Immigrants who can’t afford to feed their families are facing hunger rather than accepting benefits that rumors tell them could put their hopes of becoming citizens in jeopardy, according to immigration attorneys and those who work with food benefits. “We have asylum seekers who are in homeless shelters and they haven’t accessed benefits because they’re afraid it’ll affect their case,”...
Listen Local is Mission Local’s biweekly radio program. We broadcast live online at BFF.fm every other Thursday morning from 9:30 to 10:00. Now in its new home at the Placita, the Mission Community Market has been around for seven years as the neighborhood’s farmers market. But it is more than just another place to buy produce. We talk with Jeremy...
Get ready to gain some weight with me… I can’t help but overindulge when I go to Garçon. I’ve been coming here regularly for the past seven years, but it’s been on that corner for almost 11 now. I’d gone a few times before, but found it hit or miss until Chef Arthur Wall came along, in about 2010. Chef...
People sometimes complain when I review new places, and I get it. The reason I started this gig was to highlight all the places in our neighborhood that don’t always attract attention the new places do, to make sure they don’t get lost in the Gentrification Shuffle. But for me, every restaurant in the Mission makes us who we are....
Kahnfections, which opened its doors on 20th Street between Folsom and Shotwell streets for the first time on Friday, May 6, serves baked goods that are “honest, not pretentious and not really expensive,” according to owner and baker Judy Kahn. Kahn started Kahnfections five years ago as an online business that catered to large parties and ran it out of a...
Bayou opened a little over two months ago, and I was drawn to it because I already knew Chef Arthur Wall’s food. Wall has been the executive chef at Garçon, the French bistro on Valencia and 22nd , for the last six years. When Wall started cooking at Garçon, I started going back to eat there, because the food just...
Taqueria La Cumbre, one of the pioneers of the Mission-style burrito, is celebrating 50 years of making burritos in the Mission. Mission Local recently spoke to owner Edward Duran on everything from the inspiration for their first burritos to doing business in an ever-changing Mission District. La Cumbre’s story began in 1967, when Mexican immigrants Raul and Michaela Duran opened...
Even groceries, among the most location-centric businesses, must now grapple with the demand for delivery in San Francisco. In the Mission, a neighborhood densely populated with grocers of all kinds, that means getting creative, because the cost of doing delivery are high. But the cost of offering nothing in response to the demand for delivery is even higher. “People in...
San Jalisco started out as the New Central Café, in the 50s, located on 14th Street, one of two restaurants Anita and Vicente Padilla opened once they established themselves here from Mexico. Owned by the Padilla-Reyes family, they’ve been at their current location on South Van Ness since 1988, with current chef/owner Josie Padilla-Reyes having taken over cooking duties from...
Of all the calls, howls and squawks heard in the Mission, never has a breathe been spent complaining of an ice cream shortage. Why should it? There’s a parlor just around the corner The Mission, in just 1.5 square miles, boasts ten ice cream makers. “You gotta have your options,” said Melissa Loesgen outside the Mission’s newest addition, Smitten Ice Cream,...
Bar San Pancho on 16th and Guerrero streets is celebrating the completion of a new mural on its Guerrero Street side today, dedicated to the San Francisco Giants and baseball. Artists Sam Flores and Ronnie Buders collaborated on the work. The bar is celebrating with palomas and a Giants-themed beer from Anchor Brewing as well as a fried buffalo chicken taco reportedly favored...
It was more than a year ago that we reported Smitten would be returning to its Mission roots. At the time, the open date appeared to be in the summer, but renovation always runs over, but now it is nearly complete. On Monday night ice cream was being made for friends and family. The official open will be on Thursday....
Behind a roll-up door on a squat industrial building on Potrero Street is a family winery. At once unorthodox and deeply traditional, family name on the sign is not French or Italian like wine aficionados might expect, but rather Georgian. The Erstavi Winery family has been making wine for some 400 years, according to Nikolas Eristavi, the son of winemaker...
Farmhouse Kitchen Thai is Chef Kasem “Pop” Saengsawang’s third restaurant, which he co-owns with his wife, and his first venture into the Mission. The family also co-owns Kitchen Story (Castro) and Blackwood (Marina), both of which include Asian influences in their dishes, but Farmhouse is their only fully Thai restaurant. It is touted as an authentic yet modern take on...
A fryer that once churned out fast-food potato fries will now be producing sweet potato fries made with organic, sustainably sourced palm oil. After being shuttered for two years, the site of an erstwhile McDonald’s on Mission Street near 16th Street has become an all gluten-free catering service called Mealmade, with options for paleo, keto, vegan and other health-conscious eaters....
