Tonantzin Alcantar Bratt fiddled behind the counter of Newkirk’s, and a customer across the room sneezed three times. “Bless you,” Alcantar Bratt said after each, smiling widely. “Thanks,” the woman said, beaming back.
Tuesdays to Fridays, customers at the Potrero Avenue Philly cheesesteak shop can count on Alcantar Bratt being behind the counter, arranging the restaurant’s iconic jalapeño hot sauce in tiny containers or peeling carrots.
Whether it be hospital nurses still in scrubs on a lunch break, or late-risers jonesing for a sausage, egg and cheese, the curly-haired 26-year-old speaks to each as if they were old friends. “That’s a great shirt,” she interjects, or, “how did that party you mentioned turn out?”
“I just love talking to people,” she said, adding that she lives vicariously through the stories she hears. Her openness and demeanor relieve. Newkirk’s proximity to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital means sometimes a family member of a patient drops by needing to vent. She recently comforted a man who had his car broken into, and then stolen.
Alcantar Bratt says her propensity for chatting up others took off as a teenager, when she interrogated the Uber drivers about any bit of life advice an adolescent could want to know. (Yes, she lied about her age to use Uber, to get to and from parties on the West Side.)
“I would get, like, the craziest responses,” she said. “Just the look of shock on the drivers’ faces was very rewarding. Like, ‘why is this teenager asking me this question?”
The young woman was born and raised in San Francisco until the age of 9 when her mom moved the family to Sonoma County for a more idyllic lifestyle. Images of Page Street and the public library remain her first memories.
The transition proved difficult for Alcantar Bratt, whose eccentric personality didn’t translate at a new school. She was bullied “like, relentlessly, every day since sixth grade,” until a teacher’s intervention and some “nice, popular girls” accepted her. That experience, she says, compels her present inviting attitude.
“I never want to feel that again. And I don’t want anybody to ever feel that way,” she said.
Her mom moved her back to San Francisco when she was 15, and Alcantar Bratt was “grateful to be back.” She went to Mission High School, and delved into artsy subjects inspired by some experiences she had in Sonoma.
After trying out some different jobs, including a tech internship at Kaiser and as a photographer for the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, Alcantar Bratt decided to pursue theater, which she’s studying now at City College of San Francisco.
To pay the bills, she started at Newkirk’s after stumbling upon an ad on Craigslist. It said “that you’d make around like $30 an hour. And I was like, ‘I’m in!’”
She invested in her regulars, and worries when one hasn’t stopped by in a while.
When Becca hadn’t stopped by in days, she grew concerned. “We didn’t know what happened to her and she was elderly. So I was like, oh … shit. Is she okay?” (She was on vacation in Mexico.) When another regular who brings the staff lemons announced a hip surgery, she implored, “‘Please call me. Please call me. So we know you’re okay.”
What’s up Newkirks!! Shout out from Outer Orbit. Love you guys!
What a positive to read of an afternoon. All best to her hopes and aspirations. Dreams, too! 🙂
Is this lovely woman related to Benjamin Bratt’s family– organizers of the native Indian occupation of Alcatraz, 1969-71?