Mission Mission

Boy do I love this guy. You can catch him operating out of a truck on 22nd and Bartlett by Revolution Cafe. The only distinguishing markings on his truck are “Lucero Produce, Daly City”. I don’t know if this is Mr. Lucero himself, but let’s just call him Señor Coco:

Order a coconut for 3 bucks, and he expertly opens it for you with 2 carefully placed chops of the cleaver. He doesn’t seem to mind high-velocity coconut debris flying out in every direction, so I suppose you shouldn’t either. He sticks a straw in and there you go, the freshest and best-tasting coconut juice around. This is quite a contrast to the pleasant young folks at Bi-Rite who will do the same, but based on the time it takes they are probably scratching their heads in the back room for a while looking up “how to open a coconut” Youtube videos on their smartphones.

Here’s the real edge: when you’re done drinking the juice, bring it back. He’ll crack it open, scrape out the pulp, and serve it mixed with chili powder, lemon juice, and salt in a ziplock bag. If you’re in a hurry and want to take everything to go, he’ll dump the juice in another ziplock bag and chop it up for you in one session. His regulars seem hip to this, since the wait can get long.

The first time I visited Señor Coco, he spoke to me completely in Spanish, but not in a “I’m not gonna speak English for you, yuppie scum” kind of way. It was more like a “you seem like a pretty smart guy who might know some Spanish” kind of way. It’s sorta true. I studied Spanish for 4 years in high-school.  This means I just suck at Spanish as opposed to not knowing Spanish at all. I cobbled together some phrase that demonstrated I knew the subjunctive tense and he laughed. This dude is always in an awesome mood.

I asked if he’s here every Saturday and Sunday and he says “yes, señor, I’ll be here waiting for you!” Couldn’t tell if he’s just bullshitting with me about his availability, but I’ll definitely be checking again next weekend.

The Apartment, a store near 18th and Valencia, has an entire drawer full of old “Asian/Orientals” photos!

Yeah I have a stockpile of these too: my grandma’s house. Whatever they are charging, I’ll give ‘em to you for half.

[via Yelp]

Woah, deja vu.

Just like last year, an iPhone prototype was “misplaced” by an Apple employee. This time, in a Mission bar! Cava22, to be exact, a place surely devoid of tech-savvy hipsters hoping to sneak a peak.

The phone was lost in late July, but using the built-in tracking features it was traced to a home in Bernal Heights. When investigators arrived and questioned the guy, he recalled being at Cava22 but denied anything about having the phone.

Suuure, dude. So someone happened to throw it in your bag and you somehow managed to keep it charged for a month?

Can’t wait to see how this develops.

[via CNet, photo by potentialpast]

Four Barrel is turning 3 tomorrow and just like last year there will be free coffee all day. Unlike previous years, there will be skee ball:

To celebrate three years of being in business, Four Barrel Coffee will be throwing their annual birthday bash on Tuesday, August 23rd, from 7am to 4pm.  As they do every year, they will be giving away free coffee and espresso drinks all day long.  To add to the fun, Glass Coat Photo Booth will be setting up one of their free photo booths from 12pm-4pm, there will be two Skee Ball units in the back for people to square off against one another, and they’ll be serving free slices of Tartine Cake at noon.  Plus the Pizza Hacker and Rosamunde Sausage Grill will be posted up outside if people want to buy a some lunchtime food.  It’s going to be a doozie.

No word on whether the skee ball units will be dispensing tickets for high scores, which can then exchanged for plastic harmonicas, mini squirt guns, and rubber goblin finger puppets. We’ll check with our source.

[thanks Nicky Koch]

Update: No skee ball prizes

Medjool has applied for a “conditional use authorization” for its controversial rooftop bar, which was shut down by the SFPD some time ago.

Reader tack sent us this picture and adds his piece:

Personally I’m not looking forward to the roof bar reopening. There was always drunken domestic abuse outside my bedroom window at 1:30am when it was running and when the fire department shut it down it magically all went poof. I’d hate to see the drunk yuppies chewing out and threatening their girlfriends/wives return to the neighborhood. It was disgusting and tragic.

Supporters of this cause (let’s just call them ‘roofies’) will be stating their case on Septemper 8th, noon at City Hall room 400 in case you want to give ‘em what for (even though you’ve never actually, like, been to that place.)

We stopped by the grand opening party of Photobooth yesterday, and were surprised to see the storefront (which some of you may remember as a two-story acupuncture clinic) transformed into a vast, high-ceilinged space resembling an Apple Store. Photobooth is a portrait studio, gallery, retail store, and a new addition to the Mission arts scene, run by local photographers Michael Shindler and Vince Donovan.

Shindler and Donovan, who specialize in Civil War-era tintypes and Polaroids respectively, run a live portrait studio in the storefront during open hours offering two modes of instant gratification ($20 for Polaroid, $40 for tintype). The retail portion is stocked with retro camera gear, including refurbished Polaroid cameras, the entire Lomography toy camera line, and Polaroid film from the Impossible Project. The space will also feature local photographers, host events and openings, and hold alternative photography classes.

Previously:

• Say cheese

It looks like the future of the Mission Bowling Club is in jeopardy, thanks to $44,000 in “special fees” which San Francisco is imposing on Sommer Peterson, the gal responsible for the project (which, we’ll remind you, includes bringing back the Mission Burger). So what exactly constitutes a “special fee”? The Examiner breaks it down:

The Planning Department is imposing extra “impact fees” on Peterson because officials say she’s converting a warehouse — which is zoned as light industrial — to entertainment use. As part of major rezoning in 2008 of The City’s eastern neighborhoods, including the site of the warehouse, an impact fee was established to help pay for community benefits such as parks or road repairs. Impact fees account for about half of Peterson’s $44,000 tab; the other half is for a Muni transit fee, which has been on the books since 1981 and was extended citywide in the early 2000s.

Read on for more of the trials and tribulations of the Mission Bowling Club.

Previously:

• Mission Bowling Club (and Mission Burger) will hopefully be located at 17th and South Van Ness
• Mission Bowling Club and the return of Mission Burger
• Boutique bowling in the Mission
• Bowling on Mission Street?

Apparently James Franco is a big fan of Kink.com — so big in fact, that he’s directing a documentary on the famed porn castle, and production has already started.

So what was it like when Franco came to the Mission? Indiewire has the details:

A tweet from Kink.com actress rain degrey from June 26 read: “Kink.com is all aflutter today because James Franco is here shooting his new movie. All these girls want to f*ck him! lol.”

Expect more James Franco in the Mission in the coming months, and maybe you’ll get to f*ck him if you’re lucky.

Previously:

• Kink.com to open Armory-adjacent bar for cocktail enthusiasts and cock and tail enthusiasts
• Peeping tom peeps on Kink.com
• Kink.com at Arinell (NSFW)

The Bold Italic this week shares with us an illustrated guide to the staff at Lost Weekend Video. Here’s a bit about Dave (pictured):

Everything exploded when Dave scouted Green Day and got them signed. That band is also how he met Christy, who booked tours for them in Europe. When Dave talks softly in between drags of his cigarette in the back of the store, you can hear worry and sadness in his voice. “If you don’t drink, where do you go to have a conversation?” he says. “Outside of barbershops, this is about it. Often we’ll engage you in a conversation whether you want to or not. That’s part of the fun; you get to know all these people.”

Almost makes you want to cancel Netflix right this second, doesn’t it? Now meet the rest of the crew!