Storied: San Francisco

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Mother Bar, Part 2 (S5E9) Jan 24, 2023

Show notes

We start Part 2 talking, briefly, about the 2016 election. Then we move on to COVID and how the pandemic affected Thee Parkside. In a word, it was devastating, but Malia and her crew rose to the challenge. They had opened La Lucha coffee from the front window of the joint in 2015, and were able to keep that going. Because of Parkside's kitchen, they were considered essential and so were able to be open when other bars weren't. But, as Malia points out, it was a "constant state of pivoting." It wasn't only the always-changing federal, state, and local regulations around COVID, but she and crew trying out different things until they got to what worked. Even though they made it, COVID got Malia thinking about community. Her friend, photographer Chloe Sherman, had been posting photos of queer San Francisco through the years. The photography revealed for Malia what had been lost, not in the pandemic, but through gentrification over decades. This inspired her to start doing research on the history of lesbian bars in The City. At this point, Malia dives into some of that history, including the 40-some-odd lesbian bars that existed in San Francisco between World War II and the 1990s. She touches on the bigotry and discrimination of the lesbian community over the decades and what it meant to overcome that and operate a business, even here in The City. Seeing a void, Malia sought to re-establish a space in San Francisco for womxn and femme-centered queers. With a word in to her realtor, incredibly, the spot on 16th Street in the Mission that used to be Esta Noche was available. Signs? Signs. Opened in 1979 by gay Latinx men who were tired of going to predominantly white bars in the Castro, Esta Noche thrived for 35 years until 2014, when a new liquor licensing fee was imposed and they were unable to raise enough money to cover it. Bond bar opened soon after and ran until its owner sold to Malia earlier this month. Everything is set for Mother to open its doors on Thursday, Feb. 2. Malia speaks to the fears of doing what she's doing. Not one to seek the spotlight, she feels an intense pressure to get this right, to defy what seem like odds in these times. We applaud her efforts and look forward to seeing Mother thrive for many, many years.

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather and Jeff Hunt

Mother Bar, Part 1 (S5E9) Jan 17, 2023

Show notes

San Francisco is about to get its first new LGBTQ bar in a long, long time, y'all.

In this episode, we'll meet Malia Spanyol. Currently, Malia owns Thee Parkside. She was born in Honolulu and went to ASU in Tempe, Arizona. But she hated it and came to San Francisco in 1989 just before the big earthquake that year.

Malia was already out and was here looking for her people. She worked, went to school at SF State, made friends, and explored the town on her motorcycle. It was a "great time to be gay in SF," the early 1990s.

She was always going to music shows, art shows, poetry readings, and parties, mostly in the Mission. "Valencia Street was dirty" then, Malia says. She worked in a dildo factory and lived in Hayes Valley. On her way to work, she and friends would drive down Valencia in a t-top, out and proud as fuck.

At her job, Malia learned bookkeeping and helped friends and small businesses do taxes. She seized an opportunity to become a business owner herself when she bought Pop's Bar with friends in 2003. Lil Tuffy, who some of you might know from this podcast and his show posters, came in and became the manager at the bar.

Malia ran Pop's for 10 years, from 2003 to 2013. In 2007, she found out about an opportunity at Thee Parkside, a spot with more to offer—food, a stage, an outside area. And so she capitalized. As Malia notes, the area around Thee Parkside was very different then—more blue collar.

She learned Muay Thai around 2007 and fell in love with the sport. Her coach asked her to open a new gym and she did.

Check back next week to hear all about Malia's newest adventure—opening Mother, the newest queer and femme-centered bar in The City.

We recorded this episode at Thee Parkside in Potrero Hill in November 2022.

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E8) Jan 10, 2023

Show notes

In Part 2, we pick up our conversation with Cody about Rainbow's bulk section. There's even talk of "The Bulk Section at Rainbow" as a spinoff podcast. Then we move on to the cheese department. Gordon Edgar is a name you should know if you even remotely tolerate cheese. With Gordon at the helm, Rainbow has won many, many awards for its cheese department. If you're anything like me, you know exactly why this is true. The rest of the podcast includes our talk about how Cody worked at a health food store in Sacramento before moving to San Francisco in 2006. In 2007, he started at Rainbow in the package department. We go over what it takes for Rainbow employees to become worker/owners as well as the decision-making process at the 200-ish-employee store. As with Other Avenues and Arizmendi, Rainbow offers its worker/owners flexible time-off and vacations and generally a very positive work/life balance. Cody speaks to the idea of Rainbow expanding to other towns, but says the feeling is that communities should create the thing they need. To that end, Rainbow has been known to seed-fund new co-ops. We end with perhaps my favorite Cody quote, one that I believe sums up our series on co-ops in San Francisco: "Collective effort makes change."

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E8) Jan 03, 2023

Show notes

In this episode, we kick off the new year by resuming our series on San Francisco co-ops. This one is all about Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. To guide us, we'll meet Cody Frost, a marketing and creative strategist at Rainbow for the last three-and-a-half years. Cody has been a worker/owner at Rainbow for almost 16 years. He grew up in Carmichael, California, just outside of Sacramento, in the 1980s and '90s. He pursued art in his early twenties and had friends in Sacto, where he moved around 2004/2005. Then he heard about an effort to make a new art space in The City in 2005 and moved here in 2006. That space turned out to be the Secret Alley, a place near and dear to our hearts. Cody first got a job at Bi-Rite, where he worked for a year before landing the gig at Rainbow. At this point in the recording, we dive more deeply into Rainbow history. It starts with a faith-based group that used food for community support and political activism in 1970s, the People's Warehouse. Many co-ops, including some that are still around today, were created out of that group. Rainbow's original location, which first opened its doors in 1975, was on 16th Street between Guerrero and Valencia in the Mission. Back then, groceries and a general store were at separate addresses. They moved in the '80s to 15th and Mission and combined stores. Then, outgrowing that space, Rainbow found its current location in 1995 and opened the next year following renovations. We end Part 1 talking about the co-op's incredible bulk-food section. We recorded this episode at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in November 2022.

Photography by Jeff Hunt and Michelle Kilfeather

Arizmendi Bakery, a Worker-Owned Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E7) Dec 13, 2022

Show notes

In Part 2 of our episode with Arizmendi Bakery, we hear from baker/owners Lizzy Harvey and Aeri Swendson. Lizzy shares her story of being born and raised in San Francisco, leaving for college and coming back, and what, besides baking, she's up to these days (namely, circus and aerial arts). After her return to The City, she was teaching here and got a grant to teach English for one year in Córdoba, Argentina, where she ended up cooking a lot, especially chocolate. Upon her return to the States, she looked for a job to help her pursue her new love. The collective/cooperative aspect of Arizmendi was a bonus. She was a candidate pre-pandemic, and ended up being voted in in March 2020. Timing, y'all. Aeri grew up outside of Seattle and moved to SF for college (SF State) in 2003. She lived in the Sunset during college and became a customer at Arizmendi. Aeri worked at Green Apple on Clement and taught gymnastics after graduation before getting the job at Arizmendi 11 years ago. She had baked virtually all her life and knew a little about co-ops before coming on. She speaks to, among other things, the incredible life/work balance that a job at Arizmendi allows its baker/owners.

Photography by Jeff Hunt

Arizmendi Bakery, a Worker-Owned Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E7) Dec 06, 2022

Show notes

Several of the worker/owners at Arizmendi Bakery on Ninth Avenue have been there since the place opened 22 years ago. Around half of them have worked there for two decades. Continuing our series on San Francisco co-ops, this time we travel to the Inner Sunset and this special place that serves up so many delicious treats. Whether it's a morning pastry, an evening vegetarian pizza, or an delicious cookie for dessert, Arizmendi has got you covered. In Part 1, Sue Lopez speaks to her own history as well as how the original spot in the East Bay, Berkeley's Cheese Board Collective, spawned what today is a Bay Area group of cooperative bakeries. The conversation covers such topics as: what it meant for a co-op to expand to more than one location; the differences among Arizmendi/Cheese Board locations; how the Ninth Avenue location brings about new menu items; the cooperative movement of the late-1960s/early 1970s; the meaning of the name "Arizmendi"; opening the spot on Ninth Avenue, which was the third in the collective group; and the Inner Sunset community. Check back next week to hear the stories of a couple other baker/owners of Arizmendi. If you missed it, please go back and check out our episode with Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative. Resources mentioned in the podcast: NOBAWC This episode was recorded at Arizmendi Bakery on Ninth Avenue in the inner Sunset in November 2022.

Photography by Jeff Hunt

Giving Tuesday w/Bitch Talk Podcast! (S5E6) Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

In this special episode, Jeff and Erin (Bitch Talk Podcast) talk about what it means (and costs) to run our respective shows, with a special shout-out to BFF. Then we plug all the wonderful non-profits we're supporting this year.

We want YOU to support us and all of them because none of us can do any of this without each other. Anything you can give is deeply appreciated.

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, Part 2 (S5E5) Nov 22, 2022

Show notes

In Part 2 of our episode on Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, the conversation starts with food, food systems, and how humans can better steward the land and sea in our daily and collective lives. Celia talks about how, with co-ops, money generally stays in the community. After a quick aside for Jeff's lasagna story, we discuss food preservation and distribution, the myth of food scarcity, and the idea of growing food in urban centers. Then Celia tells us about some other new co-ops opening in the Bay Area before sharing what it was like for her and Other Avenues during thepandemic. She says that the biggest challenge was the keeping up with and enforcing the ever-changing rules. Resources La Via Campesina Regenerative Agriculture

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative, Part 1 (S5E5) Nov 15, 2022

Show notes

Celia LoBuono Gonzalez joins us on the show this episode to share her story and that of Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative. Part 1 starts off with Celia sharing the story of her life up to the point of getting a job at Other Avenues. From there, we pivot to the colorful and, we think, important story of food in San Francisco and the Bay Area starting in the 1960s.

From a collection of neighborhood clubs called the Food Conspiracy, whose motto was, "If you can't walk to Food Conspiracy, it's time for a new Food Conspiracy," to the People's Food System, which included Other Avenues, Rainbow Grocery, Veritable Vegetable, and other co-ops that don't exist anymore, there's proof all over today that cooperative models work. We like the sound of that, in fact, compared to competitive businesses.

Other Avenues' doors opened in 1974. By 1987, a hybrid system of worker and community management was adopted. And the worker-owned model that exists today started back in 1999.

Check back next week for Part 2 and more with Celia LoBuono Gonzalez.

Resources US Federation of Worker Coops

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

Alemany Farm, Part 2 (S5E4) Nov 08, 2022

Show notes

There's wine grapes being grown in San Francisco. In Part 2, Christopher tells us all about the 280 Project, a viticulture apprenticeship and wine school. He partnered with a winemaker from Napa, a professor at UC Davis, and others back at home to bring BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and people who feel marginalized and want to learn anything at all about wine together to do just that. The 280 Project is a very hands-on adventure, with apprentices taking frequent field trips, learning how grapes are grown from the ground-up. They also cover winemaking as well as the financial side of things. Then we take a walk through Alemany Farm, starting with their outdoor kitchen. Christopher talks about the importance of location for the farm and kitchen, situated as it is between a gentrifying and affluent neighborhood and a housing project. To the south and east, it's a virtual food desert, with corner stores and chain fast-food most abundant. Up the hill in Bernal Heights, it's quite a different story. We chat about the idea of using parts of Golden Gate Park to cultivate the land and grow food for the people. It's what some call "food parks," and it's not as radical an idea as you might think. Another project Christopher is working on is a Black indigenous seed bank, which he tells us about. Besides providing seeds, it would be a repository of people and their food stories and histories. Count us on board for that. Then our tour takes us up to the vines, appropriately. We end our little journey at the greenhouse. We want to thank Christopher for his time talking with us and showing us around. Shout out to Isaiah Powell of Dragonspunk GRO for introducing us to Christopher and the 280 Project.

Photography by Michelle Kilfeather

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