Tapped Out
Harmonic Brewing will close its Dogpatch taproom at the end of October, a few months after Potrero Hill’s Anchor turned off its taps. Harmonic founders Jon Verna and Ed Gobbo couldn’t agree on a new lease with their landlord. In 2019, San Francisco was home to more than 30 independent craft breweries, one-third of which’ve closed. Still, it’s not all bad news. Cameron McDonald and Jesse Hayter recently opened Enterprise Brewing Company at 1150 Howard Street in a space formerly occupied by Cellarmaker Brewery’s taphouse. McDonald previously worked at Bay Area brew houses Seven Stills and Standard Deviant; Hayter was at Presidio-based Fort Point Beer Company, where the pair met. The original Enterprise Brewing Co. opened in 1873 in a Mission alleyway about eight blocks from its new location. It survived the 1906 earthquake before the 18th Amendment forbidding alcohol sales shut it down in 1920. McDonald, a Palo Alto native whose father and grandfather were born in San Francisco, hopes to help revive the City’s beer-making identity and honor South-of-Market’s industrial heritage with a friendly neighborhood watering hole offering “approachable beers.” The 10 barrel-brewery with 16 draft lines and 1,500 square feet of serving space has the capacity to produce 2,000 barrels a year. Enterprise vends pilsners, lagers, pale ales and India pale ales.
Condo-nomium
Lenders seized a newly constructed condominium complex in Mission Bay that’s been vacant since its completion, a victim of sluggish municipal permitting processes, lethargic Pacific Gas and Electric Company hook-up services, rising interest rates and a challenging real estate market. Avid Bank took ownership of the 603 Tennessee Street building from developer Sol Properties, which carried $15.4 million in debt. Arcon Construction Group, the structure’s general contractor, previously filed a lien claiming roughly $1.07 million in unpaid construction fees. The 24,000-square-foot property, located a block from the Chase Center, was designed by noted San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz. The condos were initially meant for individual sale, a strategy that morphed into an attempt to sell the property as a whole. A website notes that the 24 residential units – nine one-bedrooms, 14 two-bedrooms and one three-bedrooms – “can be leased immediately or re-designate as condominiums.” An initial listing price of a bit less than $19 million has dropped to $16.2 million.
Robot Parade
Those of us who’ve encountered a driverless vehicle traversing city streets have been annoyed, delighted, and concerned, not necessarily in equal measure. The cars have prompted such questions as, how do you make eye contact with it before crossing a street, or flip it off when it acts dangerously? While technology marches to the beat of venture capitalists, in many ways it was Lyft and Uber that ushered in Cruise and Waymo, by degrading the taxi business with poor quality vehicles driven by inexperienced and sometimes scary drivers. Women who depend on these services are chronically confronted with the need to navigate inappropriate conversations, and ocassional bad behavior, including drivers abruptly pulling over on a freeway shoulder claiming they needed to make a phone call, or dropping passengers off far from their destination. The idea of getting into a clean machine that will transport them to where they need to go without undue hassle or risk is quite appealing to many women and men. The consequences to newly unemployed professional drivers will need to be addressed.
PV Staff