Hey Hipsters–Here’s why you need to move:

Okay you tight pants wearing, bike riding, horned rim glass donning 20-40 somethings currently looking for lodging–seriously what the fuck are you still doing in the Mission? Here’s why the Excelsior is where you need to move:

1. Clean slate-A few empty store fronts, and just enough to make it your own. Open a bike shop, Fromagerie, gourmet pizza or ice cream shop, and severely piss off the neighbors–Excelsior residents hate change even more than you guys hate people who own SUVs.

2. It’s on Mission street: Did you even know that? 3 minutes swerving on a fixie downhill to get home. But those fixed gear bikes might not make for the easiest trip out.

3. Whole Foods: Do you guys hate or love Whole Foods? Is it cool to eat organic still?

4. Cheap rent: It is cheaper. It is. And you’ll get a house. Not some closet in the Mission with no windows and no place to park your bike, or cut your hair, or hang your vintage Coca Cola T-Shirts or high shouldered cocaine snorting jacket.

5. You can talk in the bars down here. I don’t know if you guys are into that, but you can’t have self serving conversations about adding Bacon to your favorite dessert or the newest Wilco album when you can’t hear your friend’s talk.

6. My car hasn’t been broken into, yet: I guess that translates in your bike having both tires survive one night near 16th and Mission.

7. Honestly–as much as I kid–the Excelsior is great goddamn neighborhood–and in the end it’s changing–and it’s changing quickly. It has the space, it has the need, and it has the infrastructure. We even have a penis-like statue at the corner of Geneva and Mission. Come on man! Cross the 280!

And bring a coffee shop or two–perhaps a vintage clothing shop or a bike shop. Maybe even a restaurant that’s so cool I’ll never be able to eat in it. You might even make it so we can move out some of the gambling halls that are operating under the cover of being Internet Cafes. Just do me a favor and stay out of the Dark Horse before 5 on Friday so I can take my normal seat and have Friday night cocktails.

A new storefront!

Apologies for the long pause here–had hernia surgery, and since then, have been suffering from a drought of things to write about down here in the Excelsior–but here goes:

Okay, so a new storefront if open on Mission, just next to the Sons of Italy, where the sign for “Glaze” with the hair shears is, sandwiched between a nail salon and Roma Pizza. I imagine the possibilities, from a corner store to a check cashing place to a restaurant to a butcher shop. The Excelsior changes so fucking slowly, but these tend to be the little changes for the better. Or more often, for the worse.

I’ve whined on this blog about the new storefront that opened up into a Cash for Gold type of spot. It’s a dump. It looks like shit. It attracts no one. It adds nothing to the strip on Mission Street. It doesn’t draw anyone new to the neighborhood. It exploits poor people. Fuck that place. We also don’t really need another shop selling fake Chinese knock off purses, or another Chinese Restaurant (we have a Henry’s Hunan down here guys, stop trying to compete with that), another Pizza Restaurant (we have many, including a Round Table and Little Caesar’s which are sadly on par with some of the independent ones in the hood), or another nail/hair salon or tailor. It seems in an almost cyclical way, the Excelsior’s businesses keep opening up more versions of what already exists. New construction just finished on a building near the “Goodin” sign next to Safeway. What opened up in it’s downstairs retail space? A Tailor/Dry Cleaner shop. We are not short of these on Mission, either. To save people time, perhaps we should open up a “personally tailored rip off Chinese goods store that will wash and hem your fucking pants while serving you shitty Dim Sum shop?”

We do have some needs in the Excelsior for diversity in our restaurants and shops–in some respects we are really lucky to have places like Calabria Bros., which doesn’t exist in many parts of SF, but seems to have quite the following out in the Excelsior, as my perennial favorite pub The Dark Horse Inn has also (99% percent douchebag free, quiet enough to talk, and always food to soak up booze). The two sushi places fit pretty well so far, although it seems Live Sushi is pretty empty sometimes–like the Excelsior is better suited with one and half instead of two sushi spots. Of all that’s doing well, what are the things we don’t need? What don’t we need more of in spite of it doing well?

Here’s a few suggestions:

1. A little equity in food restaurants. One Thai food place (and man, do they fucking hate delivering), no Indian, 5 shitty pizza spots, one good one (Little Joe’s), 2 Sushi places, two Gastropubs, and 7,000 Chinese Restaurants? Seems legit.

2. A Store I’d enter, and not by accident.

3. A liquor store that remains open past 5. Not a corner store, a liquor store.

4. A place where the guys who come to hang out there don’t leave their puddles of loogies behind.

5. A place where one can get their nails done. I mean, there are only 2 per block.

6. We could use a bike shop. Seriously. We could. And the person who opens it may just be ahead of a hipster curve.

7. We don’t need anymore bakeries, guys. Or Walgreens.

We have two martial arts studios. I’m serious. Stop laughing asshole. Was there a line of people out the door when the first one opened? So much so they opened another? The Excelsior is a pretty small neighborhood, so I guess we’re good on those too.

Okay, so that was mostly what we have ENOUGH of–so I guess I’d say we need anything else. Fucking anything else.

The Dark Horse Inn: BEER WEEK

 

You read the correctly–Beer Week. And the Excelsior carves out one, TEENSY slice of it. Honestly, I’m looking forward to it. I like beer. I love beer. There’s a few events on here that frankly don’t look like they should be missed. Support the best pub in the Excelsior–get drunk and have a blast. I’m pretty sure I’ll be attending a few of these, if, of course, tickets remain.

http://www.sfbeerweek.org/schedule/#q=Dark%20Horse

 

Happy Beer Week!