In a push to strengthen the neighborhood, two business groups have joined forces to publish the SoMa Guide, with 32 pages listing area resources, and including an eight-page fold-out map.
Members of the South Beach Mission Bay Business Association (SBMBBA) and the South of Market Business Association (SOMBA) hired VIA MEDIA to create the four-by-nine-inch booklet, which will be distributed at hotels, visitor centers (such as Hallidie Plaza), community centers and area businesses. It lists the two organizations' nearly 100 members by category, and provides a brief history of SoMa and an overview of its neighborhoods.
"It really does become a resource for both residents and visitors," said Robert Sokol of VIA MEDIA. His company produces similar guides for a number of business groups, including the Castro Merchants and Noe Valley Merchants and Professionals Association, along with programs for theater groups and nonprofits like SF Pride and the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus.
Brickhouse Cafe is one of nearly 100 businesses listed in the SoMa Guide. (Photo: Brickhouse Cafe/Facebook)
Sokol said locals use the guides as both an at-your-fingertips list and a means to discover things they wouldn't normally know about the area. He said it could prompt someone to say, “Oh look, they were repairing ships at Second and King Street; that’s interesting.”
The idea for the guides came from hotel concierges, Sokol said, who told the business groups that many tourists already knew about Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square, but wanted to explore the city's neighborhoods. Updated each year, the guides add more and more content on topics like dining, kids' activities or pets.
Pawtrero is featured in the SoMa Guide. (Photo: Geri Koeppel/Hoodline)
The guides are also an enticement for area businesses to join the merchants' associations, because only members can be listed and purchase an ad. The guides can also be profit centers for the groups: Sokol's husband and business partner, Ron Willis, and other salespeople sell ads for the guides. "It’s a member-generating tool, a revenue-generating tool, and most importantly, a neighborhood promotion tool,” Sokol said.
This first guide is a "starter kit" of sorts, Sokol explained, and will grow over time, as the Castro Guide did. "Next year we’ll hopefully add content," Sokol said, because they'll sign on more members and sell more advertising. Sokol's firm becomes a member of each of the associations that hires it.
"My husband has a saying: 'Nobody wants to eat the first waffle,'" Sokol said. "'When I see one, I’ll decide for the next one.'” That’s normal with just about every neighborhood we’ve gone into. And then people see it, and they want to be a part of it."
