Dorothy O'Donnell

North Beach may soon be San Francisco’s go-to destination for fans of retro fashions.

Jubilant participants and spectators took over Market Street during yesterday’s 52nd annual San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration and Parade. According to the San Francisco police, an estimated 500,000 people gathered for the festivities.

After a two-year hiatus, San Francisco’s oldest street fair marked its sixty-sixth year by adding new attractions, such as performances by acrobats from "Dear San Francisco" at Club Fugazi, a professional chalk artist competition, and a pet adoption booth.

Since opening in North Beach as a pop-up store specializing in Italian language books in 2017, Libreria Pino has outgrown several different locations in the neighborhood.

North Beach is home to what may be the country’s first smartshop, a retail concept born in Europe featuring mushrooms, psychedelic plants, and the like.

Like an epic concert encore, the planned expansion of Music City San Francisco (1353 Bush Street) — a combination hotel, museum, concert space, bar/restaurant, and band-practice space at the edge of the Tenderloin near Polk — promises to be a showstopper.

North Beach has plenty of places to get your drink on. But until recently, if you were seeking a mellower high from a cannabis dispensary, you were out of luck.

North Beach resident and artist Jeremy Fish is excited about The Fish Tank, his new gallery and studio located at 1331 Grant Ave. But he’s even more thrilled to be part of the renaissance his beloved neighborhood is experiencing now that the worst of the pandemic — knock on wood — is behind us.  

“We were in the Tenderloin for 10 years and were really advocating for the neighborhood,” says owner Kristin Klein. “But I could not turn down a primo location in North Beach for the same price as pre-pandemic Tenderloin.”