Mission Mission

Remember that period in 2009 or so when it seemed like all we ever did was blog about Weird Fish? Well we haven’t mentioned them in a couple years now, and I’m sad to say this just might be the last time. Mission Local reports:

After two years of trying to revamp Dante’s Weird Fish and open a new place at the site The Corner once occupied, the owner Peter Hood has “thrown in the towel” and sold both businesses to another restaurateur who will install two new places

The Mission, he said, was over saturated and overregulation, like Healthy San Francisco, a mandate that requires businesses with 20 or more employees to provide health benefits for them, made it more taxing to do business. He added that he’s tired of the countless startups such as Groupon and other discounters trying to become middlemen between him and his customers.

“I will say that, across the board, anyone who’s been around the Mission all felt that the pie was getting slightly smaller,” he said about the abundance of restaurants in the Mission. “What can you do there with so many new businesses and seats?”

[...]

“This is not some sort of ‘I am a vindictive person.’” He said. “I’ve loved the Mission. I think it is an amazing neighborhood and I love everything about it. It’s just not very friendly to small businesses.”

(Emphasis mine.) Weird Fish will remain open through the end of 2014. Read on for more quotes and the scoop on the new owner’s plans for the spaces.

And now, a complete history of Weird Fish coverage through the ages:

SF Weekly reported yesterday that two men had been stabbed on Bryant Street the night before, within a few hours of each other. The first victim, a 31-year-old man, was approached by three attackers at 5:25pm, and the second, a 23-year-old man, was approached by eight attackers at 1am. Details were scarce, until this chilling update:

Officer Albie Esparza says in both cases the suspects were gang members and asked the victims who they were affiliated with before stabbing them. Neither victim is related to a gang, police confirmed. [link]

Former local blogger Ramona tells us all about it:

There is no greater horror (in a life with few horrors) than getting the check after dining or drinking with a large group of people. The worst worst time is when everyone has cash except for you, so they’re like “How about you put it on your card and we’ll give you money?” That innocent sounding “How about…” always ends with you putting $200 on your debit card and them handing you 16 crumpled ones, and you being like, “What the fuck?” and everyone being like “I put in the correct amount PLUS a little extra for tax,” and then turning back to their conversations to leave you to be evicted from your apartment. The best worst time is when some extremely chill person who has never been out to dinner before is like “Just give me your cash and I’ll put it on my card,” and you’re like “Okay,” but are thinking: welcome to hell motherfucker.

Read on for Ramona’s latest check-splitting horror, at an outdoor bar in Brooklyn.

[Photo by Honey Jets]

Our pals Isaac Fitzgerald and Wendy MacNaughton have put together a book called Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them:

Woohoo! And there’s a party for it this Friday in the Mission:

RSVP and invite your friends here. And pre-order the book here.

He managed to mix a little “Careless Whisper” into “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House.” An epic surprise at an all-around epic final LCD show by North American Scum. (But they’ll be back soon with a Talking Heads show.)

[via Simon]

The Wise Sons one is a Hawaiian sandwich with homemade spam, and the RPS one is pho noodle rolls with chicken and summer corn and some other stuff. Both were bomb, and both feature teriyaki sauce by SF-based sauce maker Soy Vay.

I hope they start canning their spam, am I right?

(The portions are small because this photo is from a media preview. Real portions should be bigger.)

(P.S. I heard Wise Sons is open for dinner now sometimes.)

If you’re anything like me, when you heard the news LCD Soundsystem was splitting up and playing one big final show at Madison Square Garden, you immediately booked a trip to New York and sat on Stubhub for hours trying to get tickets. And hopefully, like me, you didn’t fall prey to scalpers and instead got tickets to a couple of the much more intimate second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-to-last shows at Terminal 5. And then you had an awesome time seeing the band perform at its bittersweet peak.

And then, if you’re still like me, you were waaaaay stoked to learn there was an LCD Soundsystem cover band operating in SF, and even stokeder to learn that they were actually really good. And finally, if you’re like me, you got to relive the bummer all over again when North American Scum announced their final show, which is this weekend in the Mission.

But, they’re still awesome, and El Rio is a helluva lot more intimate than MSG or Terminal 5. Let’s party! Advance tickets are apparently going fast, and it’s kind of a small room, so get yours (only $8) here!

Reader Jane K. went down to the “Looking” shoot the other day and played paparazzo for us. These boys didn’t seem to mind:

If you wanna get caught up on Season 1, get your mom’s HBO Go password, or check out Kat’s official recaps for Mission Mission.

I took this picture of a tap handle at Toronado way back when I had a phone that actually took photos this size. Dig that crazy typeface!

Nowadays the logo is all normal and boring:

I’ve always wondered the same thing, but never had the guts to ask.

[via Hey, Cookie! on Facebook]