Eats and Beers

Anyone Want to Grab Happy Hour Across the Street From Dolores Park?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I guess Dolores Park Cafe is doing happy hour now, in case you want to go to the park and sip beer but not be outside. Think of it as that weird indoor part of Zeitgeist that you never spend any time in and kinda smells like rotten slices of ham…like that, but better lit and scented like coffee and side salads.

Anyway, they're only charging $3 for a beer, the same price that Cold Beer, Cold Water (R.I.P.) charged, only it comes straight from the tap and isn't PBR.

An Open Letter to Popo's Pizza

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Dear Popo's Pizza,

That's me and my fat lil' hand holding your menu and a cookie.  See, I was hurting for a good slice of pizza last night and heard you just opened up at 24th and Bartlett.  The pizza options around these parts aren't particularly mind-blowing, so giving your pie a shot seemed like a reasonable idea.  But when I walked in, I didn't see any tables, seating, or pizza.  In fact, it looked like an Apple Store with a menu.

I asked the very pleasant counter guy if you sold slices, but he told me that you don't serve slices, only personal 8” pizzas that starting at $7.50.  That's a lot of pizza for my fat lil' hands to hold, and probably too much for my belly to contain too.

“Yeah, I get that,” the counter guy sympathized as he handed me a free cookie along with a menu, encouraging me to call you up next time I want some delivery.

And as I walked down Bartlett towards an assurdedly less tasty slice from Escape From New York, eating that free cookie, I couldn't help but be impressed by the service you gave towards a guy who clearly was not going to pay you for an 8” pizza.  If the service was that good, how great must the pizza be?

But, see, I can't get over the slice situation.  I know you're new to the neighborhood and probably don't know how things work around here, so maybe you didn't know we're drunk sometimes.  And sometimes drunk people need pizza extremely badly.  Waiting 10+ minutes for an 8” pizza doesn't really work with the shortened patience of a sometimes drunk person, and the $7.50 is kind of a lot of money to scrounge up on second dinner.

So, maybe consider serving slices?  Pretty please with a drizzle of black truffle oil on top?

Sincerely,
A Sometimes Drunk Person in the Mission

(P.S. Please change the mushroom on your logo.  My cat once ate a mushroom that looked like that and immediately puked it up and I had to clean up mushroom cat puke and now all I can think of is cat puke.)

Fuck SF Chronicle's List of the Bay Area's Top 100 Bars

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Amidst all the Fourth of July action, we missed all the controversy around the Chronicle's Top 100 Bars in the Bay list.  Let's summarize: every once in a while, publications publish a best-of list to boost readership—after all, people like nothing more than seeing how their tastes match up to that of their local editorial board.  So the Chronicle, ever wishing to reclaim the glory days when people with color in their hair and swagger in their step read their rag, published a list that the lubricated youths could rally behind.  But they blew it—oh, how they blew it.

The list largely consisted of restaurants that serve booze (Nopa, Beretta, Hog & Rocks), rather than bars themselves (as local wit TK put it, “I personally think if there are more people eating than just drinking in your place at any given time, you're a restaurant and not a bar”).  And the only dive within the Mission, TL, or Lower Haight was Zeitgeist, whose Top 100 review reads like a pitch for a Totally Zany! sitcom pilot:

Dive bars don't get much better than Zeitgeist. Here you'll find one of the best Bloody Marys in town, dozens of craft beers on tap, not to mention a darn good cheeseburger - all served up with no-nonsense attitude. Add the large, sunny beer garden out back and you have what might well be the quintessential Mission bar experience. Treat the bar and its staff with respect, follow the rules, and you'll do just fine.

Anyway, a darn good attempt from the Chronicle.  Darn good.

[Screencap by Ariel]

Big New Sidewalk Juice Opening at 24th and Folsom

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Everyone's favorite juice hole-in-the-wall is growing up and getting a proper storefront, right across from Philz.  Who knows if this means they're closing up their 21st and Valencia location when the new digs open up, all we know is that the marquee was painted just a few days ago.

(Also, how disgusting is “Sidewalk Juice” as a name?  I always thought that it was just some PC-jargon for “bum urine” until I learned they sold delicious berry smoothies and vegan cookies.)

Tecate *Apologizes* For Ironic Public Urination Ad

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Beloved Mission lubricant Tecate has expressed their regret and sorrow for igniting a flurry of faux-outrage surrounding the controversial public urination/man of character ad campaign along Valencia Street, according to The Tens (taker of the above photo):

Hi all, this is Felix Palau, VP of Marketing for the Tecate Brand.

We have an internal process whereby every ad is reviewed for compliance with our local code for responsible commercial communication. As a part of that process, this ad concept was rejected by our US team but unfortunately, an error was made and the ad was mistakenly released and posted. We sincerely thank consumers for bringing this to our attention and have immediately removed the ad. We regret the error and are taking a look at our internal controls to ensure this does not happen again.

Thank you!

And immediately remove the ad they have, with this jarring PSA on the high school drop-out rate:

Demands for Mr. Palau's resignation have not been met as of press time.

[The Tens]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Reimagined Taco Truck

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock have a show going on right now (thru July 14th) at Fecal Face Gallery, featuring a whole bunch of art about food and colors and visual puns:

Edible Complex seeks to explore our personal and cultural relationships to food, and the effect of social networking on the ever-evolving ecosystem of admiring, eating and wasting food in the Bay Area. San Francisco has an intricate connection with the act of creating and consuming cuisine; with more restaurants per capita than any other American city, we are constantly bombarded with options and information. The show features paintings created both individually and in collaboration with one another, exploring a range of themes, from San Francisco as a transient city, our flourishing food-truck industry, and our relationship with what we consume.

That sounds good and all, but I'm here for whimsical pictures of taco trucks with scary giant spinning clown tacos on top… a mobile Mexican Doggie Diner, if you will.  And I'm sure you are too.

Oh, and they even took the noted taco truck meal of fish tacos into their delicious fantasy world:

With Tecate, The World is Your Baño

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I've been seeing these billboards around the Mission for a few weeks now, with one notably placed along Valencia Street—the venerable public urination ground zero of the well-watered Mission District.  And it would therefore be quite easy to get mad at Tecate, with all their encouraging of young drunk guns to unkink their hoses and allow their sprinklers to go tooka-tooka-tooka-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic in one of many dark alleys in the neighborhood.

But then I bother to Google Translate the latter half of the ad—It's easy to be a man of character.  Is this… irony?  Tecate, are you seriously trolling us right now?

I, for one, will not be patronized.  Either you cut it out with the wisecracks, or I'm just going to keep on drinking Tecate.

[Photo by The Tens]

Late-Night Panini Place Now Open on Mission

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Perhaps one of the most upsetting things about the Mission is lack of sandwich options past 5pm.  We realize this isn't Brooklyn, with all their delicious 24-hour delis and other such shenanigans, but the inability to down a sando for dinner has become a distressing reality in a times of need.

Luckily, the iconoclasts at Hot Press, opening today on Mission between 25th and 26th, have forsaken this modus operandi and will be serving up hella paninis until 10pm—which we realize might not be late-night in everyone's mind, but it's late-night in sandwichland.  Plus, they have tons of veggie and non-veggie paninis on their menu, and some crazy-looking waffle-ice cream desert monstrosity that I cannot wait to eat two of:

I'm certain we'll be eating here reallll soon.  And if we like it, we'll be sure to tell you all about it.  Hell, if we don't like it, we'll probably tell you about it anyway (after all, as a wise woman once told me, “If you have nothing nice to say, blog”).  Stay tuned.

[Second pic by Thrillist]

Japanese Beer Garden to 'Pop-Up' at Nice 3rd Story Outdoor Patio

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Wix Lounge, an admittedly rad patio/terrace hangout spot of sorts on the 3rd floor of the US Bank Building, is temporarily turning into an elevated Japanese-themed Zeitgeist next week.  Eater has the details:

It's largely known for sake, but Nombe hosts its first Japanese beer garden of the summer with snacks like hand-rolled sushi and grilled Kurobuta pork belly from 5-9 p.m. on June 29 at Wix Lounge.

The whole “first of the summer” line seems to indicate this will be happening again.  But should it not, be sure to head over next Friday for hella beer and a solid vantage point of 22nd and Capp.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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