Castro barbershop Healing Cuts (3903 18th St.) has shuttered after just one year in the Castro. The barbershop's last day in this space will be December 1.

Although 2020 seems to be unending, the holiday season is upon us, and it’s worth remembering the wealth of small businesses scattered across San Francisco that offer the perfect gifts for friends, loved ones, and even yourself.

After a local businessman started a fund to cover the costs of San Jose businesses hit with fines for Covid violations over Thanksgiving weekend, support has flooded in from other business owners wanting to help.

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.

After 43 years in business, the family-owned Upper Haight mainstay Haight Ashbury T-Shirts is closing permanently at the end of the year, citing the economic pressures of a pandemic that's killed virtually all tourist traffic to the neighborhood.

For months now, most businesses have been adhering to health measures and restrictions brought on by the pandemic, but there has never been full-blown enforcement of the rules in Santa Clara County, until now.

The cultural fabric of Union Square has been brightened with a spiffy new incarnation of the iconic Britex Fabrics sign.

Like other once-thriving brick-and-mortar retailers, Fry’s Electronics stores seem to be slowly disappearing. The latest casualty for the San Jose-based chain is its store on Hamilton Avenue in Campbell. 

Last week the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District (Castro CBD) announced plans to seek immediate community feedback regarding a controversial proposal to install a private network of security cameras.

The city's Office of Cannabis this week approved the application filed earlier this summer for FGW Haight to operate a cannabis dispensary at 768 Stanyan Street, currently a residential garage on a quiet block near Kezar Pub and facing Golden Gate Park.

Though Union Square is still mostly boarded up like a ghost town, a new cannabis dispensary opening today is creating a big buzz.

Male Image barbers Philip Stover and David Hone have partnered with Jim Bolton to reopen the barbershop.

After the second change of ownership in five years and a full renovation, the former Loews Regency (nee Mandarin Oriental Hotel) has reopened as the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco at Embarcadero.