Mission Mission

…and yet, it’s no secret that the Mission’s dreamiest antiques/typewriter shop/performance space is also home to a bathroom that makes people exclaim “I would pay rent to live in there!” upon exiting, and that’s not just because they can’t afford to live anywhere else in the neighborhood anymore.

Now you can share your love for her claw-foot tub, overstuffed armchair and exquisite lighting with the world by voting for this very restroom to win the title of “America’s Best Restroom” from renowned restroom experts(?) Cintas. Check out the other nominees while you’re at it (the old Vaudeville theater in Minneapolis looks pretty sweet) but remember, civic loyalty comes first.

[photo/Pete Lee]

Have you had a chance to check out the new Adobe Books location on 24th Street yet?  If not, tonight’s the perfect excuse to visit and hang for a rad book reading and movie viewing:

• The evening will begin with a reception at 7pm.
• Then Jeremy and Matt will be skyping in to read certain passages of their book, Still Dots, from 8-8:30.
• This will be followed by a rare screening of Carol Reed’s The Third Man starting at 8:30pm, starring Orson Welles.

Details here!

Also, now would be a good time to look back on the recent history of Adobe, courtesy of Andrew McKinley, the owner of the former 16th Street location, in this deeply personal account that he wrote on notebook paper:

Blame it on the Internet; it is so easy but oh, so true. The number of bookstores diminished quickly. The content and knowledge in them was available elsewhere. When we opened, we were one of five street-accessible shops within one block of 16th Street and Valencia Street. Now there will be none.

Read on.

Sure, they have movies at places like The Metreon, where you can get some fro-yo in the lobby, or Sundance Kabuki Cinemas where you can pay a mandatory convenience fee because they compost, or you can see a movie at The Balboa, where they show you a whole ‘nother mini movie before the actual movie! Check out The Wolverine, starring a few buddies of ours:

YouTube user Kyle Smeallie uploaded a video from Jack Spade’s hearing in front of the Board of Appeals where Melissa Xides, Vice President of Global Sales and Retail at Jack Spade, remarked not only that they fell in love with the gentrification of the Mission, but also the “uniqueness and character”, which they apparently now intend to help erode. Note the nice little remix at the end.

Kseniya (not pictured) had a close encounter the other day:

Thrift Town employee unlocks a fitting room door for me. “Wait!” he says, and kicks at some sort of cloth bundle on the floor.

“Oh that’s NASTY.”

“Don’t go in there.” He closes the door and opens a different one, which is clear of nasty objects. “Someone made a poopie in there,” he says in a hushed voice, motioning to the other fitting room. “Nasty.”

Read on for the basically happy conclusion.

[Photo by Andrew G.]

Welcome to the Mission.

To be fair, that furniture store was outrageously expensive, unless of course you were in the market for a $2500 couch.

The folks who run Brick & Mortar Music Hall will be appearing before the San Francisco Entertainment Commission tonight at 5:30 p.m. to make a case for lifting the volume restrictions and curfews that employees say have been hurting business since the city imposed them in May.

Said restrictions were in response to noise complaints from neighbors; Brick & Mortar has since installed over $50,000 worth of soundproofing, met repeatedly with those who filed complaints and passed sound tests from the Department of Public Health, says the owner. Now they just want to get back to serving late-night rock ‘n’ roll (at appropriate volumes) in addition to daytime bacon.

If you wanna go: SF City Hall, hearing room 416.

[Photo via Yelp]

Has it really been that long already?  Besides the free coffee, they’ve also enlisted the help of some  friends from last year:

• Glass Coat Photo Booth will be setting up one of their beautiful, free photo booths from 12pm-4pm.
• Also, there will be two Skee Ball units in the back for people to square off against one another, courtesy of local Skee Ball champ, Joey the Cat.
• At noon, we will be serving free slices of delicious Tartine cake, while the three cakes last of course, which is usually, like, five minutes.
• For the kids, we’ll have a small petting zoo set up from noon to 3pm in one of our parklet corrals, courtesy of Little Explorers Mobile Petting Zoo.
• For the lunchtime crowd, Los Compadres, a delicious taco truck, will be posted up outside if people want some food to go along with their lattes.  It’ll be a hoot.

If anyone can beat my score of 450 in Skee Ball, I’ll buy you a puppy.

[Photo by Niall K.]

I know the flyer doesn’t say anything about hot dogs, but a trusted source told me there would be hot dogs, so there will probably be hot dogs, but don’t get mad at me if there are no hot dogs!

(On further thought, perhaps they meant there’d be a sunny spot set up for panting pooches?)

Larisa, from Factory 1 Design, writes in to respond to the heated debate raging on the post about treetopping on Stevenson Street. She writes that:

We all work really hard to keep our little corner of the mission awesome and the church blighted our street in an instant.

Two bits of info that were missing are 1) this was done by the greek church and 2) they hired a hauling company to do it. The urban forest guys may not have passed on that info.

There were at least 40-50 nests in those trees.