— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Perhaps not the most obvious partnership, but for the cost of five foil tubes of soyrizo paired with a thimble salsa, this thousand calorie log of intestinal mayhem could be what people see when you bust out a sick ollie or whatever.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
There it is, sitting two stories above an abandoned gas station parking lot on 15th and South Van Ness. Not even locked up, malleable Kmart wheels and chic pink flat bars still intact.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
We're big fans of La Oaxaqueña: their banana leaf mole tamales practically melt in your mouth, the bowls of guacamole are as big as your face, their cup of hot chocolate is as thick as they come, they have some of the finest bathroom art in the Mission, you can carry in your own 24s of King Cobra and Four Loko, and a full meal for four will only set you back $30. But as many have lamented, they've been shut down for the last two months, forcing us to once again settle for the midnight tacos and burritos we've all become accustomed too.
Well, Eater brings us news that everyone's favorite Mission Street tamale parlor has posted a sign in the window promising an imminent comeback:
“Dear Customers, please have patience. We will re-open very soon. We have been busy restructuring and revamping our space and our New & Exciting menu!!! [sic]”
Eater is banking on the “new & exciting menu” being FDA and Health Dept. compliant, but let's hope they don't change a thing.
[Eater]
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Terry B. has been posting up photos all week from last weekend's festivities and, from the looks of it, I had picked the wrong weekend to hang out in Nevada.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Swoon's giant wheatpaste memorializing hundreds of murdered Mexican women from Juárez on the corner of 24th and Hampshire has been a favorite of ours for the last three and a half years, and after surviving years of bipolar San Francisco weather, smeared feces, and the yellow 2 a.m. byproduct of $1 beers at Pop's, someone said “fuck it” and painted over the damn thing.
Here's what Mission Local had to say about the work way back in 2008:
The piece is unsigned, but [Precita Eye's Patricia Rose] determined from Internet research that it was probably the work of a 30-year-old Brooklyn street artist who goes by the alias Swoon. The artist showed an almost identical piece last spring at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Though the Hampshire Street version is untitled, the museum work was called “Portrait of Silvia Elena,” and was a memorial to a teenage victim killed in a wave of unsolved murders of women in Juarez, the Mexican border town. The exhibit’s materials explained that the young woman, Silvia Elena Rivera Morales, is portrayed in her quinceañera dress and crown. Still another version of the installation was on display at the Honey Space gallery in Manhattan last summer.
Troubled by the thought that impending rainy season could destroy the piece, Kassa is considering taking action.
[…]
“She told me she wanted it to be there for long,” [Kassa, convenience store owner at the corner of 24th and Hampshire] said. He said the artist and her friend told him they were going to apply a final coating to protect it but never returned again.Precita Eyes sells a gallon of Sheercoat for $68 that can be applied in four coats to protect murals. He is game to buy it if he can find someone to help him shoulder the cost.
Here it is, one last time:
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Bi-Rite and their new weekend bouncer.
San Francisco Magazine, a 7x7 for people who read good, published a gushing review of Bi-Rite Market's business model. Everything in there makes it sound great: owner Sam Mogannam is hands-on and willing to jump in to do menial work, he'll financially bail out his suppliers when they hit rough patches, he closely observes customer demand to tweak the product offering, and the market is uncompromising on the quality of their goods. However, the real kicker is business has grown by roughly $1 million/year since it opened, with sales of $13.8 million in 2010, eight times the sales per square foot of a Safeway.
Business aside, the best part of the entire article was its brief focus on Sam's early days at Bi-Rite, prior to owning and operating it:
When Mogannam was 15 years old, the market was owned by his father and uncle. The Mission district hadn’t yet been discovered by a generation of tattooed 25-year-olds happy to stand in line for a $3 latte. Just up the street, Mission Dolores Park was popular with unemployed men who spent their days drinking fortified wine, some of which they bought at Bi-Rite. Though he was not yet old enough to drink, in 1983 Mogannam asked his father if he could remerchandise the wine department. He got rid of the Night Train Express, MD 20/20, and Ripple, and on the advice of the store’s wine reps brought in their strongest sellers—Sebastiani, Robert Mondavi, and Beaulieu Vineyard. The drunks found someplace else to shop, and Bi-Rite’s wine sales soared.
On that note, the other day I was sitting in the park near the balding wino casually known as “the Hunter S. Thompson of Dolores” (as he's always drunk, can be generally found yelling like a lunatic, and consistently dons a white bucket hat) and he was doing his usual wasted stumble and scream around the park. A passing girl, clearly struck with disbelieve that this man can afford to be drunk again, let out a big sigh and scolds, “I want to know who your wine supplier is. Who the hell is giving this to you, because you sure as fuck cannot afford it yourself?”
The man stood there erect for a view seconds, his head cocked to the side as he desperately tried to focus his vision. “I just steal it from Bi-Rite!” (Two seconds pause) “Wait, are you a cop?!”
— By Zach Perkins |
Over the last week some ambitious, albeit confusing, bottle cap art popped up on a garage door on Bryant St between 24th and 25th. It's definitely a Civil War era portrait, but as to who it is and why, I'm not so sure. The consensus amongst local HIstory Channel nerdz is that it's an image of Confederate General 'Stonewall' Jackson. My brain is apparently incapable of understanding why anyone in San Francisco, and the Mission for that matter, would want to tout a giant image of the man who lead the Confederacy to victory in the Battle of Bull Run (parts 1 and 2).
Maybe they used beer bottle caps as some sort of commentary on him as a raging alcoholic? After drudging up some quotes from Stonewall himself, it seems like the guy definitely had some problems with the bottle in his life:
I like liquor — its taste and its effects — and that is just the reason why I never drink it.
…
I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy.
Whatever. It's street art, it's there to be rad until someone inevitably defaces it. Maybe they'll throw up an Abe Lincoln next.
UPDATE: Uptown reader 'Steve', who is ten million times smarter than all Uptown authors and their so called 'history buff' friends combined, has correctly identified this image as Emperor Norton, aka the man who built the Bay Bridge, aka 19th century proto-Frank Chu.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
The Capp Street block party got shut down by SFPD a few years back for a lack of permits, but it's back in its former full glory for the 2011 edition of BFF. Here're the details:
And here's more of what you can expect:
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Drinking, fucking, shitting, pissing, puking, bleeding, stabbing, discharging firearms, sleeping, yelling, snorting, smoking, eating Taco Bell, blissing out, making out, mumbling indiscriminately, dry heaving, dry humping, disposing of used condoms, kicking, screaming, can collecting, dancing, tripping, falling, crying, jizzing, shooting blanks, coughing, breaking, entering, thieving, selling, painting, spraying, and mugging are all O.K., just please, channel your inner-Kate Moss elsewhere.
— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Photo by Den Dowling
