Bagels and Cream
Daily Driver, a café, creamery and bagel bakery, opened last month in a 7,000-square-foot, two story, space in Dogpatch’s American Industrial Center. One of the owners, David Kreitz, developed the bagel recipe, which apparently is not quite Montreal nor New York style, but an excellent vehicle for the establishment’s cream cheese and butter. Other menu items include egg dishes, quark bowls with granola, and ghee…Also last month, and apropos of Dogpatch and maybe round things with holes in the middle, the Port of San Francisco released a new waterfront plan in which it insists it’ll continue to seek a ship repair firm at Pier 70, which has been missing since the last one closed two years ago, though it acknowledged that it may “broaden its marketing efforts to consider other maritime uses.” Perhaps a whale hospital for all those giant creatures whose health is being threatened by the aforementioned ships and climate change…
West Elm Drops a Leaf
West Elm, a subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, which has been based in San Francisco since the 1960s, is in the permitting process to locate a store at the corner of Connecticut and 17th streets, with an anticipated 2020 opening. West Elm focuses on smaller – ‘condominium-sized’ – merchandise; retail managers are encouraged to find and sell items from neighborhood ‘makers.’ The company is no doubt salivating over what’s being developed in Dogpatch and Potrero Hill. The outlet may feature a parklet and the ubiquitous café.
Zynga Plays Real Estate Game
Online game maker Zynga has sold its San Francisco head office building for around $600 million in one of the City’s biggest, or maybe just most recent, property sales. Zynga vended the Showplace Square edifice, at 650 Townsend Street, to real estate investor Beacon Capital Partners. The company will remain headquartered in the structure, leasing 185,000 square feet, or about a quarter of the 670,000-square-foot property, housing less than half of its 1,862 employees. The building was bought in 2012 for $234 million, in a deal that created a multi-million-dollar community trust fund in exchange for municipal parking exemptions. Where’s the neighborhood’s money this time around?
Gooey, Chocolaty, Climate Change
Two headlines recently popped up side-by-side on The Washington Post’s internet feed:
“The Key to Those Gooey, Chocolaty Blondies? Open Sesame.”
“Thousands of Seabirds Starved to Death in the Bering Sea; and Scientists See Evidence of Climate Change.”
We’re constantly subjected to the mind-bending juxtaposition of extremely different visions of the present, and potential future. We admire the gleaming Salesforce Tower as we walk past a huddle of homeless people begging for scraps. We enjoy a mouthful of fresh chocolate chip cookie inside our newly air-conditioned homes as we watch streaming news of 120 degree heat threatening the lives of Continental Indians. One wonders, will the apocalypse be catered, and, if so, will the food be vegan?
