Marina

Unscrupulicious

Tacolicious Forks Over $900,000 Settlement for Screwing Over Workers

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Tacolicious—the Mission restaurant that helps keep upper crust Tostitos fanboys out of Farolito—just coughed up a $900,000 settlement for not paying their workers proper wages. It turns out only charging $9.50 for a side of guacamole just isn’t enough to pay the bills.

According to Eater SF, the settlement worth 94,737 orders of guac stemmed from a 2015 lawsuit in which two line cooks alleged the restaurant burdened employees with “improper compensation, inaccurate wage statements, illegal deductions, and failure to pay out for overtime.”

“We love our people and take great care of our people,” Tacolicious’s owner, Joe Hargrave, told Eater in a Trumpian statement. “We chose to settle because if we chose to fight it, we’d go out of business.”

Thanks to the settlement keeping them in business, you can still grab a roasted butternut squash taco for $4.95.

[Photo: Adam O/Yelp]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Dumb Bird Spares World From Another Tourist's Boring Golden Gate Bridge Sunset Video

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Have you ever seen a Golden Gate sunset video? No? Well there's about a million of 'em on YouTube, in case you were interested.  See, every tourist upon visiting San Francisco busts out their inner Michael Bay and records some sweet vid of the sun setting against our fine bridge and uploads it for their friends and family to awe at.

Apparently this bird got fed up with seeing this harmless shit go down day after day and decided to do something about it.  Fortunately for us, the camera's owners found the device and uploaded the resulting video for all their friends and family to awe at:

"It happens on Valencia and it's a tragedy; It happens on Chestnut and it's a comedy"

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

My buddy Dave (who lives in some nebulous and distant land that isn't the Mission) makes a pretty good point: the rampant destruction of one neighborhood is a national tragedy (and it is), whereas the hypothetical and sometimes real destruction of the Axe-scented streets 3 miles to our north is hilarious.

Jägerbombs for thought…

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Who Gave Less of a Shit About Earth Day: the Mission or the Marina?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Alex sent us the above photo Saturday night in an email titled “Marina Scum on Marina Green” and described the gnarly scene:

Went biking today across the Golden Gate Bridge. Saw loads of people enjoying the great weather and drinking on Marina Green. Came back, and this is what Marina scum does to our city!

Tourists were disgusted. I told them it's just one neighborhood. Don't judge.. to harsh.

So a bunch of trash was lying around the Marina Green and when the sun went down, left behind piles of actual garbage? Horrible, for sure.  But as someone who loves ripping on the Marina at every opportunity, what I'm about to type pains me terribly to write: it's not just one neighborhood.  Well, not completely, at least.

Observe:

According to mavens over at Mission Local, this was the scene at Dolores Park Sunday morning “after Recreation and Park Department staff had consolidated much of the trash into piles” (and our hero can collectors did their thing).  Naturally, the old farts that are slowly dying around the park are using this 'wasteland' as evidence that it's time for Ed Lee and his goons to send the police marching in Dolores to whip the young punks that cherish those 13.7 acres into shape.

But, really, is Dolores Park's trash situation that bad?  It's gross, yes; but just look at what those savages to our north have to deal with.  And considering there were umpteen thousands of people getting casual in Dolores all weekend long, this seems like a “best case scenario” to me.

So, can we all just agree to maybe try a little harder to do the right thing and start blaming the Marina kids for our trash woes?  I hear they're kinda messy…

UPDATE: Andrew Dalton has a nice rant about this over at SFist.

Bro/Hipster Mutt Takes on Living in San Francisco

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Drew Hoolhorst is among of my favorite writers living in the Mission, even though dude's kinda a bro.  Bro?  Yeah, bro.

He cops to wearing J. Crew button ups and A&F and having a full-time job (which apparently means you're a bro now), yet he also wears hoodies and Ray-Bans and listens to good music and drinking in dives.  To him, this makes him a bro-ster, and he's sick of all the Marina/Mission fighting preventing him from finding a suitable neighborhood to call home.

He explains in today's Bold Italic piece:

We live in a city where everyone bitches about how one group of people is more pretentious than the other. Hipsters usually hate bro's, bro's usually hate hipsters, etc.

And that's bullshit.

Any hipster who says they hate bro's? Acts like a goddamn Mission-bro: they're dicks to everyone, they act holier-than-thou and strictly date their own kind.

Any bro who hates hipsters? Stop it. In three months you'll be wearing whatever clothes hipsters are wearing now (skinny jeans, Ray-Bans, etc.) because, deep down? You sort of like it.

Bros, hipsters … for the sake of my finding an identity in this town: can we call a truce?

I’ve seen both sides pretty regularly. We're not all that different.

We all hate Muni. We all love beer, whether we’re drinking it out of a PBR can or a red Dixie cup with a ping pong ball in it. We all seem to agree on the film Wet Hot American Summer, the show “Modern Family,” and Aziz Ansari in general.

While I always thought being 50% bro and 50% hipster just made you “a dude,” Drew does make some interesting observations about life in the city.  Do give it a read.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

USPS: The Career of Your Dreams

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the tireless completion of their appointed rounds.

[Also, open caption contest in the comments.  Best one gets a free Jameson/Tecate donated under their commenter name on the Pop's gift drink board]

[Photo by arterial spray]

Tim Lincecum Rocks Sweet Tacolicious Hat

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Now that San Francisco has gone from pretending to care about football to tweeting obsessively about the impending baseball season, noted pothead and Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum greeted fans at this past weekend's FanFest with a Tacolicious cap on his head.  Does this mean the Marina/Valencia restaurant has finally 'made it'? And has Tim ever drank a Tecate there?

[Inside Scoop]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Seapunk Receives Coveted SF Chronicle Endorsement

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

THAR SHE BLOWS.

Seapunk made a big splash (zing!) in the Chronicle recently.  Or at least on their 72-year-old website.  Either way, the city's biggest publication has deemed the burgeoning Tumblr 'movement' and the aspiring fashionistas of the Academy of Art that are embracing the trend worthy of their precious attention, further strengthening the argument that seapunk is, in fact, a “thing”:

Recently, Academy of Art University students from the School of Industrial Design and the School of Fashion worked in collaboration with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to create unique designs using recycled materials. The resulting installation, “Sea Fashion Challenge,” was on display for the month of January at Atelier, at 79 New Montgomery.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium donated existing large scale banners to AAU and challenged students to create their own innovative designs with the repurposed materials. The 10 compelling design pieces now on display are also featured here on SFGate, where the public can vote on their favorite piece of work, with prizes to be awarded to the winning designs. [Read on]

Is this the high water mark—the point we see the wave of aquatic culture break and roll back?  We can only hope.

(Thanks for the heads up, Andrew!)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

How Bad Can Medjool's Brunch Be?

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

TK has put together a compelling guide to New Year's Day brunching, and the brunch at Medjool is bringing out the morbid curiosity in us all:

At first I was all HA HA BIG JOKE I'LL PUT MEDJOOL ON THERE AND WE WILL LAUGH AND LAUGH and then I looked at the brunch menu and guys, it's a brunch buffet for $10.99, and the mimosas are THREE DOLLARS. It can't be THAT bad for brunch, right? I mean, the spiky-hair/shiny-shirt crowd will be at Circa, not here, right? Somebody talk me down. UNKNOWN STARS.

Uhhhhhhhhhhh, see you there?

[40 going on 28 | Gangsta photo by TJ DeGroat]

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Forthcoming Valencia Street Tacolicious Location Unveils Coming Soon Signage

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Marina-based taco and tequila purveyor Tacolicious is going to great lengths to shed their freighting Chustnut Street image for their foray into the Mission, going so far as to employ the Mission's artistic weapon of choice to paint their new signage. And, as Eater reports, we have a lot more than shots of nondescript tequila and hard-shell tacos to look forward too:

The outdoor seating section will be sheltered by a retractable roof, there will be a designated phone area made out of 1950s and 1970s phone booths and—something new in these parts—tequila on tap.

While all that may sound needless and gimmicky, I'm all sorts of pumped that bars are recognizing the growing need for a quite place to yell at Siri.

Opening this November!

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

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