Storied: San Francisco

This episode is six years overdue. That's because Storied: SF got started in a booth upstairs at one of our favorite spots in all The City:  Vesuvio Café . In Part 1, we sit down in that same booth where it all began in 2017 to chat with Vesuvio co-owner  Janet Clyde . We begin with a talk about what a great place for bars San Francisco is. Janet brings up touristic spots we love, as I had joined...

Earlier this year, I got to see a couple movies as part of the 66th annual San Francisco International Film Festival. It was awesome. SFFILM , the non-profit that puts the festival on each April, is kicking off its documentary mini-fest tonight. This bonus episode is a quick chat with Jessie Fairbanks, SFFILM's director of programming. Enjoy our talk and go see some killer documentaries this weeke...

In Part 2, Teresa shares how she came to find out about Chef Eddie Blyden through a mutual friend. She was persistent in her efforts to track Eddie down, and once she did, she asked him to teach the youth in the nascent Old Skool program, which was still taking place at Teresa's house. Eddie agreed to join the Old Skool crew and he brought in other SF chefs. They did supper salons and pop-ups as w...

​Welcome to Season 6 of the Storied: San Francisco podcast! We really couldn't dream of a better place to kick things off than Bayview's  Old Skool Café . In Part 1, we meet  Teresa Goines , the founder and president of Old Skool. Originally from Tucson, Teresa spent a lot of time growing up in the country (which we call desert) outside Tucson. She left to get a bachelor's degree in psychology at...

In Part 3, we meet Mini Bar's Operations Manager, Erin Kehoe . Erin is a sixth-generation San Franciscan. Her uncle researched family history, which was complicated by the fact that her grandma was orphaned. When you consider time in the state of California, her family history goes back here to when it was part of Mexico. Much like John, she was born at Kaiser on Geary. In fact, Erin says, John's...

We open Part 2 with a discussion on the nature of neighborhood bars. An opportunity arose for John when he left the corporate world. His then-wife, Sommer Peterson, reminded him of his idea to open a bar when she also left the 9 to 5. Sommer researched spots in the general area of Divisadero and stood in lines at City Hall. After scouting a couple other locations, they found the current spot, whic...

Welcome to the final episode of Season 5! We saved a special one for last for a good reason. Mini Bar is, of course, where we're having our first art show (Hungry Ghosts) in more than three years. But it's also a neighborhood bar, and neighborhood bars are such a great symbol of the beating heart of San Francisco. Our whole dang thing, Storied: SF, was founded in a neighborhood bar, in fact. In Pa...

In Part 3, we pick up where we left off in Part 2, with Mike's story of arriving at Bluxome Street early in the morning on Dec. 4, 2022. His San Francisco legacy business, Babylon Burning, was on fire. Mike recounts the SFFD firefighters taking care when breaking into the  63 Bluxome  art gallery doors that led to Babylon Burning. It was Mike, his wife Judy, and his brother, Clam's, gallery, and i...

When COVID hit, in March 2020, Babylon Burning kept working. In Part 2 of our episode on San Francisco's oldest screenprinting ship and their new location on Howard Street, we talk with owners Mike Lynch and Judy Tam-Lynch about the several years of hardship that lead to their new location. It started with the worldwide shutdown back in 2020. They were lucky enough to already have orders from esse...

Welcome to the penultimate episode of Season 5! We're revisiting our 2018 podcast with  Babylon Burning's Mike Lynch in Part 1. Part 2 next week will be a talk with Mike and his wife, Judy, about their new location on Howard Street. We'll also chat about their new art space: Gallery 939. We recorded Part 1 of this podcast at Babylon Burning in the South of Market in August 2018. Photography by  Mi...

Part 2 catalogs Smiley's journey out of high school and into the world of jobs and being a young adult. Then we get to her time at BVOH, which began about four years ago. It started with an entry-level job, which she didn't mind doing because it got her foot in the door. Built in 1888 by the Masons, the then-designated "South San Francisco Opera House" was a spot for them to meet and host performa...

In Part 1 of our episode on the Bayview Opera House , we sit down with opera house Programming Manager  Ashley Smiley , (who goes by "Smiley"). Smiley shares how her family ended up in San Francisco. Her mom was born and raised in SF, but her mom's mom, a mixed-race woman, came from Texas. Her family was run out of that state by the KKK. That family landed in the Hunter's Point area and ended up i...

Hi! This is a short bonus episode to fill you in on some recent stuff. Learn more about what we have planned as we wind down Season 5 and get ready for our first art show in more than three years! And join us next week for an all-new episode about the Bayview Opera House.

In Part 2, Brian and Zeima start off with a discussion of "green gentrification" and how, being a community-based non-profit that plants trees, FUF aims to mitigate that. We hear all about how plantings work, starting with FUF's community engagement team identifying areas delineated by grants and specifically targeting disadvantaged parts of The City. Another criteria is simply areas that look lik...

​Friends of the Urban Forest  exists on the premise that there are "no trees in San Francisco." That of course isn't the literal truth. But we'll get to that. In Part 1 of our episode on  FUF , we sit down with Tree Planting Program Manager  Zeima  Kassahun  and Executive Director   Brian Wiedenmeier  to chat about the non-profit's 42-year history of making San Francisco greener. We learn a little...

In Part 2, Maria speaks about the many types of events that have taken place at the Women's Building over the years. This includes: poetry readings, quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings, even a Green Day show and other punk shows in the '90s. It's also served as a safe space. Many non-profit community groups have come out of the Women's Building. La Casa de las Madres and the Women's Foundation Califo...

This episode is all about the Women's Building , a structure on 18th Street in the Mission that has served so many purposes for more than 50 years. In Part 1, we talk with two members of the Women's Building staff— Maria Arteaga , Women's Building content specialist/social media manager, and  Kristen Acosta , their   community engagement coordinator. Maria starts us off by sharing her life story....

In Part 2 of our episode on Club Fugazi , we welcome guests we're not totally sure are human. All kidding aside, Maya Kesselman Cruz and Dominic Cruz are two super-talented cast members of Dear San Francisco . Now a married couple, Maya and Dominic share the stories of their lives in circus arts, which go back to San Francisco's Circus Center. Maya started there when she was 10, roughly 20 years a...

When SF natives Gypsy Snider and Shana Carroll hatched their idea for a show in the space once occupied by Beach Blanket Babylon, they set out to pay homage to their hometown. The result was Dear San Francisco , a high-flying, loop-jumping, juggling, acrobatic love letter to The City. In Part 1 of our episode on  Club Fugazi , where  Dear San Francisco  takes place seven times every week, we sit d...

In Part 2, we begin with the decision to open MBC. Molly had known her friend Sommer Peterson since high school, and Sommer had a long history in her family with bowling. The idea was hatched in 2010, and on Jan. 1, 2011, the two signed their lease. Molly acknowledges help they got from joints like Albany Bowl and Serra Bowl and we pay homage to Sea Bowl in Pacifica, which had announced its closin...

There's an awesome little six-lane bowling alley tucked into the heart of the Mission. In this episode, we get to know  Molly Bradshaw , owner of  Mission Bowling Club . Molly traces her steps from coastal Mendocino to Citrus Heights when she was in second grade. She spent the rest of her youth in the Sacramento area, eventually going to punk shows in Sacto and at Gilman in Berkeley. Molly's grand...

We're rerunning this episode we did with Isaiah and Dani from Dragonspunk about a year ago for a good reason. These two are spearheading an effort to bring a farmer's market to the new Southeast Community Center in the Bayview. To learn more or get involved, please go to the Dragonspunk site. And enjoy getting to know Dani and Isaiah!

In Part 2, Kavitha and Byron talk about the nonprofit's relationship with and support of students from San Francisco public schools. We hear all about really cool projects that the kids engage in, from publishing books to producing podcasts. Then we talk about the expansion that 826 Valencia has undergone over the years. In San Francisco, they've opened two new nonprofit learning centers that each...

We've been wanting to do this episode for years. 826 Valencia is a non-profit whose aim is to help young people write creatively. They've operated out of the space at the address in their name since the early 2000s. For Part 1, we sat down with 826's Director of Volunteer Engagement Kavitha Lotun and Pirate Supply Store Manager  Byron Weiss  to discuss their respective stories of moving to San Fra...

This story, as Caroline Cabading so elegantly frames it, is about the longevity of struggle. Part 2 picks up with Caroline sharing the story of her grandfather moving her family out of Manilatown and into the Fillmore, where she grew up two generations later. To her, the neighborhood was family. This was post-"urban renewal," but she still found plenty of folks with makeshift music studios in plac...