Mission Mission

You might remember her from when she had lots to say about the temporary Levi’s popup on Valencia about three years back. Later, we suspected that she might have been part of a very elaborate and insidious Levi’s marketing ploy. (So maybe Betabrand hired the same marketing team? jk)

This morning she made an announcement on Twitter (and her Twitter remains tremendously engaging):

She’s right about the new Boards of Canada though, am I right?

Anyway, the thing is, she used some kind of gnarly etching cream that’s so dangerous she elected to also put up a homemade — and bilingual — warning sign:

How thoughtful!

This afternoon, Jefferson from Mission Bicycles, Betabrand’s neighbor, sent in all of these pics and filled us in on what Betabrand is exactly:

Who is Betabrand? (Hint: they are not owned by Liz Claiborne). The owner, Chris Lindland has lived here in San Francisco for 17 years. He started his company in the basement. In my opinion, here’s that makes them remarkable: They have not outsourced production to China, Bangladesh, or Potugal. They are not made in the USA. It’s made in San Francisco. They are local makers. The money stays here. They employe about 100 blue and white collar San Franciscans.

They are relocating their operation from Cesar Chaves to Valencia. Adding a retail space so their customers can come in and try stuff on and have a human interaction.

Sounds fine to me.

Here’s the finished piece:

Messed up: Betabrand, a SF clothing company, is supposed to open a store on Valencia St. tomorrow. Then, this: twitter.com/mgrooves/statu…

— Matt Graves (@mgrooves) May 10, 2013

And here’s a crew cleaning up the mess today:

Pretty much the same as it always was, but now there’s a wraparound glass windscreen, really fancy Australian heat lamps, and solid menus of Latin street food and serious cocktails. New era!

El Techo de Lolinda opens to the public May 13th!

(Thanks, Todd.)

(Thanks, Gabriela.)

UPDATE: Damage appears to be minimal.

That thing was empty for a million years, and they wanted like a million bucks a square foot for it. Can’t wait to see what’s coming!

Watch your step when stumbling home from Homestead or Shotwell’s.

I was in Hayes Valley last night (for some reason) and after getting kicked out of Biergarten at closing time (9pm), we walked past this ice cream place that was still positively hoppin’. One of my drinking companions commented, “Stupid fucking city.”

Okay, obviously there are reasons for this (noise restrictions on an open-air bar in a residential area) and we were able to keep drinking (Two Sisters was open and lively and they had a really interesting Fernet from Denver called Fernet Leopold), but still.

I assume some kids hopped the fence at a McDonald’s in the suburbs, used a big zipped-up sleeping bag to scoop balls out of the ball pit, loaded them into the back of a pickup with a camper shell, cruised around the region with a mobile ball pit of their own for a few weeks, occasionally chucking a ball or two at passing cars or cyclists, then dumped the evidence in this planter when they started to get mildewy. Right?

Can you imagine 17th and Mission without Thrift Town and the rest of this building?

[via Uptown Almanac] (Thanks, Thea!)