Potrero

Barry McGee Special Exhibition Opens This Afternoon

Barry McGee (if you don't know who he is, go read up) is going to be a part of a special exhibition that opens at 3pm (until 6pm) this afternoon and you'll most certainly want to be there:

Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to announce a special exhibition by Barry McGee at the gallery's off-site space at 1717 17th Street in San Francisco's Potrero Hill district. Contemporary Arts Centre describes the community acknowledging its present and past: an installation featuring work by McGee and fellow invited artists.

Moving easily across the boundaries of street art, historical High Art, private/anonymous art practices and museum-sanctioned collections, Barry McGee has created and collaborated on artworks appreciated by a broad audience. Acclaimed for his work as a graffiti artist and for his installations in galleries, museums and art festivals around the world, the artist crafts a language that resonates as a shared public experience as well as on a private intimate scale. Addressing social concerns of urban life, yet elaborating a unique personal style, McGee's works focus on a shared humanity, one painstakingly hand-detailed, finely-painted image at a time.

If you miss today's opening, the exhibition runs April 14th to May 19th and will be open Thurs-Sat., 11am-5pm.

[via Fecal Face]

Who Wants to Go Drinking in a Whole Foods?

Bored of drinking in dimly-lit Mission bars that aren't filled with the screams of hungry children?  Now you can go get lit on the ground floor of Potrero Hill's Whole Foods.  Seriously:

This week I ventured out to Steep Brew, the brand new artisan beer bar at The Whole Foods in Potrero Hill (450 Rhode Island). They're currently trying on 16 beer taps for size in lieu of the ground level's former—and dare I say much less exciting—prepared foods and a pastry case. It's hard to escape that supermarket glow, but Steep Brew is making valiant efforts to get your mind off your shopping list.

There are two TVs (one looping Princess Bride on our visit: Awesome), bar-top seating, an open kitchen surrounding a wood-fired oven, and even a beer master.

Read on at 7x7.

[First pic by Idiot Tempers / Second by 7x7]

Dear Mom Buys Mission Hill Saloon, Bringing the Mission its Fourth Thieves Bar

Our buddy, who was close to the deal, brings us word that beloved Potrero Ave dive Mission Hill Saloon has been purchased by Jay and Oliver of Dear Mom:

Bad news, or good news… I'm having a hard time deciding. The Saloon changed hands today. It'll be closed on Monday for remodeling. The buyers? Jay and Oliver of Dear Mom.

Mike, the previous owner of The Saloon, took a greater share of (silent) ownership of all Thieves bars in return. Now we can all celebrate (or mourn) the arrival of another official Thieves bar.

When I followed up for more details on the new bar, this is all I got back:

They're going to change much of the decor from what I gather. Redoing the bar and hopefully the bathrooms. Many of the bartenders will likely lose their jobs… Jay and Oliver will run it. I imagine it will be more like Dirty Thieves than Dear Mom.

Also, there's going to be a party Sunday night for anyone who loved it. I'm truly sad about the change of ownership. The Saloon was a true dive bar… it's gonna change forever.

Don't get me wrong, it's not hard for me to get behind an outing to Dear Mom.  But Mission Hill Saloon was one of the better dives in the hood: the drinks were cheap, the bartenders were awesome, the bathroom wall art was some of the best in town, the pool table was often free, annoying people generally didn't walk in the door, and it was one of the few places left where the bartenders would get so trashed that the customers had to take care of them.  It had real character (not to say Dear Mom doesn't, but it's undeniably different); one I can't imagine will remain.

(Oh, and let's hope pray they don't stop selling Keystone)

UPDATE: It's facebook-official.

Beer Blowout

I'm not one to promote a nasty big business, but the Potrero Hill Whole Foods on 17th is currently blowing out their entire beer supply for 20% off.  That means a PBR tallboy that normally costs a buck fifty is now only $1.20.  Deal!

(Thanks for the heads up & pic, Rhiannon!)

12 Ounces of Shitty High School Nostalgia Available at Mission Hill Saloon

Prior to walking into Mission Hill Saloon for the first time, I didn't even know you could buy The Binge Drinker's Light Beer in the Mission.  And at two bucks a can, it's certainly more expensive than I remember.  But if you have a thirst for the swill you drank behind the 7/11 dumpster when you were 15, MHS has you covered.

(Oh, and their bathroom works of art are mightly nice too)

Just Another Tuesday Night at Mission Hill Saloon

I don't go to Mission Hill Saloon nearly often enough, but after reading about the mayhem that goes down there on tastr, I'm tempted to change my ways:

Tonight at the Saloon, a man of many addictions with a bike seat necklace, walked into the bar and demanded a drink. When denied, he turned around and promptly downed a shot of hot wax from the candle nearest him. He stared everyone deep into their eyes and walked out. Wtf?

And if that isn't enough insanity for you, be sure to read up on their Buffalo Trace / Session Lager drink special.

Toxic Beach Seems Like As Good a Place As Any For a Pet Cemetery

Here rests the corpse of Fluffy and San Francisco's industrial spirit.

Dogpatch's Toxic Beach has been going through quite the revival lately.  The city recently built a new park just up the road, all the walls are freshly painted, the notorious waist-high weeds have been cut down to nice grass, a neighbor has planted a flower garden, and now the park is home to a bizarre rock garden that resembles a twisted and terrible pet cemetery.

“Well Billy, if hadn't put your chocolate soy milk bottle in the wrong recycling bin maybe Mr. Barkley wouldn't have died.”

While I'm sure there are no animals actually buried at the reclaimed tire dump, there's nearly a dozen monuments to pets: a dog, lizard, snake, bird, and more than three turtles.

One of Toxic Beach's resident homeless claims a guy shows up “almost everyday” to work on the monuments with the Port Authorities' blessings, but the evidence left behind suggests that this is not the work of a man who obtains permission from various elected, appointed, or paid authorities, but rather goes about his business with Frank Chu-like zeal:

On a slightly unrelated note: while leaving Toxic Beach after taking these snaps, a large and menacing animal control officer stopped my friend and I to ask us if we saw a “large black dog” running around the park, “looking distressed or scared.”  We dismissed this inquiry at the time, but now I can't help but feel that the ghost of Mr. Barkley is roaming the streets of Potrero Hill, looking to punish Billy for his blue bin apathy.

Cesar Chavez Bike Lanes Canned

Looks like the bike lanes along Chavez that would have established a safe route from the Mission to the Dogpatch that everyone was so psyched about has been scrapped due to concerns about its impact on traffic. Mission Local reports:

The cause of the abrupt change of plan, said David Beaupre, planner for the Port of San Francisco, was lack of communication between groups working on different transportation plans for the city. […]

Removing one eastbound lane on Cesar Chavez and replacing it with a bike lane on each side of the street has been a part of MTA plans for Cesar Chavez since at least 2009. The plans themselves were the result of two years of collaboration between the San Francisco Planning Department, the SFTMA, Department of Public Works, the Public Utilities Commission, and multiple community groups.

But, said Beaupre, when the Cesar Chavez redesign was being planned by the MTA, the Planning Department’s visions for Cesar Chavez were not taken into account. Although the two agencies have been in talks for many months now, it was only recently that the MTA abandoned the bike lane plan as it stands now. […]
Turning an eastbound lane of an already narrow and busy street could lead to 1,200 to 1,500 foot-long columns of idling trucks, said James Shahamiri, an assistant engineer for the MTA. A number of businesses in the area had expressed concern about the lanes impacts on the flow of goods, he added. Belatedly, the MTA realized that their project was not being real consistent with the Planning Department’s  goals, he said.

Read on.

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