Mission Local, fresh off their much-tweeted about cupcakes and gang violence map, has published a detailed story about the recent gang murders and their effect on foodie culture and restaurant staffers:

Less than a week after three fatal shootings occurred in a section of the Mission that has become one of the hottest restaurant districts in San Francisco, the sidewalks are full of eager patrons. Diners know about the shootings.

“It’s kind of scary, but kind of fun,” says Dana Humphrey, 28, as she sat eating at Graçias Madre, a vegan restaurant where the tacos aren’t cheap. Her friend Alexis Papeshi, 28, who lives in the Marina, agrees. “It has some cachet,” she says. ’Oh we are in the Mission, we are so cool.’”

[…]

“I’m not scared, I still feel safe,” says Manny Torres Gimenez, the owner and chef at Mr. Pollo, a small Peruvian restaurant that has acquired a cult following among foodies who come from all over the city for its tasting menu. “I’ve been walking the same streets every night for three years by myself and I’ve never seen anything happen.”

That said, he adds that the edginess of the neighborhood is attractive to many customers. “That is part of the experience, to be in that crazy dangerous neighborhood.”

Read on.

Reader Adam sent us his thoughts about the latest issue of 7x7 Magazine:

you read this article?  the whole thing warrants derision, but read these two paragraphs in particular:

I hadn’t considered the synergy between SF’s two biggest cultural pillars until recently. It took dining at Bar Tartine with a friend who wishes to go unnamed—a tech venture capitalist invested in some of the city’s top restaurants. That night, when I started talking in wonderment about the surge of restaurant openings in SF, recession be damned, he politely suggested I get my head out of my dinner. “What boils my blood,” he said, between bites of duck leg cabbage roll stuffed with liver, house-made sauerkraut, and dried cherries, “is that people in the artist community have never understood the connection between capital and the arts. And they take it massively for granted.”

Gesticulating with a curried, pickled carrot, he broke it down historically. “Look at the rise of Florence. During the Renaissance, you had the combination of wealthy patrons and artists. The wealthy patrons allowed the artists to take risks that they’d never have been able to take if they weren’t provided for.” While sommelier Alex Fox poured us some Von Buhl Riesling, he continued, “And it’s no different today in San Francisco, where food has crossed over into an artistic experience. Chefs and bartenders here consider themselves artists.” I had a disconcerting flash of Bar Agricole’s acclaimed bartender Thad Vogler posing naked like Michelangelo’s David, shaker instead of stone in hand. “Even farmers have artistic status here,” my friend astutely observed. “Today in San Francisco, the wealth gets poured back into our modern-day values: the church of food.”

What pretentious cock suckers, not that there's anything wrong with that. Cock sucking I mean. But com'on. For fuck sake, their sense of self importance is so utterly baseless, it's astounding. Florence during the Renaissance? Really? They're talking pop-up restaurants and food trucks and they're comparing it to Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Renaissance. Wow. That makes this little venture capitalist parasite what, one of the Medicis? OK, right, that make sense. Good thing he broke it down “historically” for the dumb fuck author. Except he neglected to mentioned one major difference, the Medici's descendants probably still run most of Italy and large parts of the world while this guy's descendants are most likely going to be working at McDonalds when all his lottery money runs out.

I feel better now. Tx.

No, thank you.

[Sightglass Coffeee photo by Niall Kennedy]

For all of the Mayor's coyishness about running for a full term, he sure does look like he's running a campaign.  Just yesterday, multiple squads of “supporters” traversed Mission Street collecting signatures to (presumably) get Ed's name on the ballot.  While this group was generally more interested in gawking at lucador masks than collecting sigs, another at the 16th BART station were much more aggressive, literally following people asking them for support.

I tried to figure out what was the hell was going on, but they didn't seem to keen on talking to me, probably because I had alcohol on my breath and generally look like a crazy person.  I'm sure asking “Who pays you?” and “Do you even live in San Francisco?” didn't help.  Regardless, more sketchy electioneering from our astroturfing mayor.

We all know that photographing bike thieves is nothing new.  The Mission has unmasked Bobby the Bike Thief (who's rumored to have moved to the hilltop oasis of Bernal Heights), mid-Market has its share of crack fiend and pony-tailed thieves, and this stunning beauty was recently exposed by local photographer Adumb Egan.  While SFPD might never make bike thieft a priority, it's always rad to hear about people watching out for these guys and getting people their stolen property back, as Austin Kamps was recently able to do:

Ran into this guy today. I watched him creep around Montgomery street for a while from a distance, until he found “his” bike.

He finds a bike and then pretends to talk on the phone for a few minutes, then takes his tool out and hides it behind his phone while he unscrews and yanks the seat/post. This happened about a block away. After he did that, I followed him a bit and snuck up to him/scared the shit out of him and ripped it from his hands as he was trying to put it in his bag, then i gave him a “nudge” into the street with my foot. We went back and forth for a bit then he ran off. I ended up getting it back to the owner when he came out a few minutes later.  Saddest part was that there were 4 people around him watching him do it, they knew what was happening, they did nothing. If you see something bad happening do something, put your life on hold for a second and help out if you’re able. Don’t let creeps like this ruin someones day.

Word.

[Skinny Fists | photo by Adumb Egan]