As San Francisco changes with its influx of money and its penchant for microhoods (and saying such cringe-worthy dreck as "microhoods"), we here at SFist want to give you the top-drawer suspects of said change. On Monday, we brought to you the Top 5 Remaining Gay Spaces in SoMa. Today, for your review, we tell you the Top 5 gentrifiers on Divisadero, ground zero for all things NoPa-related. Brace yourselves.
5. Barrel Head Brew House
San Francisco loves a good neighborhood brewpub. Any place with a couple of styles of beer that all sort of vaguely taste the same and good food that doesn't make you feel like an asshole when you order it will probably do well among the neighbors and the friends of neighbors. You can't swing a rescued SPCA cat in this town without hitting two beer-drinking 32-year-olds. This place shouldn't have a hard time finding an audience amongst those who have moved on from their Zeitgeist hangovers and need a warmer beer hall to eat and get drunk in.
Barrel Head should balance out the well-established, but buttoned-up Nopa down the street — which is still a destination restaurant for folks from outside the neighborhood. There's plenty of evidence that beer is far from dead in San Francisco, even with so many people clamoring for $12 cocktails. It wouldn't hurt to give the neighborhood a place to watch some sports, while we're at it.
4. Divisadero Farmers Market vs. Da Pitt BBQ
The Divisadero Farmer's Market is a delight. We're particularly fond of the 3-for-$5 Kale guy and the soccer mom with the feathered hair who sells organic eggs. However, the neighbors don't seem to agree entirely and there's been some tension with the other businesses along Grove Street. Whenever the Farmers Market pops up on Sunday mornings, "No Farmers Market Parking" signs appear in the adjacent parking lot used for Da Pitt BBQ and the Bay Area Safe Alternatives cannabis dispensary next door.
That said, Da Pitt makes the best goddamned abomination of a pulled pork sandwich (see above) we've had in the city. Huge chunks of hand-pulled pork on a wonderbread sub roll served with a side of perfectly grease-puddling macaroni & cheese. (PRO-TIP: put the mac & cheese on the pork sandwich for maximum enjoyment) Not even Yelpers have found that hidden treasure yet.
3. San Franpsycho
Your neighborhood correspondant does not find these brightly screenprinted bro-tanks a necessity to his wardrobe, due to his preference for shirts that have both sleeves and buttons. SFist does, however, recognize that San Franpsycho's dumbfoudingly effortless logo and the rad wordplay have been spotted on clotheshorses from the Marina to La Lengua.
Perhaps sensing this cross-neighborhood appeal, the brand chose to locate its physical presence smack in the middle of the city earlier this year, bringing along a brightly colored crowd of young and flashy types who identify with the lifestyle choices the brand represents. Choices which happen to be popular with both the Marina male and certain Mission cliches. One of the most visible effects of this is an ill-advised preference for dressing in early 90s day-glo attire and getting recklessly, teen movie-style drunk. Often in public. Many San Franciscans will do this once or twice in their twenties. San Franpsycho has made a career out of it.
The store's parties, thrown during Bay to Breakers and the tri-monthly Divisadero Art Walk, frequently spill out onto the sidewalk. The neighborhood has embraced the added foot traffic. So far.
2. Bi-Rite Divisadero
Now delayed until early 2013, the Divisadero outpost of Bi-Rite will boast three times the square footage every Missionite's favorite picnic supply store. Which means there will be three times as many kinds of cheese, maybe. Bi-Rite needs no introduction as the celebrated purveyor of two-dollar tomatoes. Judging by the adorable graffiti that is currently tagging up the plywood door to the forthcoming grocery store, the neighborhood is already clamoring for for their locally sourced produce and curated wine selection.
1. The Mill
Currently delayed for something like a billion years. The Mill is what will eventually be a Four Barrel outpost on Divisadero. The twist here is that The Mill will be baking things. Baking is very "in" these days, with La Boulange having just cashed out to Starbucks and everybody and their sister still lining up for Tartine loaves. What Four Barrel set out to do with coffee, The Mill hopes to do with baked goods. There will actually be a mill inside for making house-ground grain. House-ground grain is a thing that has arrived.
On a recent Divisadero Art Walk, two patrons sipped espressos just inside the hollowed-out building, where the shop is currently set-up as a pop-up kiosk while renovations are ongoing. The two were discussing bean nuances and the coffee tastings they liked to attend around 9:00 p.m. on a Thursday, which is just a ridiculous time for anyone who is not an air traffic controller or a late-shift Muni driver to be getting so intense about coffee.