โExcelsior Buzzโ is a recurring column on changes, tidbits and other news from the Excelsior. Got news? Send us tips at xueer@missionlocal.comย
April is coming to an end but the Excelsior is starting to see a series of events coming to its streets. This past Sunday, for example, was just one of those days when you would come across an event every few blocks.
Mission Local went to a few. Let’s rewind.ย
Chow Fun, a culinary festival celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month and local small businesses, is returning in 2026 to neighborhoods including the Excelsior, Ocean Avenue, Geneva Avenue and Visitacion Valley, collaborating with over 70 local businesses.
The food festival will last for 15 days from May 2 to May 16 offering cuisines from Hawaii, Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, the Phillipines, Thailand, Vietnam and Asian fusion from Europe and Latin America.
This year, the festival will expand into the Portola.
XLCR Excellence Community Days, a series of free events in the Excelsior at the Norton Street Parking Lot at 20 Norton St. at the intersection of Norton and Mission streets, is kicking off its first of three events โ focusing on health eats and exercise โ on Saturday, May 2 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The series is organized by the Excelsior Action Group, a local organization supporting small businesses and revitalizing commercial corridors.
Its second event on June 6 will focus on learning and education and its third on Aug. 8 on arts and music.
A couple of celebrations defined last weekend.
Sunday Streets, an open-air street festival in six San Francisco neighborhoods, kicked off its 2026 season in the Excelsior on April 26.
The kickoff was hard-earned. Just two months ago in February, the Department of Public Health, which funds the 18-year-old city tradition, announced that it would be cutting all $251,758 for the street festivals from its budget.
Sunday Streets was ultimately able to return with a half-season in the Tenderloin, the Mission and the Excelsior after receiving a $50,000 donation from a private donor and another $50,000 in matching funds from another private donor โ generating a total of $100,000 for the season.
At the Sunday kickoff event, hosted at Casa de Apoyo, a Latino Task Force resource hub located at 4834 Mission St. near Onondaga Avenue, the program gained more fuel.
Aside from attracting neighbors to share some light bites and drinks and DIY bouquets, the event also drew in two Congressional candidates, Scott Wiener and Saikat Chakrabarti.
Chakrabarti, a centimillionaire, announced that he is donating $50,000 of his own money to Sunday Streets and starting a matching fundraiser for the program.
Just outside of the Sunday Streets kickoff was a bake sale, organized by Feline Finesse Dance Company, a dance group based in Bayview-Hunters Point.
On the table under the bake sale tent were slices of cakes baked by Lilla Pittman, the โcoachโ and founder of the dance group: cookie butter cake, pineapple upside down cake, walnut turtle brownie and various kinds of cheesecakes.
โWe are raising money for a new dance studio,โ said Pittman, who started the group with only a few young women ranging from five to 17 years old, practicing everywhere in the city from parks to garages and even Pittman’s own backyard.
Pittman’s group is raising money for new dance floors, lights, electrical work, new toilets, wall patch work and new uniforms and costumes.
Don’t worry if you missed out on the bake sale โ you can still reach out to the dance group via email at felinefinesse.dance@gmail.com or donate here.
The turf war continues at Crocker Amazon park on the Southern end of the city.
The city’s parks department organized a three-hour workshop to present its controversial plans for the $50-million renovation of the park, including five synthetic turf ballfields, a real grass field, artificial turf dog areas and batting cages, a picnic area, outdoor fitness area and dugouts.
Out of the $50 million, $28 million will come from the San Francisco Giants.
The workshop had at least 100 attendees, who rotated between six different tents in the park to listen to different sections of the proposal, ask questions and put down questions on postcards for the Giants and the city’s parks department.
The crowd was a lot bigger than the ones at the city’s Recreation and Park Commission meetings. In attendance were dog walkers, Asian seniors who exercise at the park’s fields and clubhouse, curious residents and members of a local anti-turf group called Keep Crocker Real, whose members held protest signs.
District 11 supervisor Chyanne Chen, was there for almost the entire workshop, except for a short stop at a pizzeria’s grand opening (see below). Chen also brought three of her four staffers, Fiona Kong, Linshao Chin and Charlie Sciammas, to talk to residents and take notes on their feedback.
Bravo Pizza, an Excelsior staple at the intersection of Mission Street and Geneva Avenue reopened under new management with a grand opening on April 26, drawing a crowd of some 80 people for the ribbon cutting and a free slice of pizza.
Sam Hernandez and Jason Yu, the new owners, received two certificates of honor โ one from Chen, the Excelsior District supervisor, and the other from Ernest Jones, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s director of community affairs. Jones, himself a former District 11 supe candidate, attended on Lurie’s behalf as the mayor was on his way back from a trip to China and South Korea.
โIt’s just a great honor to have been able to walk in here as a kid, buy a pizza and sit in there and be a part of something that I did not know one day I would be the owner of,โ said Hernandez, ahead of the ribbon cutting.
It is the fourth year that Preeti Ravaliya, a Mission Terrace resident, has organized the Holi Festival celebration on Otsego Avenue between Ocean and Onondaga avenues. On Sunday afternoon, children put on a play about the story of Holi, attendees learned dance moves together, shared Indian snacks and spread Gulal, the powder of vibrant colors โ into the air.
Holi marks the end of winter, the beginning of spring, and the triumph of good over evil.
Ravaliya, who grew up in Massachusetts and is now raising two girls in the neighborhood, said she grew up with access to a lot of Indian events in her community on the East Coast.
โI noticed that coming here, we all have to travel out [for things like this],โ Ravaliya said, now in her fourth year of organizing the celebration. โSo I really wanted to build this space for my kids.โ
Wanna plan a perfect day in the Excelsior but don’t know where to start? This page by the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development has got your back.ย