Mission District

Taco Tragedy on 24th: Decorative Pigeons Shutter Vallarta

— By Zach Perkins |

September was supposed to be a good month for the people at Vallarta, who recently expanded to take over at El Maya Yucatan at 16th St.  Instead, their signature pigeons and a fistful of other health violations shut them down.

The last few weeks have been difficult for taco lovers on 24th.  Since September 8th, we've had to go without the $1.75-per-hit greasy crack rocks of Taqueria Vallarta.  And in a twist that's sure to surprise no one, it was the indoor pigeon mascots that shut them down.  According to the SF Appeal, a pair of patrons were “chowing down on their favorite Mission District Mexican food selections” when they noticed the pigeons in the dining area and their nest in the rafters.  

First of all, there's no way that Vallarta is one of your 'favorite Mission selections' or whatever, if pigeons flying around and nesting inside the dining room is a new or shocking revelation to you.  There are definitely a lot of gnarly issues that Vallarta needs to fix (renovations have began and they should be allowed to re-open in the next week or so according to an employee we spoke with last weekend), but you probably shouldn't be selecting the taqueria with after-market car speakers mounted on the walls (just below the pigeon nests) when selecting your next purveyor of strange meats grilled on top of what looks like an overturned oil drum attached to a food cart if these sorts of things bother you.

Motorist Shot or Stabbed on Folsom

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Details are kind of sketchy on this, but a reader forwards us along with this shot with a little reportage from 21st and Folsom:

Supposedly a driver of a car was shot or stabbed at 18th and Folsom. A few people who witnessed it said driver drove two blocks until he crashed. Then he got out of his car and started limping down the street on a broken leg until the cops got him.

The street's completely shut down now.

Mission Local Updates:

A man was shot in the stomach on Guerrero Street at around 7:30 p.m. on Monday after he confronted a group of people outside of Valencia Gardens and shot into the group, police said.

Someone in the group shot back, wounding the man in the stomach. His car was also hit, police said.

The injured man then fled in his car. UCSF officers noticed him speeding east on 17th Street and running a red light at Folsom Street.

The Continued Parisification of the Mission Means You Can Now Kick Over Chairs and Flowers Outside of Napper Tandy While Belligerently Drunk at 2pm on a Sunday Afternoon

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

I know that our generation has been trained to hate everything Paris-related because the French didn't 'like' America on Facebook after 9/11 or whatever, but the recent explosion of outdoor seating around the Mission is nothing to hate.  Pica Pica received their outdoor seating permit a few weeks back, Hog & Rocks seems to be working on sidewalk seating, and now that Irish bar on 24th and South Van Ness that no one you know has ever been to has a bunch of tables, umbrellas, and flower planters.

While the trend might be a good thing for pasty brunchers, Napper Tandy building a sidewalk patio is particularly curious.  Unlike Valencia, the aromas of 24th are generally not the most pleasant—nevermind how narrow the sidewalks are.  Yet, people seem to be digging it.

The bartender, whose voice sounds like a proper South Boston leprechaun, said the bar tried to do sidewalk seating back in 2003.  “It lasted about a week; we spent too much time dealing with the homeless and their carriages.”  Suffice it to say, they think a significantly less sketchy 2011 Mission District will lead to improved fortune.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Muralists Bitch Slap Clarion Alley Taggers

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

It seems that painters in Clarion Alley are finally growing tired of dealing with bombers vandalizing their murals.  These two muralists, whos names I won't publish to protect their other works from retaliation, saw a mural they began painting yesterday irreparably destroyed last night.

“We had a sign over the mural saying it was in progress and to respect it, but someone threw up a giant piece over it anyway.”

They've given up on painting in the alley and are in search of a new place that they can help establish a new mural project on, but they decided to leave the alley and its taggers with a parting gift before bouncing.

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Ritual Roasters Unveils "Ritual Farm" For PARK(ing) Day

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

Ritual took PARK(ing) Day to the next level for 2011, waking up at 3am to erect a new barn exterior and bring in a sheep petting zoo.  Sadly, the hay and straw parklet that makes the entire block of Valencia smell like a pumpkin patch and Ritual's rad new exterior is going to be ripped down in a few hours, so bust over there and get your fill before it's gone.

Brazen Bandit

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

This monster piece recently went up on Valencia's New College Building, across from the late-night coffee bar / power outlet The Summit.  Which makes this piece especially impressive considering there's an all-hours gaggle of people in possession of three redundant Apple products that all take pictures.

'A Metric Fuckton of Unadorned Radness'

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

For the denizens of Dolores Park, Zoltron's ever-changing plywood wall beside Bi-Rite Creamery is nothing new.  It started out as a strung-out tribute to Ronald McDonald's 48-year-long slaughter campaign, but it was quickly vandalized by hipsters criticizing hipster street art.  The greater neighborhood community responded by vandalizing the vandalism and Mother Earth, not knowing how to handle the puzzling situation, spun off its axis and sent earthquakes to D.C. and summer rainstorms to California.

Zoltron explains how it all started:

For the hell of it, i was drawing a famous clown named Ronald (as a junky villain derelict,) but somewhere along the way, I saw a glint of compassion in his eyes. So the drawing ended up showing Ron suddenly caught in an existential crisis of sorts… Like he just realized that he was solely responsible for the death of hundreds of millions of cows. Maybe he suddenly understood that he was fueling massive rainforest destruction and undeniably accountable for child obesity and onset adolescent diabetes.

So i drew him, printed him out, mixed up some pigment and painted on some paper. Then I pasted him up in a foodie district in the mission. The following photographs [GIFed above] were taken over the next 2 weeks.

The chaotic mixture of paper, wheatpaste, spraypaint, finger paint, drug addiction, and disdain for thousand calorie hamburgers and hipsters has long since been replaced, but it will be back on display beginning Friday when Bi-Rite's non-profit, 18 Reasons, opens the doors to their new 18th Street space.  Free tickets to the opening are still available, and if you can't make the opening, Zoltron has some additional shots and analysis on his blog.

(Thanks for the heads up, Bruce!)

Previously on Uptown Almanac: 

Foodies: Mission Gang Violence is "Fun"

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

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.

New Mission Theater is a Dump

— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |

New Mission Theater was open for business this week, and by open for business, I mean “people were shoveling mounds of garbage out the front gate.” Does this mean Gus Murad, owner of New Mission Theater and neighboring garbage dump Medjool, is moving forward with his shelved dream project of turning the towering icon into a restaurant and bar, or is he just cleaning the place up to flip it on the market?

Regardless, 25 years of decline and neglect certainly takes a toll on a place:

[1986 photo by American Classic Images]

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