Anchor Drop
After Anchor Brewing Company announced it was shutting down last month several San Franciscans, as well as the brewery’s union, indicated they wanted to purchase the brand. Anchor employees notified Sapporo USA, Anchor Brewing’s parent company, that they’ve “decided to launch an effort to purchase the brewery and run it as a worker co-op.” San Francisco native Kyle Withycombe, who sold a juice company last year, has also raised his hand, as has Mike Walsh, who has lived two blocks from the brewery for 30 years. A serial investor who helped finance more than 200 companies, Walsh said he’d have made an offer in 2017 when the company was transferred to Sapporo had he known it was for sale…Potrero Hillians who grew up in the neighborhood can smell the yeasty odor of beer-making in their dreams. And the periodic holiday parties at the brewery will be missed. Given the property’s value to be developed as housing, the City will need to step in with significant tax breaks for any rescue deal to be successful.
Bus Stop Housing
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released its latest redevelopment plans for the Potrero Yard bus facility, reflecting 513 units, down from the 575 previously proposed. The design, by Canadian-based IBI Group, depicts an 150-foot structure with roughly 1.24 million square feet of space, including more than 540,800 square feet dedicated to housing. Residences would consist of 117 studio apartments, 184 one-bedrooms, 144 two-bedrooms and 68 three-bedrooms. The 2500 Mariposa Street property would feature a seventh-floor amenity area, with 75,620 square feet of community gathering spots, a dog trail and two community gardens separated by a central tower and two earth mounds. A bit more than half the homes would be affordable to those earning no more than 80 percent of San Francisco’s median income of roughly $126,000, with the rest earmarked for people who make up to 120 percent of the median. SFMTA hopes that the project will be constructed by 2027.
Just Reopen
Less than five months after it abruptly shuttered, Just for You Cafe is being resurrected under the name Giuliana’s Just for You Cafe. Co-owner Michael Tufo, who owns Calabria Bros. Italian deli in the Excelsior, wants to open this month, pending final City approvals. The breakfast and brunch spot was a neighborhood favorite for 33 years before then-owner Reid Hannula closed it last April. The new menu will include breakfast basics like pancakes, eggs, and bacon along with old favorites, such as New Orleans-style beignets. Tufo hopes to bring back former staff.
San Francisco Hearts
In 1988 on a Saturday evening after dinner while watching television a 65-year-old man collapsed in front of his wife and son. The son, poorly trained in traditional cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), attempted to ventilate his father, who didn’t respond. The son then tried manual chest compression; his father remained pulseless and breathless. Desperate, the wife and son grabbed a toilet plunger, successfully using it to get the man’s heart going until an ambulance arrived. Later, after the patient recovered at San Francisco General Hospital, his son gave the doctors some advice: put toilet plungers next to all the beds in the coronary unit. SF General didn’t do that, but the idea prompted physicians to consider better ways to do CPR. More than three decades later, at a summer meeting of emergency medical services in Hollywood, Florida, researchers presented data showing that using a plunger-like setup leads to remarkably better outcomes for reviving patients. A new procedure, known as neuroprotective CPR, is now gaining traction in medical circles, thanks to one family’s impromptu plumbing solution.
PV Staff