seen from her Precitaville observation post. Based on the observed prismatic trajectories, Bernalwood estimates that residents of Duboce Triangle and China Basin may have experienced rainbow-induced euphoria as a result.

Neighbor Kendall documented a direct hit on Rincon Hill’s Ionic Breeze Tower:

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Moments later, @xtraslky provided further data:

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She wondered:

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Yup, that’s confirmed.

UPDATE: Via MissionMission, we find this terrific photo by woolfshirt that shows Bernal Heights positioned strategically beneath Sunday’s rainbow barrage. As all armchair rainbow-watchers know, this positioning is ideal to maximize the positive effects of Rainbow Energy throughout the entire Dominion of Bernalwood:

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PHOTOS: Top, M. Luke McDonell. Below, @xtraslky.

Holiday Season Pro Tips for Bernal Dogs, Cats, and the Humans Who Love Them

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Neighbor Nicolette Zarday lives on Bernal’s tony west side, and she works as a veterinarian at Adobe Animal Hospital in Los Altos. (You might remember her from such previous pearls of Bernal Heights pet wisdom as  “Foxtails: Delicious But Deadly.”) With the holiday season fast approaching, Neighbor Nicolette has shared some tips on how you and your critters can get through it all with your good cheer intact.

She tells Bernalwood:

Tis the season to eat holly, as well as poinsettias, chocolate, tinsel, ribbon, raisin spice cake, turkey carcass, and whatever is in the garbage can. You have no idea how delicious the compost bin smells this time of year.

At the pet hospital where I work, we generally see a lull in emergencies and appointments after the summer, but business ticks up around the holidays. Many of the problems are caused by “dietary indiscretion,” as we like to call it. Heartfelt gatherings of family and friends end an emergency pet hospital visit when the family dog starts throwing up after plundering an unattended kitchen. Some kitties just can’t wait until Christmas day to open the presents.

Here are some of the top holiday hazards to keep in mind. It’s not an exhaustive list, because pets always find ways to surprise us. Yet these are some of the more common reasons for pet ER visits this time of year.

Chocolate:  The darker, the more intense, the better for humans — and the more toxic for pets. Most people know chocolate can be toxic to dogs and cats, because animals don’t metabolize the caffeine-like compounds well. Halloween candy is rarely a problem, since that “chocolate” is mostly high fructose corn syrup and processed junk. But the good stuff that starts showing up for the holidays can cause trouble. Chocolate ingestion can be quite serious, but fortunately it’s rarely fatal if treated promptly.

Raisins, Grapes, and Currants: This has the veterinary and pet-owning community flummoxed. We still don’t know what makes these so deadly. Even garden-grown, organic grapes have caused illness. Fortunately, ingestion rarely results in illness. But when it does, however, kidney failure develops, often leading to death.

Fat: Yes, it makes everything taste more delicious. Drippings on the foil that’s in the garbage, turkey skin, leftover gravy, buttery creamy dishes… this time of year is ripe with fatty delights.While not technically toxic, excessive ingestion of fat can cause a give a dog a very upset stomach, and more seriously, acute pancreatitis.

Bones: Turkey carcasses, meat bones, chicken bones… they can get stuck in the esophagus, or create an intestinal blockage, or, more commonly, general digestive unhappiness. Fortunately, if bones make it to the stomach and stay there for a few hours, stomach acid will usually dissolve most of them.

Stringy Things: Here’s a diagnosis you never want to hear from your veterinarian: “linear foreign body.” This tends to be a problem for cats, who love to chase stringy things, but we see it in dogs too. Ribbon from wrapped gifts or tinsel from the Christmas tree gets caught on the tongue, and then swallowed. The gastrointestinal tract, doing its gastrointestinal thing, tries to move the string down the tract, but one end is caught on something higher up. The intestines get bunched up on the taut string, and it’s really bad. These animals act sick: not eating, very lethargic, usually vomiting. Surgery is the only solution.

Holly, Mistletoe, and Poinsettias: These plants are mildly toxic if ingested in small amounts, causing nothing worse than gastrointestinal sadness. In greater quantities, neurologic signs can develop.

Wild Mushrooms: This has nothing to do with the holidays, but in Northern California, we start to see mushrooms popping up this time of year because of the rains. Most mushrooms are not a big problem, but the ones that are bad are really bad and can cause liver failure. Puppies are often victims because they’re the least discriminating. Keep an eye on what goes into your dog’s mouth at all times.

Remember: Call your veterinarian immediately if you suspect your pet has ingested something that may be a problem. If you suspect a toxin, look it up: the Pet Poison Helpline or the ASPCA Animal Poison Control page have great information and 24 hour call-in services.

Be safe and stay merry!

IMAGE: Christmas cat via Wikimedia Commons

 

Sad Food Critic Complains Because Service at Red Hill Station Is Very Friendly

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As you know, Red Hill Station is the wonderful new(ish) seafood restaurant on Cortland opened by Bernal neighbors Taylor Pederson and Amy Reticker. It’s delicious. Also, it’s now open for both lunch and dinner. And food critics are starting to take notice. Zagat loves it, but Anna Roth, a critic with SF Weekly, published an odd review last week. The biggest problem with Red Hill Station, Roth says, is that it is too friendly.

To be sure, Roth really enjoyed her seafood:

There are a lot of highlights on the seafood-heavy menu. Red Hill served one of the best sandwiches I’ve had in recent memory, stuffed with albacore that had been slow-poached in olive oil and studded with capers and lemon juice. The oily tuna, bolstered with garlic aioli, melted into its buttered, toasted Acme roll, its juices dripping onto the plate and coating my fingers with every bite. I couldn’t stop eating it, even as I complained about how full I was. I had similarly strong feelings about the bay shrimp that accompanied the Caesar salad. Heavy on lime juice and tossed with toasted garlic and bread crumbs, the tiny, flavorful shrimp wouldn’t have been out of place at a Vietnamese restaurant.

Roth felt the vegetables at Red Hill could use some more love, but her main gripe had nothing to do with the food:

The most objectionable thing about the restaurant was the service, which was so aggressively friendly that it strayed into intrusive. Waiters inserted themselves into and hijacked conversations more than once, grinding them to a halt. It seemed to be a misplaced use of the friendly, small-town attitude of Bernal Heights, and the spot has already become a gathering point for the close-knit neighborhood. The restaurant was full on both visits, and the servers greeted many of the patrons by name. But all this extroversion can also be off-putting to outsiders, especially when dishes hover around $20 a plate.

Wait… what? This complaint is as sad as it is laughable. It’s like going to New York and whining that the dining scene there is “aggressively competitive,” or visiting Tokyo and grumbling that the service was “aggressively formal.”  To whine about such things is to deny the essence of the place; the thing that makes the dining experience genuinely local. Of course, its fine to want something less local — McDonald’s created a very large business by assiduously stripping out all the local from the food, after all — but to complain about a chatty neighborly vibe in Bernal Heights is to miss the point of the exercise entirely.

Sure, to someone from off-hill, many of our local establishments may feel a little bit like stepping into an episode of Portlandia. But that’s precisely why we call Bernal’s main street Cortlandia, after all. It’s funny because it’s true.

Team Red Hill Station should wear this ridiculous criticism as a badge of honor. The food at Red Hill is exceptional, and the atmosphere inside is comfortable and relaxed. The data suggests this formula is working brilliantly for a great many happy, paying customers.  If aggressive friendliness is to be the ding against Red Hill Station — and against the very thing that makes Bernal Heights so Bernal — then its safe to say we’re all doing something right.

IMAGE: via Red Hill Station on Facebook

Your Bernal Heights Crime Report for November 2014: More Car Break-Ins, More Burglaries, and a Bad-News Neighbor in Holly Court

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Neighbor Sarah, your valiant volunteer Bernal Heights crime correspondent, attended the SFPD Ingleside Community meeting this month, and she filed these summary notes on the latest Bernal Heights crime trends.

Read on, read carefully, be smart, mind your holiday parcels, and stay safe:

Before I get to the notes, a quick FYI: Capt. McFadden and other Ingleside officers will be at the December 4 Bernal Business Alliance “Holiday Stroll” on Cortland. He will likely start out at the BHNC and will then walk along Cortland between Andover and Bocana to meet merchants and residents. This is a chance for you to meet him and alert him to any concerns in an informal setting.

Now, onto the notes from the 11/18 meeting:

Capt. McFadden presided for the first half of the meeting, and Lt. Rich Struckman took over for the second half. Lt. Struckman just joined the station from Investigations. His email is richard.struckman@sfgov.org.

Police are seeing a spike in auto boostings (thefts from autos). One theory is that cell phone robberies are down 30% (because of kill switches or education/awareness), and would-be criminals have changed their focus to thefts from autos. The police also believe that the passage of Prop 47, which turns many crimes into misdemeanors and was effective upon passage, will lead criminals to focus on property crimes rather than robberies (which are felonies). Property crimes now just result in citations, with the person not being detained at all. Capt. McFadden also noted that the change from felonies to misdemeanors means that the police cannot get DNA from suspects and possibly link them to unsolved crimes. The change from Prop 47 has been immediate – Ingleside used to see 3-6 felonies per day, now half that.

They are also seeing more burglaries. These tend to hit one area, and the police devote resources to the area, which then displaces the crime to another area. Recent weeks have seen burglaries and/or auto boostings on Ney St., Miramar, Teresita, Monterey, Bella Vista, and more. “Best deterrent to crime is a nosy neighbor.”

Watch for people riding bikes at night and looking into cars! Common pattern is for someone to ride by, looking into cars. They then go around the block and return, maybe checking out houses and whether people are home, and then on the third time around, they break in to the parked cars. Call 911 if you see a break-in (auto or home) in progress; if it’s suspicious behavior, call non-emergency line at 553-0123.

The Examiner had a story on a sex offender living in the Holly Courts housing. The resident has evidently been causing problems for the other residents there. (Examiner article” Sex offender living in SF public housing dodges federal rules“). The housing authority is trying to get him out, but this means he will be placed in a residential neighborhood in other housing. The sex offender is well known to SFPD, and they have been keeping an eye on him since he has lived there.

There was a homicide in the district last weekend. A parolee was killed at the Amazon Motel on Mission/Geneva. It was not a random homicide. The victim was well known to SFPD.

There was a fight involving knives and box cutters at Crocker-Amazon Park last weekend during a soccer game. Both teams have been banned from playing there.

BE CAREFUL now that the holiday shopping season has arrived – for example, don’t go put packages in your car while you’re still shopping at the mall. People are watching the cars and parking lots. Warn visiting friends/family about this as well. SFSAFE has some good information on holiday shopping and how to keep yourself, your home, and your belongings safe.

Finally, Lt. Struckman mentioned that a district resident had recently called to report a burglary that had already happened. This is a “priority C” call since the burglar was not in the house. As a result, squad cars on the way to take the report kept getting re-routed to “A” and “B” priority calls, and it ended up taking six hours for the police to arrive and take the report. This shouldn’t happen. If you find yourself in a similar situation, call the station (404-4000) and ask for the Platoon Commander and explain the situation.

PHOTO: Sara Bassett

New, Hawaiian-Style Brunch Pop-up Coming to 903 Cortland

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There’s a new weekend-only brunch pop-up coming to the space at 903 Cortland. The pop-up is called āina, and like the name, the food will be Hawaiian. The restaurant will open up to the public this Saturday, November 22, with plans to serve brunch every weekend,  Saturday and Sunday, 9 am-2 pm.

Team āina tells Bernalwood:

We are excited to provide a new brunch option for the Bernal Heights neighborhood at our new pop-up, called ‘āina (903 Cortland Avenue, CA 94110). ‘āina is from the Hawaiian language, and means land/earth. Jordan Keao, the chef, lives smack in Bernal; Jason Alonzo runs the front of the house, and he lives just down the hill.

Our idea is to incorporate all our past experiences and finally work for ourselves, allowing great creativity and responsible food sourcing. Everything we serve will be from the land or transformed from what the land has given to us. The food will have an Asian or Hawaiian influence with a breath of the classic breakfast dishes. We will cook with the seasons, using local ingredients from the bay area, as well as local ingredients from the chef’s home, the Big Island of Hawai’i. Our Facebook page has more information and a sample of our menu.

Mahalo,
From Jordan (the chef) and Jason (front of house).

Here’s a sample menu:

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PHOTO: Poached egg, smoked royal king trumpet mushrooms, kabocha squash puree, wild watercress with some Chinese sausage Lap Cheong on top, from āina via Facebook