Sunday, 8.2.2020 The Throughline is your portal to tomorrow, a view of the Bay Area at the intersection of reality and possibility. Our nine-week journey continues by by exploring the future of how we socialize:
SAN FRANCISCO AT A CROSSROADS — ALTERED BY PANDEMIC AND PROTEST A SPECIAL REPORT BY CULTURE DESK WEEK FOUR: THE SOCIAL SCENE
1 Prescription for a pandemic dinner party
1 Will COVID kill classic bars? 1 ‘Waiters’: Short fiction by Daniel Handler Find more inside.
J2 | Sunday, August 2, 2020 | SFChronicle.com
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 2, 2020 |
THE SOCIAL SCENE
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O N L I N E O N LY Video dates and monogamy: A sex therapist explains how people’s relationship and intimacy concerns are changing with COVID at sfchronicle.com/throughline.
LET’S BE FRIENDS: DAT I N G A P PS N OW B U I L D I N G SO C I A L C I RC L E S By Anna Kramer
Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
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A B OU T T H I S S ECT I O N
Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
When recent college graduate Tyrah Green decided to move across the country to Oakland, she knew she would need to make new friends. ¶ But the coronavirus pandemic has closed bars, canceled parties and kept people out of the workplace, slamming the door on the usual friend-making opportunities. It was a challenging proposition for Green, but COVID-19 was not going to stop her from leaving Brooklyn.
ELBOW BUMPS, O P E N W I N D OWS : H OW A N E R D O C TO R T H ROWS A D I N N E R PA RT Y
Dr. Maria Raven gets busy in the kitchen of her Berkeley home. The chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Parnassus is planning to throw a dinner party for 12, targeting January for the social event that she thinks about while unwinding from her job.
By Sam Whiting
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Driving home from work at 7 in the morning, Dr. Maria Raven needs to take her mind off the night she has just spent treating COVID-19 patients as chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Parnassus. So she starts thinking about the dinner party she will host to break in the dining room of her newly purchased Willis Polk-designed 1915 home in the Claremont Hills of Berkeley.
The plan is for indoor dining with the windows and French doors of her home to be wide open, and guests spaced far enough apart to negate the benefit of body heat. She will provide the lap blankets. “Sounds depressing, doesn’t it,” she says with a laugh, during a calm day at work. The challenge with any social gathering since the pandemic began is to balance the act of keeping it safe for people involved, but not so adapted for safety that it’s a reminder of the depressing state of our world right now. Raven is up to it. She is both an entertainer and a doctor, which makes her uniquely qualified to offer some guidelines for throwing a dinner party at home. And, to be clear, Raven is planning for the future, not today, with a January target date for her party. In her normal, pre-pandemic life, Raven liked to unwind on a Saturday night by whipping up a Mediterranean-inspired buffet for 20, kids included. She always has good medical stories to tell, starting with the twist that she was a history major at UC Berkeley who did her thesis on women in film during the Great Depression. The paper came out too long even for her faculty adviser, the esteemed cultural historian Lawrence Levine. How she got from there to a hospital residency in New York City, treating gunshot wounds and internal damage from falling off subway trains and down elevator shafts, then later to the top job at the UCSF emergency department is a story unto itself. Her party invitation list is usually drawn from her college friends and parents from her kids’ schools in Berkeley. Raven’s regular seating strategy is to throw everyone together during cocktails, and after a round or two of her killer martinis and negronis see what carries over to the dinner table. But normal seating strategies have been turned upside down for the risk of virus transmission. Raven’s dining room table usually seats 10, but not now. “People who already live together can sit right next to each other. They can share chairs and food,” she says in a follow-up email. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier!” Even with couples crammed together it will hold eight, maximum, which means four will be at an auxiliary table. What she did think of earlier is that she will cap her party at 12 because that is the limit of her group of COVID contacts. “Anyone that’s not in my social bubble is getting tested before they are coming,” she says. “Even if my parents are coming from Tucson, they have to get tested.” Raven has been tested twice, but just to be on the safe side she will scrub down as if for surgery before beginning her food prep, and put on a surgical mask. Her beaux arts home has a formal dining room, though Raven is “not a formal dinner party person,” she says. But social distancing requires a degree of formality. Everything will have to be choreographed, starting with her opening the front door to greet her arriv-
“Anyone that’s not in my social bubble is getting tested before they are coming. Even if my parents are coming from Tucson, they have to get tested.” DR. MARIA RAV E N , chief of emergency medicine at UCSF Parnassus
als, having switched from a surgical mask to a more stylish cloth mask made by her mom to accent her outfit. Instead of greeting her guests in the hallway she will meet them outside to establish the mood of social distancing. She will not go so far as to welcome each of her arrivals with a temperature gun to the forehead. That would be going too far, though she does have access to the tools. “I don’t think temperature guns are effective,” she says. It would spoil the mood, “not to mention that those things are inaccurate.” Once inside there will be a box of surgical masks she’s brought home from the hospital on offer. They might not match what guests are wearing “but they are the most comfortable,” she says. As a responsible host, she will keep her own mask on while serving, but masks will be optional for guests. The greater danger is in the cocktail hour. People will want to carry their drinks around to see the house then crowd around the island in her European-style kitchen with its Wedgewood stove. It will be the doctor’s duty to guide each person to a seat in the living room or in the backyard, if weather permits. Once seated, 6 feet apart except for couples who arrive together, she expects them to stay seated. With her mask still on, she will take the cocktail orders and deliver drinks to guests in their seats. She is strict about that. “Your behavior changes after a couple of drinks,” she says. “A huge way that COVID is spreading is in bars. You can’t stand and drink and bunch together.” This adds a lot of work and Raven would normally deputize her two kids, ages 14 and 12. But that exposes them to unnecessary risk so they will be sequestered downstairs with a video. Normally she will allow her friends to bring their own kids to form a separate party, but she won’t be able to police two groups. She also will not hire catering help because that adds another level of risk. So she will mix the martinis and negronis and Champagne cocktails and serve them in glasses initialed with a Sharpie so nobody can pick up the wrong drink by mistake. If they do, they can leave their seats to visit the bottle of Purell on the kitchen counter. But nothing is mandatory and she is not going to scold people. That’s why there will be no kids beside her own in the house. “I trust people,” she says. “We are all adults and no one wants to get COVID.” Her trademark dish is a kale Ceasar salad, either set up on a buffet table or passed around the dining room table. This is usually followed by sliced steak served with roasted potatoes, Brussels sprouts, bread, all passed around family-style. “There would be a lot of shared plates but now I can’t do that,” she says. “I would prepare individual servings for each person because I know the likelihood of transmission is very low if people don’t share food.” The odds of having the food still warm by the time everyone is served is also low, assuming the wind is whistling through the dining room and carrying all the germs out the window. “Sliced steak is good served cold,” she says, “people are just going to have to tolerate it.” Wine bottles will not be passed. With her own mask still on she will go around the table and pour the wine into the Sharpie-marked wine glasses. Then she will mask back up to go around for refills. Another danger is between the main course and desert. This is when people tend to get up and switch seats to cozy up to someone else. “If you are playing by the (new) rules people aren’t doing that,” she says. “People are staying in their seats.” But she is willing to bend, provided guests put their masks back on, which will complicate the after-dinner drinks. An elbow bump, possibly a 6-foot air kiss, will have to suffice as farewell. She won’t have to worry about fetching coats since everybody will still be wearing them. That is about the only area where her load will be reduced. “It’s a lot more work and a lot less fun,” she says after rehearsing it in her mind. But at least it is something social. Raven remembers the last party she attended, a joint Saturday-night birthday celebration on March 7. She turned 47 on March 5 and was one of the honorees. “People were speculating that this could be our last dinner,” she says. It wasn’t. But even an emergency-room doctor is surprised at how long it has been. So she won’t mind the extra cleanup, first with the dishwasher on high heat. Then out comes the hydrogen peroxide wipes they use in the emergency department, to clean all surfaces in the house. It could be 1 or 2 in the morning before everything is sanitized. “I’m a social person and I get energy and happiness from sharing my house with other people and making dinner for them,” she says. “It is one of the things people have been missing the most. Enough of the Zoom cocktail parties.” Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@samwhitingsf
The Chronicle photo illustration
Top: Educator Tyrah Green, a recent college graduate who moved to Oakland this year, used a dating app to get to know people in the area before her move.
So before Green got on the airplane in June, she decided to use dating apps to get to know people in the area. She changed her location from Brooklyn to San Francisco on Hinge, and she immediately connected with people online, landing a date before she even touched down at SFO. “So I do actually have that one person that I know who lives around here who I spend time with, which has been really great,” Green said of the person she met through Hinge. “I’m really trying to rethink what authentic connections and interactions are, and not be ashamed of how lonely I feel at times.” As a pandemic playbook has emerged for moving, working and socializing remotely in the Bay Area, new ways to make friends have also grown organically out of the disruption caused by the coronavirus. Recent arrivals — including college graduates like me — have taken to dating apps for more than romance and hookups, matching with a wider range of people, then asking them for friendship instead of love. And just as Zoom happy hours with far-away family and virtual apartment tours may remain after the pandemic fades into history, making new friends on the internet is here to stay. When I decided to move from Philadelphia to San Francisco to work at The Chronicle, I was just like Green: excited about the move but friendless in my new city. Friends from college, worried about my complete lack of a social life once I arrived here in June, urged me to match with people on dating apps like Hinge and Bumble. “Everyone’s doing it,” they assured me. I felt uncomfortable, but after a month of near isolation, I decided to give it a shot. And they were right. Conversations online turned quickly to socially distanced walks, picnics in the park — and often, friendship. Everyone was doing it. Ross Matican, a recent graduate of Carleton College in Minnesota who moved to San Francisco this summer to work as a journalist, met a new friend on Grindr, a hookup app for the gay, bi, trans and queer community. Now they meet up weekly for masked, socially distanced walks to ice cream shop Salt and Straw. “No one is dating right now,” he said. “So I just want to make new friends. “People in the past would have been like, ‘Ew, why are you
Above: The social media profiles and posts of, from left, Green, Livvy Platerink, Ross Matican and Chronicle reporter Anna Kramer (left) with a friend.
Throughline is a Culture Desk limited-series project exploring what the Bay Area of the near future could look like after the effects of the pandemic and protests take hold. How could we use this moment to reshape our region for the better? On the cover: Check back each week as we reveal another portion of visual development artist Pong Lertsachanant’s rendering of the future of the Bay Area.
CO R R ECT I O N doing that?’ ” he said of becoming friends with people through dating apps. “Now, I’m getting surprisingly wellreceived responses.” I’ve had the same experience. Once I worked up the courage to mention that I’m new to San Francisco, and that dating is not in the cards for my West Coast coronavirus summer, my Hinge matches were more than happy to be friends. They grew more comfortable, relaxed and eager to make plans. The pressure eased. Making friends this way is not an entirely new concept. Dating app Bumble launched Bumble BFF — intended specifically for platonic relationships — in 2016, the year I went to college. Back then, no one I knew used the app, or admitted it if they did. You were judged. But now that the pandemic has forced us to confront the uncomfortable in almost every facet of life, judging someone for making friends on a dating app feels very 2016. Datings apps have been a connection conduit for 20-somethings and older adults, but college freshmen, many anticipating a first semester or full year of remote learning, have found more straightforward ways to meet. Livvy Platerink, a first-year at UC Berkeley, met her classmates on a Facebook group and Instagram page. While incoming undergraduates often introduce themselves online before meeting in person, this year most of their friendships will have to stay on the internet. Scrolling through the introductions on social media, Platerink discovered a friend of a friend from Monterrey, Mexico. They immediately bonded over their mutual acquaintance and have decided to stay in touch, even though they may not meet in person this year. “I got to create this connection I never would have even made in person,” she said. Many of Platerink’s new online friendships blossomed Friends continues on J10
C E LE B R
ATE MOR E DAYLIG HT WIT
Ecosystem, July 26, Page 5: This story misattributed a quote to JooWan Kim. It was said by hip-hop artist Sandman.
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T H E SO C I A L SC E N E
W H AT D O YOU T H I N K? What are your concerns for the Bay Area as we move through the pandemic? Send your thoughts to culture@sfchronicle.com
N AV I G AT I N G T H E F U T U R E : W H E N H OW YOU F E E D YOU R COMMUNITY CHANGES By George McCalman
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Restaurants serve a multi-layered purpose in our society. Ostensibly to provide nourishment for customers, they are also hubs where human beings gather to commune with each other. During the pandemic, I’ve won-
dered how food business owners are navigating the paradox of attempting to make long-term decisions in a world where we currently (and for the foreseeable future) have no idea what is around the corner. I spoke with the owners of three restaurants or cafes that are hubs in their communities in Emeryville, the Outer Sunset and NoPa, who shared their process with candor and spoke about how they’re drawing on the support of their communities, their employees and themselves to look toward a disorienting and uncertain future.
Dave Muller & Lana Porcello, co-owners, Outerlands
Tam Duong Jr. / The Chronicle
Sally, a salad-making robot by Chowbotics, can prepare a custom salad in under one minute.
By Justin Phillips
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With every compostable bowl that Sally the saladmaking robot fills with chicken and romaine lettuce, the Bay Area food scene inches closer to the singularity: the widespread integration of dining with highend technology. ¶ The robot, created by the Hayward company Chowbotics, can mix dozens of salad combinations in moments. All a customer has to do is tap a couple of times on a touchscreen, which shows a digital rendering of their order. Plastic cylinders inside the machine then quickly rotate and dump measured amounts of the selected ingredients into a container. The process happens without a human chef present and it’s complete within a matter of seconds.
There’s a view of the future where Sally is the standard, a solution to ensure people can still eat out without worrying about human contact spreading a killer virus. But as we entertain autonomous dining, it’s worth mentioning that it was just a few years ago when San Francisco residents were appalled by the mere thought of a dining experience feeling akin to visiting an Apple store. Some full-service restaurants went as far as using high-capacity wireless access points, augmented reality and a bit of facial recognition software — for some light customer order tracking. Locals found the tech-ified experience, which relied less on human workers, impersonal and off-putting because it represented a dining future they didn’t yet want to embrace, one where technology was king over interpersonal interactions. But a global pandemic can change opinions. And in the dystopian fallout of San Francisco’s pandemic food scene, wherein diners shuffle between empty storefronts and takeout windows while completely avoiding contact with strangers, culinary technology has become as ubiquitous as $10 avocado toast was in the pre-COVID salad days. Although there was some precedence for this, with the local proliferation of burgers, pizzas and coffee being created by robots, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of flashy food technology. Just six months into the pandemic, Sally is already in 70 locations across the country, including at the University of San Francisco campus. And Chowbotics has partnered with supermarket chain ShopRite to debut a robot in one of its stores on the East Coast, setting the stage for the future. “We were one of those lucky companies that had the solution ideally suited for the circumstances that changed the way people function as a result of COVID-19,” said Rick Wilmer, the Chowbotics chief executive officer. Sally isn’t the lone robot shaping the way diners eat in the Bay Area since the coronavirus upended our habits. A similar machine that has been taking over the local dining scene is Chef B, which makes smoothies. The concept comes from Blendid, a Sunnyvale company.
One of Chef B’s robotic arms pours a smoothie into a cup. Blendid's automated kiosk is the first smoothiemaking robot to debut on Doordash in the Bay Area.
Burgers at Creator are delivered to diners via conveyor belt with a built-in airlock. Coupled with the restaurant’s burger-making robot, it can make a meal feel like entering “The Twilight Zone.”
Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @JustMrPhillips
ON MAKING DECISIONS Lana: As I was looking back at our timeline from early March, I was taking note of how many layers there were to everything that was going on. And the really critical decisions we were having to make, every five minutes, for weeks. We’re talking about decisions that affect a large number of people’s lives, or people’s health and safety. Crazy decision-making. It really just hit me how much we’ve been through in a short period of time. ON THE VALUE OF SMALL BUSINESS Lana: It’s a strange thing to say, you think that people understand, but the truth is, small business is, in a lot of ways, an unseen force. It’s this semi-invisible thing that’s everywhere. And it runs our cities in so many practical ways. ON LETTING GO Dave: A lot of what we’re doing and have been doing is letting go of what Outerlands was and being open to and looking toward how we can adjust this business to the changing needs of our community and its survival. There are so many unknowns, and the ground keeps shifting underneath us, so we are constantly adjusting what that looks like. The main thing is that we stay open to what it can be and the best thing it can be and remaining flexible in that, and trying not to be too attached to anything. Which is hard for something we care so much about and have put so much of our lives into. Really, the most important thing for us to do right now, is the safest thing to do. And if that means not having people in our dining room for the rest of the year or beyond and serving to-go food indefinitely … then that’s what we’re going to do. Because it’s the safety that matters, right? ON FEELING THE FATIGUE Dave: There’s also a strange sense of intense fatigue from stopping for the first real time, ever, turning around and looking at the view, seeing how far we’ve come, and realizing we don’t know where we have to go.
Fernay McPherson, owner, Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement ON CLOSING DOWN (TEMPORARILY) A week before (shelter in place) I started to see the decrease in our sales. So when it was (initially) takeout only, it became just too hard to do because I’m in this food hall with 10 different vendors and that volume decreases, it begins to get hard for everyone to make it. So I did close down for about two or three weeks. And I sat at home and I said, “I have to do something.” ON A PLAN OF ACTION My initial thought going into this was my staff. How were they going to live? I have two single parents, and how are they going to take care of themselves? So I immediately created a GoFundMe for them. So that was my first thought in something that I wanted to get in place immediately. But the two to three weeks I was home I was like, “What do I do?” I don’t know what to do. No one is coming into the market, so I came up with, OK, we’ll go in for the weekend and do pre-orders. We set up a whole new system for online ordering, just something new that Square had put into place on the fly. And we took preorders for the weekend. And I said, “Well, I’ll see how this goes.” It worked pretty well for the first weekend. So we did that for the next three to four weeks, weekends only, pre-orders. And that worked. ON GETTING THROUGH IT My faith kicked in and was like, “Even if you have to leave Emeryville, Minnie Bells is going to be OK. We’ll figure it out. We gonna be OK.” Whatever that means. If that means I’m going back to my pop-ups, go back to where I started, that’s what I’m going to do. That was the focus with me. Let’s reinvent.
Josey Baker, owner, the Mill ON BECOMING A GENERAL STORE The Mill did evolve very rapidly from an all-day cafe to a general store. It happened over the course of a couple of weeks. You know, it was an organic evolution of hmm, people aren’t ordering the prepared food that they used to, but we’ve got all of these ingredients. I guess we’re going to sell these ingredients. Necessity is the mother of invention, but it was like, “This stuff is just going to go to waste, we gotta ...” And then all of a sudden people really appreciated this.
Illustrations by George McCalman / Special to The Chronicle
ROBOT CHEFS, E M P T Y TA B L E S : DI N I NG ’S FU T U RE I S OU R DYSTO P I A N P R ESENT
Chef B is a kiosk containing a mechanical arm that acts as a smoothie barista, of sorts. It moves cups, pours drinks and slides them onto a counter for pickup. Chef B is equipped with refrigeration systems, blenders and nearly two-dozen temperature-controlled dispensers for its fresh produce and liquids. And it, too, has a digital interface for users to place orders. The kiosk has become the Bay Area’s first smoothie-making robot to debut on the Doordash delivery platform. Technology has also confronted the dilemma of social distancing and worker isolation at restaurants. At San Francisco’s automated burger joint, Creator, the restaurant is using a NASA-inspired vacuum-sealed airlock, basically a high-tech takeout window, to deliver its burgers to diners. The airlock, which is shaped like a box, has a conveyor belt that moves the packaged burger from inside the restaurant to outside of the restaurant. Coupled with the restaurant’s high-tech burger-making robot, the airlock can make ordering a meal at Creator feel like entering an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Businesses that make food aren’t the only ones propelling the local dining scene forward into a tech-friendly age. A Bay Area startup called Kogniz had a following behind its use of an artificial intelligence-led thermal security platform that tracks fevers from a distance, and enforces social distancing in real time. It’s essentially a camera with thermal optics that monitors a dining room for lapses in social distancing using facial detection algorithms to focus on the areas of a face that provide the most accurate temperature results, which is integral in detecting COVID-19 symptoms. This new dining landscape isn’t a surprise to chef Anthony Strong, who in 2017 opened the country’s first-ever virtual fine dining restaurant in San Francisco called Young Fava. Customers could only buy the upscale food, like ahi crudo, through UberEats, Caviar, Postmates, DoorDash and other apps. Young Fava closed after a few months and Strong opened Prairie in 2018, a restaurant that specialized in live-fire cooking before the pandemic. In March, after the Bay Area shelter-in-place order, Strong turned Prairie into a grocery store selling goods like pasta and toilet paper, as well as meal kits since people were eating more at home. When it comes to the Young Fava restaurant concept, Strong was ahead of his time three years before the pandemic, but the industry has since become equally as forward-thinking. Still, Strong said he understands the awkwardness around dining today, not only because of the decrease in human interaction, but because human interaction is a reminder of the dangers of being near crowds. “You know how a puppy will look kind of out of the side of its eye before it tries to sneak and eat something? I feel like that’s the look people give when they’re dining outside,” Strong said with a laugh. “It’s like everyone is wondering if what they’re doing is safe, should they even be doing it. It’s all just so up in the air.” While the 20-seat, intimate restaurants where patrons had to squeeze past each other in dimly lit dining rooms will not be returning anytime soon, local diners are still grappling with the new reality. Just look at Divisadero, which was San Francisco’s hottest restaurant neighborhood before the pandemic. On Saturday nights, crowds would bar hop between intimate neighborhood spots like Flybar and Bar Crudo before hanging out on the sidewalks until seats became available at the nearby tapas restaurant Barvale or the uber chic Italian restaurant Che Fico. The strip was a place to see and be seen in San Francisco. Now, it’s a ghost town. During a recent Wednesday evening only a few diners were eating outside of popular, pre-pandemic, restaurants like 4505 Barbecue on Divisadero, and Barvale, just across the street. At nearby Bar Crudo, a father sat with his two young daughters in a parklet outside the restaurant. The group ate tacos, and between bites they fumbled to get their masks over their mouths as people strolled by. After the meal, as they walked away from the restaurant, the father turned to the young girls and muttered, “That was weird, wasn’t it?” In cities like San Francisco, where Michelin-starred hot spots seemed to be on every corner and chefs were treated like rock stars, the dining scene has entered unprecedented territory. The pandemic has turned formerly niche luxuries like highend technology and automation into near necessities, while social distancing pulls us further apart. If this tech-infused experience is the future, for many people, it's a very weird reality in the present.
ON MAKING LONG -TERM PROJECTIONS It’s crazy to consider going through the holidays like this. You know, we probably won’t be open to the public. I will be surprised if that’s the case, just given where we are now with infection rates. I think we’re very fortunate in that our business is able to run only to-go. There’s so many businesses on Divisadero that, you know, especially food businesses or bars, entertainment venues, yoga studios, barber shops, nail salons, I think everyone is doing the best they can to navigate and figure out a way to conduct their businesses through this time. There’s only so much that anyone can do, that any business can do, any community can do, and I think we’re all being forced, given the opportunity, to be creative and try to endure through this time. And support our community and support our staff and all of the people and businesses and organizations that we’re all connected to. The optimist in me, the hopeful part of me, wants everyone in this community to be able to navigate this time without suffering. ON LOOKING FORWARD I am to a great extent looking to my team for a path forward, but also we’re looking to our greater community, to our customers, the greater food community. Like what does it mean to be responsible, accountable, through this time? It is very much a work in progress.
Follow George McCalman on Instagram and Twitter at @mccalmanco
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THE SOCIAL SCENE
SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 2, 2020 |
F E AS I B I L I T Y RAT I N G Yellow light: The city has welcomed restaurants to San Francisco sidewalks and parking lanes. With a little buy-in, a new era of street food could be brewing.
PU B L IC M E E T S PR IVA T E
STREET FOOD REVOLUTION: SA N F RA N C I SCO DINING IS GOING MOBILE
The Shared Spaces program is already conscripting sidewalks, parking spots and entire roadways for outdoor dining, but there’s room for expansion. Muela envisions interim use of public spaces like parks and parking lots to create an outdoor commercial plaza in every neighborhood.
RETA IL
TRU CK B O O M
Dining won’t be the only industry taking to the street. Retail shops could also set up booths.
Thanks to their minimal staff and open-air service, Escobedo says food trucks are a safer path for culinary entrepreneurs reconsidering brick and mortar. Muela has seen huge demand for vehicles from restaurateurs who want to branch out, and Cohen has had inquiries about his mobile kitchen model, Cubert.
C OT T A G E K IT C H ENS Informal food businesses are emerging on Instagram during the pandemic. If home cooks are allowed to hawk their dishes publicly, Escobedo imagines an explosion of entrepreneurs selling mole, Filipino spaghetti or quesabirria.
By Sarah Feldberg
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Miguel Escobedo raises a blade to to his his trompo trompo and andslices slicesoff offthin thinstrips stripsof ofroasted roastedpork, pork,stained stainedred redby byachiote achiotemarinade. marinade.He He nestles them on tortillas with chunks chunks of of pineapple pineapple and andaasprinkle sprinkleof ofcilantro cilantroand andonions. onions.This Thispart partofofhis hisbusiness business——the thepork, pork, the trompo, the magenta food truck truck painted painted with with the thename nameAl AlPastor PastorPapi Papinext nextto toan ananthropomorphized anthropomorphizedspit spitofofsmiling, smiling,concon-
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ical meat — is still the the same, same, but but two twoyears yearsinto intothe thecoronavirus coronaviruspandemic, pandemic,so somuch muchhas haschanged. changed. ¶¶ No Noone oneorders ordersatatthe thewinwin-
Many restaurants have expanded into produce and pantry items during the pandemic. Cohen predicts more food businesses embracing multiple revenue streams, like CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes from suppliers, meal kits to complete at home or a line of spicy pickles.
dow anymore, not since apps made made in-person in-person service service obsolete. obsolete.Escobedo’s Escobedo’smenu menunow nowincludes includesbottled bottledImmunity ImmunityHot HotSauce Sauce and handkerchiefs that double as face face masks, masks, and and he hehas haspartnered partneredwith withaarotating rotatingcast castof ofunemployed unemployedDJs, DJs,who whospin spinfor fortips tips in front of a few dozen dozen socially socially distanced distanced diners dinersand andhundreds hundredsmore moreon onTwitch. Twitch. But the biggest change is his his parking parking spot spot on onMistral Mistral Street in the Mission. The half-block half-block alley alley next next to toJohn John O’Connell Technical High School transformed into into aa poppopup dining plaza nine months after after COVID-19 COVID-19 hit, hit, one oneof of dozens of recurring street markets that that have have sprouted sprouted across San Francisco. Food trucks now now line line both both curbs curbs alongside booths from nearby businesses: Trick Trick Dog’s Dog’s cocktail cart, a roving flower shop, shop, temporary temporary kitchens kitchens from Farmhouse Kitchen Thai and Flour Flour ++ Water Water that thatare are now permanently deployed to one street-food street-food park park or or ananother. other. Steps Steps away, away, thethe high high school’s school’s soccer soccer field field is painted is painted with with thethe familiar familiar honeycomb honeycomb of socially of socially distanced distanced dining dining circles; circles; reservable reservable picnic picnic tables tables formform a ring a ring around around the the perimeter. Conjure a Friday night in 2022 2022 in in your your imagination, imagination,and and it’s easy it’s easy to picture to picture streetstreet food food beingbeing the hottest the hottest gamegame in in town. town. Many countries around the world have have rich rich traditions traditions of roadside vendors and open-air markets. markets. Now, Now, thanks thanks to to itsits nimble nimble setups, setups, relatively relatively lowlow overhead overhead andand thethe de-decreased exposure risk of outdoor dining, dining, street street food food seems poised to explode in San San Francisco. Francisco. A glimpse of that potential future future is is visible visible today todayat at Spark Social SF, a food park park in in Mission Mission Bay. Bay.Like Likemuch muchof of the city, the space shut down down in in the the early earlydays daysof ofthe thepanpandemic, but it’s open again — — with with mandatory mandatory masks, masks,sansanitizer itizer stations stations andand seating seating spaced spaced 6 feet 6 feet apart apart — focused — focused less onless lunch on business lunch business from now-empty from now-empty offices offices and more and more on feeding on feeding the neighbors. the neighbors. “We’re super lucky,” says Carlos Muela, Muela, co-founder co-founder of of Parklab, the company that runs Spark. Spark. “We “We were were babasically built for this pandemic.” “That’s what things could look like like in in the the future,” future,”says says Escobedo, who frequently slings his tacos tacos and and burritos burritos inside the park. “Everyone’s enjoying themselves themselves and and social distancing.” A former co-owner of Papalote restaurant, restaurant, Escobedo Escobedo has been offering free food and and discounts discounts to to in-need in-needcomcommunity members during the pandemic, but but even even with with those deals, his sales have reached reached and and surpassed surpassed preprecoronavirus levels. Food trucks, he says, says, are are aa good goodfit fitfor for these odd, alarming times. “I think think that’s that’s aa super superwinning winning model for COVID.” As the pandemic drags into its its sixth sixth month, month, and andBay Bay Area residents digest the idea that that we’re we’re not not going goingback back inside anytime soon, more businesses are are looking looking to to the the street. In San Francisco about 400 400 new new parking parking spots spotsand and sidewalk areas are open for restaurant restaurant use use through through the the Shared Spaces initiative, says program head head Robin Robin Abad Abad Ocubillo. The city has also approved approved 10 10 applications applications to to close portions of roadways for open-air open-air dining dining and and retail. retail. “It’s definitely exciting,” says Abad Ocubillo. Ocubillo. “San “San Francisco and other cities are reimagining reimagining the the potential potential of of their public realm. … I think think we’ll we’ll see see more moreof ofthis thisin inthe the near and far future.” Muela envisions a growing culture of of street street food food for for San Francisco, with miniature Spark-like plazas plazas springspringing up in parks, parking lots lots and and alleys. alleys. “I “Ithink thinkwe wehave have to blur the lines between public public and and private private space,” space,”he he says, taking inspiration from the markets markets of of Spain Spain (where (where his parents are from) and his his experience experience at at Spark Spark(which (which operates on public land). Matt Cohen agrees. The CEO of of Off Off the the Grid Gridsees seesan an opportunity to experiment with public space, space, to to bring bring stripped-down versions of his food truck truck parties parties into into
Many countries around the world have rich traditions of roadside vendors and open-air markets. Now, thanks to its nimble setups, relatively low overhead and the decreased exposure risk of outdoor dining, street food seems poised to explode in San Francisco.
ONLINE How do you think the pandemic will change Bay Area dining? Tell us at culture@ sfchronicle.com
residential areas with a mix of of vendors vendors on on wheels wheelsand and local brick-and-mortar businesses venturing outdoors to to meet customers where they are. Already Already many many restaurestaurants are seeking food trucks so so they they can can be beuntethered untethered from their physical space, and Cohen Cohen sees sees mobile mobile operaoperations branching beyond beer trucks and and rice rice bowls bowls to to include shopping and services. “There’s aa whole whole universe universe of mobility that works for neighborhoods neighborhoods that that is is really really unexplored,” he says. “Everything from dog dog stores stores to to drugstores to groceries.” He pictures alleys morphing into commercial commercial corricorridors, complete with public art, retail retail and, and, when when health health orders allow it, places for people people to to come come together. together. “Where do new community centers form?” form?” he he asks. asks. “As “Asitit becomes safe to do so, we’re we’re super super excited excited to tothink thinkabout about what that looks like.” But not everyone views the street street as as savior. savior. Azalina Azalina Eusope is the chef and owner owner of of Azalina’s Azalina’s and in the Mahila, Twitter a building Malaysian and restaurant Mahila, athat Malaysian opened last restaurant year in that Noe opened Valley. last She year has three in Noe other Valley. brick-and-mortar She has three other projects brick-andin various mortar stages ofprojects development. in various stages of development. Eusope has deep love and respect respect for for street street food. food.She She comes from a family of vendors, vendors, and and Mahila Mahila specializes specializesin in Mamak Mamak cuisine, cuisine, dishes dishes from from Malaysia’s Malaysia’s Muslim Muslim Indian Indian community sold on the streets of of Penang. Penang. At home, home, she shesays, says,“We “Wedon’t don’tgogototorestaurants. restaurants. WeWe go go to street to street vendors, vendors, andand theythey make make one one dishdish for the forwhole the whole of their of their lifetime.” lifetime.” HerHer father father soldsold two two typestypes of noodles of noodles and illegal and illegal moonshine moonshine to non-Muslim to non-Muslim friends. friends. “He died “He asdied a poor man as a poor with man no assets withwhatsoever,” no assets whatsoever,” Eusope says. Eusope But when says. he passed But when away, he “the passed whole away, island “thecame whole to say island goodbye.” came to say goodbye.” In San Francisco, Eusope started her business on a plastic In San table Francisco, at the Alemany Eusope Farmers’ started her Market business andon Offa the Grid Fort plastic table Mason. at theWith Alemany two young Farmers’ kidsMarket at home, and it was Off the exhausting Grid Fort Mason. work. When With two sheyoung thought kids about at home, opening it was a restaurant, “we exhausting work. were When upgrading she thought ourselves,” about opening she says.a restaurant, On Friday, “we Azalina’s were upgrading closed at ourselves,” the Twitter she building says. in preparation Now, Azalina’s for a new is open location for weekday at 499 Ellis lunch, St. Meanwhile, and Eusope Eusope is serving is serving takeout takeout from Mahila from and Mahila selling andturmeric selling turnoomeric dles bynoodles the pound. by the She pound. wantsShe thewants government the government to increase to increase financial financial assistance assistance for smallfor businesses small businesses and for insurand for insurance ance companies companies to cover to cover rent for rent restaurants for restaurants largely largely shutshuttered tered by the bycoronavirus the coronavirus who’ve who’ve beenbeen paying paying into into policies policies for years. forShe years. saysShe shesays has she to make has to it make work with it work herwith curher current rent locations. projects. She’s trying She’s trying to keep toher keep staff heremployed staff em- and ployed is spread and too is thin spread to invest too thin in to something invest in something new like a food like a food truck, truck, which which couldcould cost from cost from $50,000 $50,000 to upwards to upwards of of $200,000. For Cohen, that tension feels familiar. familiar. Off Off the the Grid Gridwas was born out of the 2008 financial financial crisis, crisis, and and whatever whateveremergemerges tomorrow will be the result result of of aa similar similarstew stewof ofecoeconomic instability and ingenuity. “The lower the cost of entry entry the the more more interesting interestingthe the ideas that can happen,” Cohen says says of of the the street streetfood food future. “Sometimes in San Francisco we we can can overthink overthink things to death. It would be be great great ifif there therewas wasmore moreof ofaa willingness to say, ‘wouldn’t it be be cool cool …’ …’ and andpersevere persevere through the challenges, give it aa shot shot and and see seewhat whatcan can happen. “This might be louder than we we expect. expect. This This might mightnot not look perfect. But it might add add something something unexpected unexpected to to our collective community.”
D IG IT A L F IR S T To minimize contact, customers order and pay online, then get a notification to pick up their food when it’s hot off the grill or out of the fryer.
VENDING One way to minimize exposure risk is eliminating human service entirely. Cohen is intrigued by the potential of vending machines that go way beyond candy bars and Coke.
T OG E T H E R A PA RT People crave the feeling of communal events even during a pandemic, so socially distanced seating allows folks to gather together while staying safely apart.
A CH A N GE O F S CE N E Here’s the street food scene we could see in the not-too-distant future, with input from entrepreneurs (such as Spark’s Carlos Muela and Off The Grid’s Matt Cohen), the city of San Francisco and Miguel Escobedo, the owner of food truck Al Pastor Papi.
TENTING As more dining moves outdoors, Cohen sees restaurants facing an issue he’s been dealing with for a decade: San Francisco weather. He envisions creative tent structures and enclosures to mitigate the chill during, say, January or June.
Sarah Feldberg is an editor of of the the Throughline. Throughline. Email: Email: sarah.feldberg@sfchronicle.com The Chronicle information graphic from Getty Images elements
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SFChronicle.com | Sunday, August 2, 2020 |
T H E SO C I A L SC E N E
OPTIMISM METER Lukewarm: Without substantial aid, the outlook is bleak for some of S.F.’s classic bars, but insiders point to one potential bright spot: The market value of liquor licenses is dropping, so when the industry begins to rebuild, there may be fewer barriers for a first-time owner.
The Little Shamrock on Lincoln Way in the Sunset District of San Francisco, circa 1900.
The Little Shamrock in 2020. From left: co-owners Tavahn Ghazi and Saeed Ghazi, and Bob Renno, manager.
Courtesy Little Shamrock
H I S T O R Y AT R I S K : S . F.’S C L AS S I C B A RS S U RV I V E D Q UA K E S & P RO H I B I T I O N . H OW A B O U T COV I D? By Emma Silvers
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After a while, you barely remember what a Friday night in the Mission used to feel like. Two years after the coronavirus first sent civic life into a tailspin, some people are out — slowly, they emerged from their Zoom trivia nights and into the street, cautiously meeting up with one friend, two at most, and deciding on a bar for the evening. Still, you’re standing on the corner of 18th and Valencia as the sun goes down, and the thrum is missing. Yes, there are bacon-wrapped hot dog carts on the corners and hip-hop radio blaring from passing cars. But when it comes to options for a night on the town, the pandemic might as well have been a sinkhole. First there’s the obvious: Which bars still exist? When the PPP money ran out, there were closures — gradually at first, then a tsunami. You bought gift cards, donated to fundraisers, and bought merch, so much merch. You own nine shot glasses, a dozen beer koozies and most of your clothes are bar or music venue T-shirts. Half of them now advertise places gone for good. In their stead are new spots, since closures freed up the liquor licenses that had previously been damn near impossible to obtain. The new places are VCbacked, and safe in that they are almost entirely free of human interaction: automatic temp checks at the door, touchless ordering by QR code, rooms forged from stainless steel and bleach. Then there are underground options, which, if you squint, are almost quaint in a Prohibition-era way. Instead of alcohol, what’s illicit is unregulated proximity to
other bodies, the kind of closeness where you can smell your neighbor’s shampoo, where a drunk stranger might bump into you and spill your whiskey and in the Before Times you would have been so, so annoyed. In 2022, such an interaction sounds so intimate it makes you blush. There are a half-dozen spots in the city where you can have it, if you know someone, or you’re willing to pay a little more. Of course, as during Prohibition, there is the threat of legal consequences. Unlike Prohibition, there is also the possibility that you might get sick and die. And then there are the old standbys. Against all odds, some of the city’s most iconic bars survived the coronavirus. They operate legally, serving alcohol to paying customers. But they haven’t been themselves in a very long time.
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“If I stand in one corner and map out six feet (between customers), I can get about 12 people in there,” says Myron Mu, the longtime proprietor of the Saloon in North Beach, with more than a hint of weariness. “And that’s if there’s no music.” Opened in 1861, the Saloon is a small place, known for cheap drinks, live blues
“There’s a thin line between life and death for a bar. … If this virus sticks around … I don’t know, quite honestly, how the Saloon will survive that.” MYRON MU, owner of the Saloon in North Beach
and dancing, with a $5 cover on weekends. It’s a spot where the band packs in tight and the crowd packs in tighter, and the folks sitting at the bar are always within spitting distance. Like all business owners whose incomes screeched to a halt since San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order in March, July of 2020 finds Mu staring down a sea of unknowns. There are immediate questions about how to pay the rent with no income, and infinite, thorny variations on the answers that depend on leases, owning vs. renting and, accordingly, different levels of desperation. Small-business loans, fundraisers, outdoor table service? To-go drinks are great, but under Alcohol Beverage Control regulations they have to be sold with food. Is it worth partnering with a restaurant? Do you invest in Plexiglass dividers when the rules might change next month? In the absence of clear guidance, it’s no wonder that a Wild West of pop-ups, grocery stores and delivery services have proliferated in recent weeks. But Mu, like many bar owners, has also begun doing the math on the more distant future: the one where maybe there’s a vaccine, but it’s been sparsely administered; where indoor bars and restaurants can reopen, but with stringent regulations — and it’s up to individual proprietors to decide if, when and how to take the risk. “There’s a thin line between life and death for a bar,” says Mu, noting that at one point, in the ’90s, the bar lost its license for dancing and the business began tanking. “That taught me the business is fragile. If this virus sticks around like the common cold does, it just kind of changes everything a bit. And I don’t know, quite honestly, how the Saloon will survive that.” Operating with a capacity of 12, he’d have to raise drink prices substantially. He worries about his beloved 60-something doorman who lives with his 90something mother; Mu, who’s 72, says his employees are like family: He couldn’t live with it if someone got sick. And then there’s the fact that the Saloon without music is, well, another animal entirely. Which brings us here: San Francisco’s most beloved bars, having survived recessions, earthquakes and fires, now face a series of brain-breaking riddles. What does social distance mean at a business whose product is close-up human connection? And how do you reinvent a space whose charm is that it always stays the same?
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It’s a gross understatement to say that San Franciscans simply “love” our old bars. We project onto them, rely on them as portals to the past. They’re keepers of our cultural mythology, a way to catch a whiff of this city’s formerly debaucherous glory. We clutch that story the way a drunk grips their drink at last call: Sure, the rent might be unfathomable and the new condos are hideous and all our queer
Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle
artist friends have been forced to either move away or get jobs at Facebook, but see this corner table in this small and kind of dingy room? Jack Kerouac used to drink here. That’s gotta count for something. Classic bars are also tourist destinations, which means they’re good for city business. Bars in general are a crucial valve in San Francisco’s financial engine: A 2016 economic impact report found that nightlife generated some $6 billion in revenue. But the coronavirus has been bad, to put it gently, for bar PR. And though we may love them, it’s impossible to predict the collective psychology around returning to our favorite spots in a year, or even three: How will we balance our desperation for social interaction, desire to support small businesses and fear of getting sick? How many of us will be too broke to do anything other than just keep drinking at home? “I don’t think anybody is smart enough to really understand the big cultural changes that are coming, but we’re talking about a major sociological shift,” says Tavahn Ghazi, whose family owns the Little Shamrock in the Inner Sunset. Ghazi grew up in San Francisco, and he’s been taking the closures hard; nearby Art’s Cafe was a childhood favorite. The Shamrock, a homey Irish pub, has been operating since 1893, including through both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. (During the Loma Prieta, the electricity went out and the TVs fell down. Patrons ran outside — but then the bartenders lit candles and kept pouring, so everyone came back in to drink.) Ghazi’s father, Saeed, bought the building 30 years ago, so at least there’s no rent to pay right now. But they know other owners aren’t so lucky. “This isn’t just about a bar,” says Ghazi. “In some cases you’re talking about places that were anchoring nostalgia for something we’ve all known we were losing for a long time anyway, the freaks that made SF what it was culturally. But now the (businesses) that were hanging on the edge of the cliff are going under. And a lot of places are just not going to make it.” While they wait to see what the next year brings, the Shamrock is holding weekend pop-ups with to-go drinks; Ghazi has also been expanding his side business, a catering company that specializes in stromboli. “Do I want to make food for a living? No, I hate it, but I’ll do it, because being in a kitchen is a lot better than being in a soup line,” Ghazi says. “The margins aren’t good. But there’s no worse margin than a closed door.” Some historic-bar owners find themselves looking to the past for guidance. “I’ve been asking ‘What would my grandpa do in this situation?’ ” says Maralisa Simmons-Cook, a co-owner, alongside her mother, Elly Simmons, of Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe. “Would he say, ‘Screw it, I’m closing down,’ or would he find some way to poke fun at it?” Named for its founder, SimmonsCook’s grandfather Richard “Specs” Simmons, the lively, tchotchke-jammed North
hour time slot, for example, and when you stand on a certain square you would order a certain type of drink. But Krouse has already spent his PPP money, and with no pause on rent, he worries he won’t get the chance to try it out. “I think many people don’t understand the plight we’re in,” says Krouse, who recently published an open letter calling for industry-specific government relief. “Yes, we serve drinks, but every bar is also a community, a little ecosystem. That’s why people need to speak up — our public officials need to know that these are beloved places.”
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Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle 2017
Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle
From top: Shea Shawnson behind the bar at Elixir, which has been at 16th and Guerrero since 1858. Specs’ Twelve Adler Museum Cafe has been a hub for artists, writers and musicians since it opened in North Beach in 1968.
ULTIMATE GUIDE Find out more about San Francisco’s classic bars at https://projects. sfchronicle.com/ guides/classic-sfbars/.
Beach bar has been a hub for artists, writers and musicians since it opened in 1968. “For me and my mom, I know it doesn’t even feel like it’s our choice about whether or not to keep it going,” she says. “It has a legacy. It’s for the community.” The Simmonses tried a pop-up for a few weekends, but eventually decided the math didn’t make sense. Then Elly Simmons launched a successful GoFundMe after some prodding from jazz musician Taj Mahal. But with rent to pay, as they stare down another few months of no business, those funds have barely made a dent. For now, like many bar owners, they’ve fixed their sights on the future: reservations and table service; creative ways to space out a room that’s meant to be full and cozy. “Maybe if it’s slammed we take your name and number at the door and then we text you. Which is just so crazy and futuristic to think about at Specs, I know,” says Simmons-Cook with a laugh. “But once you’re inside, it’ll still be Specs.” Michael Krouse, who owns Madrone Art Bar near Alamo Square, has been chewing over an idea for a socially distanced reopening that would look a bit like a live-action board game. There could be a timer that dings to move 10 or 12 people through the space during a half-
You decide on Elixir, which has been on the corner of 16th and Guerrero in one form or another since 1858. It burned with the rest of the city in 1906, but owner Patrick McGinnis rebuilt it. During Prohibition it was a “soda fountain.” It has also been, as a Chronicle story noted in 2017, “a Wild West bar, an Irish working-man’s place, a sailor bar, a shot-and-abeer joint, a gay Latino hangout, a dingy dive (and) a beer bar with 63 brews on tap” before assuming its current incarnation as a cocktail spot. It has seen some things. During the height of the pandemic, the bar leaned on delivery and virtual cocktail tastings. In 2022, it has a human at the door with a touchless thermometer and a clipboard for taking names when things get busy. The bar opens at noon now, to do lunch and coffee, since owner H. Joseph Ermann realized no one was out partying till 2 a.m. anymore, and he needed to get back that 8-10 hours of business. Inside, you help yourself to hand sanitizer, nod at the masked bartender, and slide into a snug, with a wooden divider separating your table from the next. It’s an idea Ehrmann got from old pubs in Ireland, where they were originally installed for modesty: to prevent women from being seen in bars. The last time you were here, before the pandemic, it was January of 2020. It was cold out, the Christmas lights were still up, and you were with four friends. The bartender told you to help yourself to red beans and rice steaming in a hot pot at the end of the bar. As you did, the old guy sitting closest to it passed you the hot sauce and you started talking. It turned out you were neighbors. This time, it’s the uncanny valley of dive bars; no serendipity, no rowdiness, no one elbow-to-elbow as they try to order a drink. Still, it’s not so bad, here in this room that’s had a half-dozen names and personalities over 150 years. It smells the same, and it’s a place to be, with a good whiskey selection. Like an animal, it has adapted to its surroundings, evolved in order to survive, and it will do that again. It is this thing, for now. You’ll have to wait and see what comes next.
Emma Silvers is a freelance writer in San Francisco. Email: Culture@sfchronicle.com.
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T H E SO C I A L SC E N E
A BIT OF FICTION: ‘ WA I T E RS ’ By Daniel Handler
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The amuse-bouche was a dumpling in the shape of the virus: spherical, settled in a small puddle of broth, dotted all over with little flash-fried sprouts, and when people forked it open, something steamy and thick poured out. Fontina? Polenta? San couldn’t hear. There were only four tables at Colander, as far away from each other as possible. The virus, the shape of it, was always rolling slow laps in San’s head. He couldn’t stop picturing it. The people at the table didn’t mind. You could tell from the way they were overdressed that they were here for themselves. Colander had one of the best dining experiences on offer. The chef was, San couldn’t remember her name, famous — she’d tried a socially distanced tapas bar, where they armed everyone with 6-foot tongs, but it’d been closed for every reason you could guess. Here the interior was designed by two guys who left the CDC to help restaurants reopen. The ceilings were very far away, two floors up or something, and had some ventilation system that was, it said on the website, the equivalent of a hot, windy day. It was hot in the place, that couldn’t be avoided. People didn’t seem to mind. Twelve courses, wine and kombucha pairings, $1,500 prix fixe. San’s share of the rent, was how he thought of $1,500. “Sorry I’m late.” Jules sat down across from him, leaned in, leaned back without kissing him. Social kissing was still in the Not Worth It category in most people’s heads, along with trains and the symphony. She wore her usual jumpsuit and had a shaggy leather bag that looked like the head of a bearded hippie. Out came her sanitizer and a little plastic mat she unrolled onto the wooden table. Some people felt better with these. San remembered when the rolled-up mats everyone carried around were for yoga classes, which were about 50/50 on Not Worth It. “I’ve heard about this place.” “I think everybody has. Is that a new mask?” She twisted some valve to droop it to conversation mode. “It’s a C.E. Koop. Well, a knockoff.” “I like it,” San said, and caught a server’s eye. The staff masks had some shiny twist across the center, that, as the server approached, caught the light. It was the name of the restaurant, in some shimmery laminate that seemed to float over the mask, which in turn floated over the mouth. “Welcome,” the server said. “Let me just check your temperatures, ask the Req-Qs and inquire about dietary restrictions. Waiters, yes?” San nodded, which interrupted the infrared of the fever-checker. It took another second to get two calm beeps from each of them. “Is that OK?” “Oh, of course,” the server said. “Waiters welcome. OK, Req-Qs?” “No,” Jules said, “no, no, yes, no,
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over Instagram messages, Snapchats and video calls, and now she plans to move into an off-campus apartment with a few of the girls she met online. “Honestly, it was totally like online dating,” she said. “I’ve always been told, ‘Don’t make friends online.’ I heard terrible, terrible stories,” Platerink said. “But I think that different social platforms
The Chronicle illustration
“Now we usually skip the first course you can see over there. It’s a dumpling—” “Shaped like corona,” Jules said. “Everybody’s seen the movie.”
A B OU T THE AU T H O R Daniel Handler is a San Francisco writer whose books include “Bottle Grove” and “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” which was published under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket. Handler’s work can be found at www.daniel handler.com
are making it a lot more safe, and it’s definitely becoming more socially acceptable, especially as I’m entering a completely new environment. It’s really transformed the way I’m able to meet people.” It might have taken the suffocating isolation of a global pandemic to force people to embrace it, but making friends via dating apps or on social media allows us to cross into diverse social orbits we
three weeks.” By now everybody had memorized the six required questions all indoor businesses had to ask before beginning any transaction, so they gave their answers first, meaning that everyone sounded like a broken robot when they entered anywhere. This had already been turned into a stuttery electro hit by Hot Brix. “No, no, no, yes, no, five weeks,” San told the server, and Jules gave him the raised eyebrows of, “OK you win.” “What do you think you can sneak on? I know you’re prix fixe.” The server gestured not to worry. “We’re so used to this on weekdays we basically built it in. What time’s the diner?” San glanced at his phone. “Seven.” “Plenty of time then. We basically condense the middle courses into a big platter, symmetrical so your forks don’t even have to meet. Risotto, plantains, the uni petit-fours, and then mackerel, unless you prefer chicken.” “Who prefers chicken?” Jules said scornfully. “Tourists, natch,” the server said. “Now we usually skip the first course you can see over there. It’s a dumpling —” “Shaped like corona,” Jules said. “Everybody’s seen the movie.” A sous-chef, since canceled, had posted footage of the dumpling-inprogress, the filling inserted via syringe. Conspiracists had gnashed their teeth for a cycle or two about it, that the chef was a Marxist seeking to infect the rich, but it seemed to San that what was really objectionable was just bad taste. He surely wasn’t the only one who had the little spiky ball in mental orbit. It was the reason he was single. It was the reason he was broke. It was the reason he jumped like a jackrabbit if he saw anyone’s mouth. He didn’t want to eat it. “Yeah, we’ll skip it.” The server shrugged in agreement. “The wine you’ll have to cover yourselves, but there’s cider on tap.” “Cider’s fine,” San said. “Actually,” Jules said, “I want a martini.” “Olive? Twist? Caperberry? Pencil shavings? Ceramic? Sage?” “Surprise me,” Jules said, waggling her fingers goodbye at the server, and then leaned close to San when they left. “What’s a caperberry?” “Big caper. You know that’s like, a twenty dollar martini minimum.” “It’s the only thing we’re paying for.”
would never encounter otherwise. Matican, for example, recently connected online with someone who works in architecture. “I don’t know how else I would have known him,” he said, adding that he probably would have befriended mostly co-workers in journalism if he were working in person. As for me, posting on my own Facebook Class of 2020 page found me a
“We tip.” “OK, OK, I know the point you’re really making.” “And that is?” “That you’re worth it,” San said, “and you are.” She beamed at him, both hands on the mat. “It’s good to go out,” she said, and San made the gesture that he was reaching for her hand later. They’d touch when they got back to her place. There was no reason, even after dating what, four months? — to risk it extra in a place like this. Most restaurants couldn’t afford customers. Not ones who ate in. The restrictions, as susceptible to fear as they were to science, changed so quickly that by the time you paid for the plastic dividers, the plastic dividers were illegal. The super pricey places, the upper echelon playgrounds, were the only ones tricky enough to make it. Colander didn’t take reservations, of course. Why would they? They had a distanced line outside that, on weekends, turned into a bidding war. The surer bet was Waiters, an app that had sprung up right quick. San didn’t drive anyone around anymore, with the windows open and the clear plastic shield rattling between the front and back seats. San didn’t wander the grocery aisle looking for the right hot sauce, texting the impatient customer who might lower the tip. This is what he did. He sat in a restaurant at 4:30 p.m. for three hours, and he did it with his girlfriend. This is how they made it. The tough part about going out wasn’t meeting people, or talking to them, or even the sex, first onscreen and then, with proof of negativity, at long last in a bed. It was going out. If you could only afford cheap places, and the cheap places weren’t open, you signed up on Waiters and showed up early — squatted, was how no one was supposed to describe it — for a prize table. Restaurants like Colander knew Waiters were holding tables, and they usually tossed them a few courses, snuck into the real customers’ bills. It was a sweetheart deal, perfect for sweethearts. The martini arrived, and Jules toasted San. San sipped the cider, each bubble like a tiny little dumpling virus on his tongue. The problem was not how to have a love life during a pandemic. The problem, and this was every problem in San Francisco, was how to do it when you weren’t rich.
potential new friend. Despite the fact that we both just graduated from Brown University, Tyrah Green and I had never met before we both moved to California. Our paths didn’t cross in four years at the same institution in Providence, R.I., but we met up for the first time on Sunday. Green, Matican, Platerink and I all know that this won’t be the last time we make friends this way. The pandemic has forced
us to see fresh potential in social platforms and realize we can find new and diverse friends online. Even a vaccine with its promise of parties, bars and workplace coffee chats won’t make us forget it.
Anna Kramer is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: anna.kramer@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anna_c_kramer