Richmond Buzz: Gallerists, influencers, crustaceans and more

The 220 Clement Street gallery and bookstore Park Life has installed a shop at FOG Design+Art festival at Fort Mason — SF Art Week’s central event. They’ll be selling a selection of their books, knick knacks, and curated art works like San Francisco artist Rico Duenas’ lamp sculptures.

If FOG fair’s $40 daily price of admission feels prohibitive, the Minnesota Street Project has this year introduced Atrium, a free alternative festival exclusively featuring local galleries. Though many of the participating galleries are based in the foundation’s Dogpatch warehouse space, a selection of additional galleries in the Atrium lineup will include Clement Street’s own Public Land. The plants-and-wares store will be showing works by four local artists in a space at the Minnesota Street Project.

The Balboa Theater at 3630 Balboa St. celebrated a small victory this week, having successfully installed a “changeover” film projection system without hiccups. For the uninitiated in analogue film projection, this means no more intermissions while the theater’s projectionists change reels. Finally: somewhere to catch Johnny Mnemonic on 35 millimeter, uninterrupted.

In other Balboa Street movie news: filmmaker Kathy Trinh has chosen La Promenade Café at 3643 Balboa St. as a site to promote her upcoming documentary “Dragon Babies.” The film, sponsored by the Bay Area Video Coalition, chronicles Trinh’s search for kindergarten classmates 30 years on. At La Promenade on Jan 24, expect a free sneak-peak of the documentary and fundraising efforts like raffles.

Down the street at 3434 Balboa St., Simple Pleasures Cafe trivia night — “Simple Trivia,” as it’s affectionately called — has returned after a winter hiatus. Employees said they’re excited to see local quizmaster and man-about-town Rick Judge back on the mic. Stop by on Tuesday, Jan 27 at 6:00 PM for the first installment in a couple of months.

On outer Clement street, two small businesses enjoyed the spotlight this month, thanks to a local influencer. It all started when San Francisco-based social media personality Hansel Fernandes — who goes by @hellahansel online — posted a video of a visit to The Art Cafe at 2960 Clement St. captioned “The Best Thai Tea On Earth.” The area is home to a handful of local businesses, and is quiet but likely buoyed by proximity to Lincoln Park and nearby public schools.

Fernandes soon after received a DM request from a ten-year-old named Tawheed, whose family runs Bistro Mediterraneo across the street, to return to the corner of 31st Ave. and Clement St., this time to visit the Middle Eastern deli. Fernandes complied, and posted another video. That second video has received over 60,000 likes on Instagram. In it, Tawheed’s face lights up when he recognizes “Hellahansel.”

“He’s a really kind boy,” said Abdul Tawab, Tawheed’s uncle, in between helping patrons at the relatively crowded cafe Tuesday afternoon. Tawab helps run the family business, and he estimated that they’ve seen a 10 percent uptick in business since the video was posted last week. He also said the video helped his nephew gain confidence socially.

We’ve got news regarding Hologram, a forthcoming bistro-cafe at 2512 Clement St. Last month, we reported that the business was registered under the same LLC as Malama Matcha, an SF-based distributor of the specialty Japanese green tea which can be found inside coffee shops like Snowbird in the Inner Sunset. Turns out, Snowbird and Malama are both under the ownership of partners Eugene and Anna Kim.

Mai’s Vietnamese Restaurant is back! As we reported back in December, the restaurant closed with only a sign in the window citing a “medical procedure.” After a two-month closure and a successful knee-replacement surgery, the restaurant at 316 Clement St. is back to serving classic imperial rolls and delicious cold rice noodles.

Big news out of Peet’s Coffee this week as the Bay Area-founded company announced that they’ll be closing several locations across town. Employees at the 5201 Geary Blvd. location said they hadn’t heard anything from higher-ups about their location, and were cautiously optimistic about remaining open.

At 5801 Geary Blvd., restaurant/cafe AyDea has closed indefinitely. AyDea calls itself the “First & Only Tatar cafe in the USA,” serving up delights from the modern-day Russian Republic of Tatarstan. But they’ve put a hold on serving their lauded halal meat pies and breakfast sandwiches, at least to the general public: according to an Instagram post earlier this month, they’re still open to catering events, and they’ll be at San Francisco Slavic Fest at the end of the month. Let’s hope February sees Tatar’s return to Little Russia. AyDea did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Next door, the stylists at Krave Salon at 5809 Geary Blvd. have relocated to Twin Star Salon at 1100 Clement St., according to a sign posted on Krave’s window. Krave’s former Geary storefront remains empty.

At 5901 Geary Blvd., a new flower studio appears to be emerging. It’ll be a shared space between three entities — two designers and one “School of Bloom,” offering workshop classes to the public.

This new florist arrangement comes after a couple of years of hardship in the space. In 2023, the space was to be a brick and mortar for Saltwater Bakeshop, which sells baked goods out of popular farmer’s markets like Clement Street and the Ferry Building. In 2024, they struggled to cut through red tape and get through the city’s permitting process. Saltwater never opened their doors on Geary Blvd., but frosted glass windows bearing a previous bakery tenant’s name remain.

A few blocks down at 5527 Geary Blvd., City Discount Market #2 appears to have closed. The status of the business is unknown, but commercial fridge appliances inside the store could be seen unplugged and removed.

Inside Abraham Farmers Market grocery store, a new eatery is in the works. An outpost of Zee’s Munchies will soon be in operation inside of the 3931 Geary Blvd. grocery store. Zee’s currently serves modern Dubai-themed pancakes, crepes, and other confections out of a food truck in Oakland. Abraham’s buyer Mahmoud Gebrail said they’re hoping to have the operation up and running in the next few weeks.

But some 30 blocks west at Gus’ Discount Tackle, shop owner Stephanie Ernst Scott knows the best (and earliest) way to get your hands on a crab is to go non-commercial. She’s been selling crabbing materials to individual buyers since November. Her customers, Ernst Scott said, have been finding success crabbing at Ocean Beach just a few blocks from the store.