Jay Barmann
San Francisco Castro
LA-based deli Heroic Italian opens pop-up in Castro with delicious sandwiches and salads
Los Angeles-based sandwich outfit Heroic Italian recently got its feet wet in the Bay Area, launching a pop-up in mid-December inside wine and spirits shop Swirl on Castro (572 Castro Street). With online ordering available, it's a quick and delicious lunch or dinner option — and if you pick it up yourself rather than opting for DoorDash delivery, you can snag a bottle of wine too. Read More
Oakland
New LGBTQ bar headed for I. Magnin building in downtown Oakland
A new LGBTQ bar appears to be headed for downtown Oakland — technically in the Uptown vicinity — in a ground-floor space of the iconic I. Magnin Building at 2001 Broadway. Read More
San Francisco Japantown
Cherry blossom trees in Japantown vandalized, nearly destroyed by vandal
A pair of cherry blossom trees outside the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco's Japantown won't be blooming this year after a vandal or vandals went to great efforts to rip all the branches off of them. Read More
San Jose
Santa Clara County begins seeing ambulance delays due to overwhelmed hospitals
Though the situation in hospitals remains worse in Southern California, Santa Clara County has become the first county in the Bay Area to experience serious delays as ambulances arrive at emergency rooms — due to the ERs and the hospitals already being overwhelmed with patients. As cases and hospitalizations potentially surge again following the holidays, other counties are on alert that this emergency-response failure may spread. Read More
San Francisco Cole Valley Inner Sunset
UCSF pledges to build 1,260 new housing units as part of its Parnassus campus rebuild
UCSF and the City of San Francisco announced a community benefits package that will go along with an agreement for the university to rebuild and expand its Parnassus Heights hospital over the next decade — and it includes 1,263 new units of housing, 40 percent of which will be designated as affordable. Read More
San Francisco Tenderloin
Tenderloin nightclub cited by city for advertising New Year's Eve party
Tenderloin bar/club/restaurant 620 Jones, a.k.a. Jones, got dinged by the SF Department of Public Health this week after it appeared to be promoting a New Year's Eve bash in violation of state and city health orders. Following some confusion about whether the event was still happening, it has been "postponed." Read More
San Jose
Wastewater testing for coronavirus prevalence to begin in Santa Clara County ahead of national CDC effort
A program to test wastewater at sewage treatment plants in order to better assess the presence of the coronavirus in a community is set to begin via a partnership between Stanford University, Santa Clara County, and San Jose’s Environmental Services Department. Read More
San Jose
San Jose restaurant sells winning $18 million lottery ticket
San Jose Vietnamese restaurant Café Paradise (2400 Monterey Hwy) was the location that sold a winning SuperLotto Plus ticket on Saturday — and the unidentified winner is taking home $18 million. Read More
San Francisco
Where to order fancy takeout for New Year's Eve in SF
Before you think about cooking your thousandth meal of the year for the last night of 2020, check out some suggestions for how to treat yourself while also supporting a local business. Read More
Oakland
Oakland's last remaining piano bar, The Alley, in danger of closing
A beloved institution on Grand Avenue in Oakland, The Alley, a divey piano bar/restaurant which has been in operation some 90 years, is one of many bars and music venues around the Bay that have suffered with little or no revenue the past nine months. But now, things are coming to a head because the longtime owner of the bar also has upstairs tenants who are having trouble paying rent. Read More
San Francisco West Portal
Little Original Joe's opens for pizza and pasta takeout in West Portal
The long-awaited West Portal spinoff of Original Joe's, dubbed Little Original Joe's, opened Monday in the space formerly occupied by Paradise Pizza at 393 West Portal Avenue. And unlike the classic, Italian American temples of red sauce that the Duggan family operates in North Beach and Daly City, Little Original Joe's actually serves pizza, as well as pastas and parmigianas. Read More
San Francisco Ocean Beach
The Cliff House set to close indefinitely as longtime operators say Park Service failed to help them
San Francisco's iconic cliffside restaurant overlooking Ocean Beach and the Pacific, The Cliff House, is closing "permanently" according to longtime operators Dan and Mary Hountalas, after they failed to reach a new contract agreement with the National Park Service Read More
San Francisco Mission
Exploding oven throws wrench in Reem's holiday baking plans
Reem's (2901 Mission Street), the Arab bakery-restaurant that opened earlier this year in the former Mission Pie space at 25th and Mission, just suffered another setback in a year of setbacks for the restaurant industry when its primary deck oven apparently exploded. Read More
Oakland
El Gusano calls it quits after seven years in Old Oakland
The Old Oakland sister restaurant to San Francisco's Tropisueno, El Gusano (1015 Clay Street), has closed for good after seven years in business. Read More
San Francisco Castro Duboce Triangle
Lucky 13 shutters for good this weekend in the Castro
It's a sad day for fans of Castro/Duboce Triangle dive Lucky 13 (2140 Market St.), which is giving up the ghost after five years of limbo with the property slated for development. Read More
San Francisco
Boulevard goes into 'hibernation' as more SF restaurants consider doing the same to conserve cash
It was a dismal spring for San Francisco's bars and restaurants, and it looks to be an even more dismal and disastrous winter as more potential COVID restrictions loom and as a second round of federal stimulus relief continues not to arrive. Read More
San Francisco
New statewide stay-at-home order sounding likely as first week of December brings escalating COVID hospitalizations
Just ten days after announcing a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew for all "Purple" tier counties in California, Governor Gavin Newsom today gave a stark warning that stricter orders akin to what we saw in March may be coming within days amid quickly escalating coronavirus case counts and hospitalizations. Read More
San Francisco Financial District
American Institute of Architects takes over ground-floor space in landmark Hallidie Building
The landmark Hallidie Building (130 Sutter St.) is getting a new ground-floor tenant next year, and it's the professional organization for architects that has long occupied some offices on an upper floor of the building. Read More
San Francisco Upper Haight
Haight smoke shop owner arrested in Salt Lake City after allegedly refusing to wear a face mask to board an airplane
A man who made international headlines after allegedly attempting to board a Delta flight out of Salt Lake City while refusing to put on a face mask turns out to be the owner of Upper Haight smoke shop Pipe Dreams (1376 Haight St.), which advertises itself as the oldest smoke shop in San Francisco. Read More
Oakland
Oakland location of Shake Shack plans December opening
Popular New York-based burger chain Shake Shack, which just opened its first San Francisco location earlier this year, is readying its Uptown Oakland outpost for a mid-December opening. Read More
San Francisco Mission
Mozzeria, the Mission's Deaf-owned pizzeria, has closed after nine years
The Bay Area has lost its only Deaf-owned and operated restaurant, Mozzeria (3228 16th St.), due to the ongoing pandemic downturn. Deaf owners Melody and Russ Stein say they will continue operating their food truck, but the time has come to give up the brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Mission. Read More
San Francisco Lower Haight
We've Had a Little Work Done
If you're saying to yourself, "Hey self, does Haighteration looks a little different today?", you would be correct. Here's what we did, and why. Read More
San Francisco Embarcadero
Epicurean Trader aims for January opening at Ferry Building
Amid a fair amount of turnover at San Francisco's Ferry Building this year, we have the good news that local high-end grocer The Epicurean Trader is still on track to open in the former Farm Fresh to You stall by early in the new year. Read More
San Francisco Mission
Rainbow Grocery offers reservations for safer holiday-season shopping
Rainbow Grocery is offering extra-socially-distanced shopping hours by reservation only, for everyone who's nervous about trying to do Thanksgiving grocery shopping amid the usual crush of humanity. Read More
San Francisco SoMa
Torraku Ramen readies new location on Folsom Street in SoMa
Former food truck Torraku Ramen, which opened its first brick-and-mortar spot in the Design District three years ago, is expanding with a new location in SoMa, just south of Yerba Buena at 921 Folsom Street. Read More