Jay here.

It’s not every day that we get to bring back the dead, but today that’s happening for SFist. And it’s not every day that I get to help perform the CPR that revives the patient just when we thought she was for-real lost. I'll say it’s a great feeling to watch a near-certain fate reversed in the nick of time.

Launched in 2004 in the heyday of the blog boom, SFist evolved and matured over time into a morning touchstone for people that told the daily story of San Francisco life — we hoped, always, with a little wit and a self-deprecating view of ourselves thrown on top. It was of course the people who made SFist the reliable (if sometimes cutting) friend that it was, including co-founder Eve Batey, former editor Brock Keeling, and writers like Caleb Pershan, Jessica Lachenal, Joe Kukura, Jack Morse, Andrew Dalton, Rita Hao, Jackson West, Beth Spotswood, Daisy Barringer, Rain Jokinen, Cedric Westphal, Rose Garrett, Leanne Maxwell, and myself.

When SFist was shut down by a new owner along with the Gothamist network in early November 2017, I was sad not to be able to continue to do the job I loved, but I was doubly sad that my city was losing another one of its unique media outlets. As both the local and national media struggle to remake themselves in a new economic environment – and one in which our own president foments hatred for and distrust of the media – I’m heartened that at least in our peculiar corner of the world, we can bring this one well-worn gunny sack of a website back to life.

Our new owners are Impress3 Media, and CEO Zack Chen is committed to nursing SFist back to health as the site wakes up from its 15-and-a-half-month coma.

Says Zack: “As a San Francisco native and longtime reader of SFist, I was shocked and disappointed when the site went offline. And when the opportunity arose last year to acquire its assets, I saw a perfect opportunity to give something back to the city and revive a beloved source of local news.”

Please be patient with us as we get our sea legs back, so to speak. It’s bound to be a little wobbly to start. (ALSO, don’t scroll too far down the homepage today or you are going to be looking at a whole lot of headlines from early November 2017!!) You’ll hopefully be glad to hear that not only am I back at the helm, but we have contributor Joe Kukura back on deck as well, and you may be seeing some other unnamed alums make appearances as well.

All I can promise is that SFist will again be bringing you the news and weather, and occasional commentary on both, as well as all the culture stuff, semi-regular sports commentary, and curated guides and listicles that you once relied on.

And if you’re new here, welcome! We’re curators and connoisseurs who occasionally do some reporting, and we know this town up, down and sideways. Hopefully you won’t comment too aggressively when we leave your favorite sandwich shop off a Best-of list. Just be glad we’re helping keep the line a little shorter.