The Curtis Fail

After replacing the heating element and cleaning it up. I tested the Curtis brewer out and it is still blowing fuses which means its pretty much toast. At least I'm not out more than eighty bucks on it. I don't have time to or patience to figure out what else cold be wrong with it. It seems unlikely that a bad control board would blow a fuse that way so it's probably another component which is shorting somewhere. I can keep buying components till I hit the right one. It was a crap shoot to begin with. Oh well....

Three Sisters

All narratives are really one narrative. All stories converge into one story. All problems can be reduced to a single issue. Three sisters or three brothers, the gender makes little difference, though some would argue otherwise, but let's not get into that here.  The same faces but different places. Just word play but it keeps it interesting. I went to the city again. This time I visited some new areas and realized I need to be careful of first impressions. I started this post a few days ago but lost the flow of thoughts and decided to let it simmer a while before coming back to it. 

San Francisco wants to close this school...

I started out with the intention of exploring the Excelsior district. After getting to Ocean Ave. where the BART station was located on the map, I discovered that really the only location with any commercial spaces was indeed Ocean Ave. north of the I280 freeway. City College was at the north junction and the BART and MUNI stations at the south junction where I280 meets Ocean Ave.  At first I though it looked great with large numbers of students and other pedestrians walking up at down the street. But then after observing a little while I noticed few business had steady customers. Granted this was mid-afternoon but something didn't feel right about what I was seeing here. First thing I noticed was large numbers of students leaving classes from City College, but they were simply getting on public transport and leaving the area to go somewhere else. Few businesses were in place to take advantage of these packs of people except a Tapioca Express and some little print shop.  Whole Foods was a block down which at a glace would seem encouraging. Walking up and down Ocean Ave. for about a mile, I counted four cafes. Two had moderate success and two were just plain empty. The worst of which was a little espresso bar directly across from Whole Foods. Peering inside, I saw a young Asian kid sitting at his laptop with no one behind the counter, leaving me to believe HE was the barista... Not good. Oddly the espresso machine was a three group Linea. Big machine to serve a little eight by twelve space. Didn't bother to remember the name of that cafe...

Java on Ocean

The most interesting cafe I came across was Java on Ocean Cafe. This place had character, charm, and a cozy feel inside that looked inviting. The building architecture certainly made it a focal point in it's surrounding. I thought, "good location must be doing ok." Inside I found a few people hanging out on computers. I went to the counter and ordered a drip coffee and bought a very good raspberry pastry wrapped in saran wrap. After watching what was probably the owner, based purely on his age and demeanor, make my coffee I didn't even bother tasting it before waltzing over to the condiment bar and adding milk and sugar. It didn't help though, because the coffee tasted burnt and over extracted even through all that milk and sugar, just as I had suspected. You see, the guy used a same Curtis drip brewer to make every individual cup. Sounds like Philz Coffee in concept but the result is burnt tasting coffee that resembles something you get at Starbucks or McDonald's. Almost undrinkable. Still the location and ambiance alone will keep this guy rolling. Just think what he could do if he had the level of coffee you can get at a Philz Coffee.

Fog Lifter Cafe

The other cafe on Ocean Ave. was The Fog Lifter Cafe two blocks down. It had a fair number of people inside and was clean and setup nicely. The only criticism I could give was that it felt a little generic. The location was fairly good for the neighborhood. Didn't bother trying the coffee though.  I got this sinking feeling, when I saw the large numbers of empty store locations half way down the block from The Fog Lifter Cafe. Some of the retail spaces looked like they might be good location for little cafes but the sheer number of them one right after another made me think twice. What was once a large cinema half a block away on the opposite side of the road, was now a converted church. Not much happening after that. If Ocean Ave. in the direction of San Francisco looked bad, the avenue going towards Excelsior was hopeless. crossing over the I280 you run into a skate park and some dilapidated businesses. I turned to make a loop up San Jose Ave. to the bus station and saw what if you didn't know better you'd say was the perfect location for a cafe. It was a sad sight to see the carcass of a little cafe called Cafe Express on the corner that just could not make it there. Do commuters hang out? Do students for that matter hang out? Students surely do, but not these. This place has high rent and no draw. I would return later in the evening to see what changed. (tiny pickup in the evening)

Potrero Hill Cafe

Next stop, was Potrero Hill. Now rumor has it that Intelligentsia was to open a cafe here. I didn't know where I was going so the first thing I did was ride over to 3rd street in Bayview to find Ritual Coffee in the Flora Grubb Gardens which I'd came across by accident online. Now for the amount of money I have, this is the setup I should go for. Ritual Coffee created a little espresso bar in the corner of a nursery barn. It a very nice, tight, little space actually. Very stylish but I afraid it might not be all that profitable since it is totally dependent the nursery's business hours and traffic. They used a Linea 2 group EE, by the way. The espresso was OK. The lady working the plants had stunningly beautiful blue eyes, which left me pretty speechless for second when she came up to ask me if I needed any help. Nice to get these little indicators that I'm still alive sometimes. Wanted to linger a minute but had to move on. From here I meandered up Potrero Hill by way of Cesar Chavez until I got to the top of the hill. Up at the top of 20th Street it was disappointing to say the least because there was hardly anything there but a library and some nicely built modern homes. Did I mention a condo listing on the window of a real-estate office read, "2BD/2Bath condo $832,000"? Yes I did. Meager little abode I'm sure.  The one cafe up there was closed early and was tiny but thoughtful.... Guess the, stay at home, wives of rich traders from the financial district don't drink much coffee. Kings live up on that hill. Kings that will assure you they are beyond all doubt "middle class". They like playing with words too, maybe more than me. Their fortress of solitude is just too quiet. One has to have a hungry soul to hang out in cafes. Potrero Hill is a nice place to live. So very very very nice... 

View of SF from Library Window

Then I drove back down to the Dogpatch district which is a little stretch of land along the bay just below Potrero hill that, today, acts as a transition zone between South Beach and Bayview. Being full of old industrial buildings and historic homes, made this the ideal place for artisan types and trend setters to move in a make it theirs. There's many things to like about Dogpatch. Those old dock buildings look great and have lots of character. Housing dating back to when the ship yards were much more important than they are now and a BART line right through the middle of it. Many trendy little night spots and restaurants are there with lots of good food and drinks. It's not taken over fully yet. There's and edge to the place as you get closer the the lower income Bayview area.  I wandered around 22nd street to see what was there, but like most of this trip something bothered me. In the back of my mind was the cost of starting up. I like the place and if I had enough money I might give it a go there, as I would in Glenn Park. As I was leaving to get in my car, I thought, "Where to tamp? Where to tramp?" Then I looked up and saw a sign which read, "Historic Dogpatch District" and right below it read, "Dead End".
At first I thought maybe this was about the three daughters of King Lear, but then maybe this is more like the Castle Elsinore and I'm being haunted by a ghost. Better yet, this isn't Shakespeare at all, but Cervantes and my name isn't Ron, its Don, chasing windmills on a horse that's just about to fall over. Where the hell is Sancho when I need him?

PS. I edited out the part about the car with Texas tags I pasted in the Sunnyside district, around City College. I felt the reader might be distracted by the image of a guy sticking something in his arm as I walked by, only to greeted with a patch of sunflowers in the little field a couple of hundred feet up the road. I also felt it necessary to self sensor the sight of a scraggly old man sitting beneath a decaying animal sculpture smoking crack from a glass tube. This at a bus stop bench on Hunter's Points. I know what your thinking... What the hell was he doing at Hunter's Points. Well, I got there by accident while following a shipyard road that took me past billionaire Larry Ellison's dock where he keeps his precious high speed Catamaran, big monstrosity, if you ask me. Both the old man and Ellison's boat. One is addicted to influence and power, the other is addicted to escape... Go figure.

The Cafe As A Hub Of Life

The image in my mind is of a giant circle, a wheel, and at the center is the cafe. A place of connection, a place of meeting, a place of contact, the holding of hands by those who come together in this place to overcome the forces of the world outside. Someone recently asked my to follow my instincts concerning a big decision. It was a sweeping statement about who she thought I was, and who she thought others around me were. In that moment, nothing more needed to be said ever, the conversation was over from that moment on. I haven't yet and may never learn to see these things while they're happening, else I should have gotten up out of my seat and walked out right then. She had decided already who I was based on whom I was with. I felt deeply unhappy about what I felt was a misinterpretation of my identity but as it is I recognize that her perception of me was a design I could do little to influence. Something from the edge of the wheel spinning outside that moment in the cafe.

What fascinates me about this idea of "owning", "running" a cafe, not that you can ever really own anything, is that looking at the interactions in my life, and the events that make up my own narrative, I long for the of holding hands, in the sense, for real intimacy, for real understanding. The cafe is a place where that moment of contact becomes possible. It may also be a substitute or metaphor for the intimacy I want to find but can't in any meaningful sense. To design a cafe would be as though inviting others to my own conversation about what the world is about. Of course money constraints prevent me from saying exactly what I would want to say. The cafe in Berkeley, local123cafe,  intimated the owners world view perfectly. Locally sourcing goods to save energy and provide local jobs, conserving energy through renewable energy sources, providing a venue for local artist to speak to the community, good food, good drinks. Epicurean at its core. This brings me to why I have failed so far. Even though I want environmental protection and social justice, these seem to be at odds with my understanding of how the world and "business" works. The creeping social Darwinism that permeates modern life works on me psychologically and undermines my own hopes and thoughts about what's possible. People conduct "business" in a way that has little to do with social harmony let alone justice. I'm not sure the owners of local123cafe see the contradiction between the act of operating a business and the model of the world that is environmentally conscientious and socially just. Most people like to dismiss this problem by saying, "that's just how it is." The difference between paying a barista 10 per hour and 12 per hour in San Francisco is moot because in the end they still can't afford a reasonable life. The cafe owners are trying to do good things but to answer a deeper thread, the cafe does not really overcome the forces outside its door. As a business, it reinforces them. It makes me a bit sad to think about it. My instincts are pretty useless with these types of problems. They're good at telling me how I feel, but that's about it. I suppose one could argue that it's a two way street and that what's going on inside that cafe can influence the outside. That would be a nice thing to hope....

The Curtis

I got the Curtis Milano Twin Brewer the other day from Red Rock Coffee. It's a freebie. Well, not exactly considering I need to spend money to fix it. It's a $3000 piece of equipment so that's not too bad. At first glance, it could cost $550 to get in functional again. I took it apart partially today and found one of the heating elements had burst which would be the cause of the blown fuses that John Dustman told me about. Four Barrel had estimated a $500 to $1000 repair. It would be a real coup if I could fix it for $50. Things are never that simple though but I'll know more tomorrow when I take it down completely. The brew servers are $250 to $300 a piece new. They can occasionally be found on ebay for around $120 a piece. If I get it working I may invest in some new ones as they old look really awful.

Migration and Demographics

I was just going over my Friday trip to San Francisco in my head. Thinking about "technocrats" and the never ending migrations that take place by people seeking to save money on housing costs and the notions a culture they bring with them. There are two types of migrants that come to mind. The refugees from lost jobs or broken dreams from both outside and inside an area. The other migrant is the opportunity seeker which has the means to change the face of an area economically... The guy with the high end technology job which provides the means to afford a home in San Francisco. One word... Gentrification. When looking at the map of San Francisco I see several things happening. The first is that the push south happens in waves out from the center of downtown. This to me is evident looking at what's happened on the west end of the Mission and moving south to Bernal Heights. Glenn Park missed the most recent wave of young trendy migrants because it skirts Diamond Heights and Noe Valley almost as an appendage. This means the housing values are higher and the rental space is more limited. Both Bernal Heights and Glenn Park maybe tough neighborhoods to start up in for this reason. The two neighborhoods are similar in the look and feel of their downtown shop area. Bernal Heights seems to have already begun transforming away from it's Latino roots into something like Noe Valley but on a smaller scale. Glenn Park on the other hand remains relative untouched in this sense for reasons that maybe embedded in the community culture, but then it may have never been a working class neighbor hood to begin with, or if it was working class, that was too long ago to be apparent in the people living there now.

Next week I need to explore Balboa Park and the Excelsior District to see what sort of potential is there. My sense is that crossing over I280 will be a serious change in culture and population. Gentrification has negative connotations for sure because of it's impact on lower income peoples. I cannot change who I am or where I've come from and being in my situation doesn't seem like much of an advantage but the people who buy coffee and spend time in cafes have the leisure time to do so. I'm very conscious of how the appearance of such a business could be perceived as an invasion in a lower income neighborhood.  So taking advantage of lower rents may not necessarily be a good idea. Unless the locals in the area accept and assimilate to coffee culture. In Excelsior, that would be Asian and Latino populations.  I'll just have to do some exploration and see what turns up. Riding the edge of a wave of any trend is tricky, it's easy to stumble, but also necessary if you don't have the cash to compete with the big names. I still like Glenn Park even if it's a tad stuffy when it comes to the locals.

Another Adventure to San Francisco

Today, I went to San Francisco for several reasons. First, was to have lunch a La Taqueria on Mission St. then have a slice of pie at my favorite spot there, Mission Pies. It was good as always. I had a slice of Peach Raspberry. Makes me smile....

Mission Pies

   

 Mission Pies fits the new style cafe look perfectly, with its re-purposed old materials mixed with the new and the solid Victorian home feel. It follows the locally sourced food and art trend too. There's an energy there that's undeniable. Great independent. Good food to boot. 

Then I went to meet my friend Ric Lopez, he and Carl are shop owners in Glen Park, to look at spaces there and talk about the possibilities. I like the neighborhood's potential because of the BART station and its sleepy undiscovered status compared to say Bernal Heights for instants which is seeing and influx trendy young folks. The people in Glen Park tend to be a bit older in general right now and the energy and people traffic is muted compared to the Mission District down the hill. I think this could change though if the right kind of businesses open up there and begin to add more interest to the area. They need some artisans to move in and make the place interesting to visit. If I can get there ahead of that it would be wonderful.

The spaces available are pretty limited right now though and there are three cafes in Glen Park already. That might seem crowded but its not because one of them has no business at all hardly and one is on the opposite side of the BART station away from the downtown. Bello's Coffee, the franchise, is centrally located and the most popular of the three; but its small and kinda of hard to see right next to the bank. No reason to cower away though because there's enough people traffic for all to be doing well. Both Cups and Pebbles Cafe are suffering from a lack of "place". Bello gets it and so it has a little following that keeps it busy. I'd be interested in Bello's numbers.  There are few little restaurants in Glen Park that call themselves cafes but they are restaurants to be sure and they treat their customers in that fashion. One reason Glen Park maybe so untouched by the hipster crowd is that there seems to be fewer apartment rentals in Glen Park than in say the Mission Dist. for instance. This could be a hindrance to business growth for the neighborhood. The BART station is what's keeping hope alive, but the local businesses need to make use of it. The farmers market Glen Park is hosting now should go someways towards helping but they need more events like that. 

Glen Park BART station

After leaving Glen Park I took a short detour over to Bernal Heights to look at a space there. Then I went to Cheryn's Auctions to see about a refrigerator and ice maker. I missed to chance to get a Manitowoc QM-210 in very good shape for $1000. I felt a little sad about that but I wasn't prepared to buy right then, so it was sold to the guy standing next to me. Bluh!  After that debacle, I went to Philz Coffee on Folsom St. and snapped this lovely shot.

Philz Coffee at 24th & Folsom St.

Felt like I could have been in a little cafe in the Bahamas. Love the tropical feel to the place. Philz Coffee tends to decorate somewhat on the kitsch side which I don't care for normally but this location has a certain coziness to it in spades. Again with the mix of old and new, recycled furniture, and attention to design. The place was packed as you can see even though it was after 3pm, when the evening crowds hadn't arrived yet. I guess I must be in love with the formula because I see many of the same elements in all the most popular cafes. It doesn't strike me as fad either. I think they are genuinely tapping into the second home feeling people want. Again is goes back to providing a "place" people want to be.

Inspiration

Today's inspiration came to me in the form of a book about Wharton Esherick. His work with wood is fantastic. Wood is warmth. -Wood is texture -Wood is the human touch -Wood touched by human beings shows the spirit and the shape of our inner selves. You can't get any more powerful than that.

I just want to reach out a rub my hands over those pieces of wood. I love wood that is rubbed to a shine from so many moments of contact. Worn wood is the symbol of the living! I must use this in my space somehow.....