If you walk down Bayview’s Third Street corridor on any sun-drenched summer day, you’re bound to come face to face with Elliot Johnson and his truckful of watermelons.
Parked in the middle of the intersection between Revere Avenue and Bayview Street, Johnson is a surprising sight. Amid rows of restaurants, nonprofits, liquor stores and nearby industrial warehouses — miles away from any farm — Johnson, shielding his eyes under a wide-brimmed straw hat, looks as if plucked from an American pastoral.
Johnson chalks that up to his Texas roots.
“We raised our own cows, rode the sheep, and the goats,” recalled Johnson. “We would go fishing. That’s something my dad always liked to do.”
Selling watermelons to San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood began as a family-run venture Johnson ran with his father when he was still a child and would hop in the back of his father’s truck. Johnson said his father moved from Texas to a ranch in Fairfield before settling in San Francisco to work for Muni, which he drove for 44 years.
Despite the hustle and bustle of city life, Johnson still misses the ranch, though, over the years, he’s brought a bit of the country to Bayview-Hunters Point.
Every summer, Johnson and his father would take their truck on the road, frequenting San Francisco’s public-housing complexes in Hunters Point, the Mission, and the Fillmore, often selling the fruit at a reduced rate or throwing in a melon for free.
Though Johnson says that many of their regulars have since moved away, some still recognize his face over three decades later.
“It’s mostly people who knew my dad,” said Johnson. His father died, but Johnson keeps the same supplier at Mayflower Farms in northern California.
“He watched me grow up,” he said of his supplier.
Nowadays, Johnson sticks to his spot on Third Street, where he parks every day until the end of the summer, when the watermelon season reaches its peak. He’s become a well-known and beloved presence, and has a devoted clientele. On a Tuesday summer afternoon, Third Street is quiet and, as is the case on most weekdays, and selling watermelons has its challenges.
On Tuesday, Johnson tried to flag down a woman getting into her car with her childm offering to throw in a watermelon for free. Her child whipped his head around, eyeing Johnson and his truckful of fruit. “Next time!” she promised, before disappearing into her vehicle.
But this isn’t Johnson’s only gig. The rest of the year, he’s a cement mason. He’s mostly in the watermelon business for the love of the game, he says — and to keep up his father’s watermelon-truck tradition alive.
“My father always said a man should have two things: A truck and a house,” he said. “I’ve got both.”
How much do the watermelons sell for?