Storied: San Francisco

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...

Nearly 100 years ago, the stretch of Kearny Street from Jackson south all the way down to Market was filled with Filipino shops, restaurants, and SRO hotels. Perhaps most notably, the International Hotel (I-Hotel) was located at the intersection of Kearny and Jackson. Today, that space is occupied by a residence for older folks, some of whom have connections to the last of the mostly immigrant pop...

Welcome to this bonus episode! There was just way, way too much good stuff we cut for time out of Parts 1 and 2 to just let lie on the cutting room floor. We begin with Jeff's suggestion about what Good Vibrations ' mission is and Carol Queen's expounding on that. Carol discusses what Good Vibes stands for and against in this world. We chat about how the stores welcome folks of all sexual and gend...

"San Francisco is miraculous," according to Good Vibrations staff sexologist Carol Queen . We couldn't have said it better ourselves. This episode picks up where Part 1 left off, with our chat with Carol. We cover topics like the founding of Good Vibes and its creator, Joani Blank. Blank, who appeared on several enemies lists for her feminism and activism (hello, good trouble), and started the tin...

Happy Valentine's Day! This episode is all about San Francisco's  Good Vibrations because, well, duh. It's also about Good Vibes' Antique Vibrator Museum . To guide us, we meet Carol Queen . Carol is the staff sexologist, a title she earned with her PhD in the subject. Carol grew up in small-town Oregon, just south of Eugene. She says she was interested in sex as long as she can remember, despite...

In Part 2, we continue our talk with Dontaye. He dives into his own history of cooking and working in restaurants. It starts with a program he got into in high school that had him serving meals to non-English speakers in Burlingame and goes up through his time doing an externship at Delfina . Delfina happened while Dontaye went to City College, but the story of how he got connected is more direct...

Dontaye Ball  has brought gumbo to San Francisco. Now, he's doing everything he can to make it this country's national dish. In this episode, we meet Dontaye. Born and raised in The City, Dontaye has lived with gumbo just about his entire life. Often served at big family meals, he remembers fondly that while gumbo might've been the center of the culinary realm, it was always more about being with...

We start Part 2 talking, briefly, about the 2016 election. Then we move on to COVID and how the pandemic affected  Thee Parkside . In a word, it was devastating, but Malia and her crew rose to the challenge. They had opened La Lucha coffee from the front window of the joint in 2015, and were able to keep that going. Because of Parkside's kitchen, they were considered essential and so were able to...

​San Francisco is about to get its first new LGBTQ bar in a long, long time, y'all. In this episode, we'll meet Malia Spanyol . Currently, Malia owns Thee Parkside. She was born in Honolulu and went to ASU in Tempe, Arizona. But she hated it and came to San Francisco in 1989 just before the big earthquake that year. Malia was already out and was here looking for her people. She worked, went to sch...

In Part 2, we pick up our conversation with Cody about Rainbow's bulk section. There's even talk of " The Bulk Section at Rainbow " as a spinoff podcast. Then we move on to the cheese department. Gordon Edgar  is a name you should know if you even remotely tolerate cheese. With Gordon at the helm, Rainbow has won many, many awards for its cheese department. If you're anything like me, you know exa...

In this episode, we kick off the new year by resuming our series on San Francisco co-ops . This one is all about Rainbow Grocery Cooperative . To guide us, we'll meet Cody Frost , a marketing and creative strategist at Rainbow for the last three-and-a-half years. Cody has been a worker/owner at Rainbow for almost 16 years. He grew up in Carmichael, California, just outside of Sacramento, in the 19...

In Part 2 of our episode with Arizmendi Bakery , we hear from baker/owners Lizzy Harvey  and  Aeri Swendson . Lizzy shares her story of being born and raised in San Francisco, leaving for college and coming back, and what, besides baking, she's up to these days (namely, circus and aerial arts). After her return to The City, she was teaching here and got a grant to teach English for one year in Cór...

Several of the worker/owners at Arizmendi Bakery  on Ninth Avenue have been there since the place opened 22 years ago. Around half of them have worked there for two decades. Continuing our series on  San Francisco co-ops , this time we travel to the Inner Sunset and this special place that serves up so many delicious treats. Whether it's a morning pastry, an evening vegetarian pizza, or an delicio...

In this special episode, Jeff and Erin ( Bitch Talk Podcast )  talk about what it means (and costs) to run our respective shows, with a special shout-out to BFF . Then we plug all the wonderful non-profits we're supporting this year. We want YOU to support us and all of them because none of us can do any of this without each other. Anything you can give is deeply appreciated. Photography by Michel...

In Part 2 of our episode on Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative , the conversation starts with food, food systems, and how humans can better steward the land and sea in our daily and collective lives. Celia talks about how, with co-ops, money generally stays in the community. After a quick aside for Jeff's lasagna story, we discuss food preservation and distribution, the myth of food scarcity, and t...

Celia LoBuono Gonzalez joins us on the show this episode to share her story and that of Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative . Part 1 starts off with Celia sharing the story of her life up to the point of getting a job at Other Avenues. From there, we pivot to the colorful and, we think, important story of food in San Francisco and the Bay Area starting in the 1960s. From a collection of neighborhood...