This Week in Noe Valley: Vive la Tarte Open, Lucca Closing and Firefly Still Delights

The latest news from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Sadness: Lucca Ravioli on the edge of Noe Valley closing in April as the owner retires [@SocketSite]
• Who knew? Bobby McFerrin once lived in Noe Valley [@SeanRaven]
• A magnificent magnolia Vulcan in bloom [@SFUrbanForester]
• 1976: Photo of snow in Noe Valley [@sfredhead]
• Open: Vive la Tarte on 24th St. [@chefjjohnnywang]
• Coming soon: Wallflower – locally owned Mediterranean restaurant to 24th St. [ABC7]
• Sweet profile of the founders of Firefly and how they continue to thrive [SF Chronicle]
• La Ciccia makes SF’s best pasta restaurants list [Eater]
• PSA: 24 Hour Fitness is not a 24 hour business in Noe Valley [@tdorie]
• This week’s spectacular sunrise [the415guy]
• Gorgeous dog posing with a mural [savannascarlett]

[Photo: Beautiful house on the hill via marytheveryberry] 

This Week in Noe Valley: Firefly Turns 25, Halloween Scariness and the Enduring Greatness of La Ciccia

The latest news from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Firefly turns 25 - yay! [@FireflySF]
• Arsonist on 29th and on the 200 block of Day Street [@kidbombay]
• ICYMI it was Halloween this week [Isflashbacks and shewalksinheels]
• More Halloween scariness - RIP [@yurikojewett]
• The opulent Pritikin Mansion on the edge of Noe Valley gets a price haircut from $12.5 million to $5.5 million [SFGate]
• La Ciccia makes best Italian restaurant in SF and the U.S. [SF Chronicle and Thrillist]

[Photo: Halloween 2018 via Isflashbacks] 

This Week In Noe Valley: Low-Flying Copters, Billy Joel, And Other Signs of Labor Day

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Those low-flying helicopters you've been hearing are measuring radiation levels [ABC7]
• Shameless BuzzFeed linkbait asks: Which SF Neighborhood Are You? [BuzzFeed]
• NV Democratic Club says no on Prop F, the measure banning homesharing [@NoonPropF]
• Noe Valley loses a Permastoned house on Sanchez [Curbed]
• Video Wave moves, future looks sweet [SF Chronicle]
• Spin City gets a cool new bike rack/art installation [@rollercams]
• Yep, that was the Billy Joel concert you heard this weekend [@koastrem]
• Mitchell’s Dairy Farm near 29th and Noe Streets in the late 1800s [Mitchell’s]
• Firefly makes another Best Fried Chicken list [Eater]

[Photo: Labor Day in Noe Valley via @adrianbonifacio]

This Week In Noe Valley: Fried Chicken of Your Dreams, Decrepit Shack Shocker, Scott Wiener Shuts Out FOX

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Firefly’s Fried Chicken of Your Dreams makes KQED’s best of the bay list [Bay Area Bites]
• Now’s your chance to live in the storied Pritikin Mansion “an opulent abode filled with murals, sculptures, rolling streams and manicured grounds” for just $5,895/month [@AMSI_SF]
• Sadness: The Ark is closed [NVSF]
• Decrepit shack This lot at 311 28th St lists for $1.6 million on - all of SF is still shocked [KRON]
• The 24th Street Urban Village Project is now complete [SF Streetsblog]
• An interview with Andrew Johnstone, founder of Little Chihuahua [Hoodline]
• Historic Edwardian with ceiling murals at 29th and Church sells for $4.1 million [Curbed]
• Local style blogger Bryn Newman on her favorite Noe Valley shopping and eating spots [SF Station]
• Scott Wiener says no to FOX News [@Scott_Wiener]

[Photo: Perfectly pointed house via maria.bruno.sf]

This Week In Noe Valley: Pedestrian Mishaps, A Bank Robbery, A Dilapidated “Shack” And Other Local Color

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• 77-year-old man struck and badly injured by a truck in a crosswalk on Dolores at 30th [CBS Local]
• Umpqua bank on 24th St robbed by man in his 40s - he fled on foot and has not been caught  [KRON]
• A dilapidated shack on the border of Glen Park and Noe Valley sells for $1.705 million, $510,000 over asking [Curbed]
• Found SF volunteers will archive two decades' worth of content from local papers – including the Noe Valley Voice [SF Bay Guardian]
• The organist at Holy Innocents Church in Noe Valley is also in Beach Blanket Babylon [Chronicle]
• Now you can order your to-go porky goodness (and salads) online [@PorcellinoSF]
• Decor Galore garage store going out of business on June 28 [@NoeValleySF] 
• The final resting place of some of the original land barons of Noe Valley [SF Weekly]
• Firefly revisited (and re-appreciated) [Inside Scoop]
• A San Francisco sunrise [contegobay]

[Photo: Perfect Friday morning via thatcliffguy]

Firefly Restaurant Is Turning 20

The homey, charming, best-fried-chicken-in-SF restaurant Firefly is turning 20 on November 3 and owners Brad and Veva are throwing a birthday dinner from the past to celebrate:

During the week of Wednesday, October 30 to Tuesday, November 5th, we will honor our humble beginnings with a menu featuring some of our greatest hits from our first few weeks.  And then, on our actual Birthday Sunday, November 3rd, we will feature our greatest hits menu with the special addition of Brad at the stoves, Veva at the door and former line cook Brian Moran swingin' some of the most amazing Brazilian jazz guitar you've ever heard. To top it off, on Nov 3, our menu will have original prices as well.  That's right!  $6.50 for Shrimp and Sea Scallop Potstickers!  Sound too good to be true? Well, kind of. Seating will be limited, so we want to make sure the people dining with us on Nov 3 have a special connection to Firefly.

More here if you want to email the owners your Firefly memories and land a reservation on November 3.

Firefly 4288 24th Street
415-821-7652

[Photo credit: Bay Area Bites]

This Week In Noe Valley: Unreal Estate, Firefly Revisited, Ladies Behaving Badly

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Scott Wiener prompts Mayor Ed Lee to get tough on playground vandalism [SFGate]
• Firefly revisited: Michael Bauer gives it 2.5 stars despite need for a makeover [SFGate]
• District 5c modern studio finally sells for $845/sf (yes this is Noe Valley) [Socketsite]
• Realtors weigh in on the best things about living in Noe Valley [Trulia]
• Noe Valley condo prices climb for 5th month in a row (hello $1M apts) [Downing Co]
• More recovered stolen bicycles [SFPD Mission]
• Attention ladies taking high tea at Lovejoy's: you don't have to steal the curds [SF Weekly]
• Matt Cain supposedly still lives in the "Noe Valley suburb of San Francisco" [Shelby County Reporter]
• Gallery of Jewels and Elizabeth Street Cosmetics both have shopping events this weekend [Refinery 29]

[Photo: Infinite City, Rebecca Solnit via San Francisco Magazine]

This Week in Noe Valley

News from, about and for Noe Valley from around the interwebs:

• Instawalk SF leaves from Philz at 24th @ Diamond on Sat June 2 at 10:30 AM [Postagramapp]
• Your Burning Man sofa is free and in Noe: "Yes it's trashed. Perfect for La Playa..." [Craigslist]
• No surprise here: Noe condo prices are red hot and climbing [Downing & Co.]
• Noe Valley Bakery is now selling strawberry rhubarb pies – through Labor Day [Twitter]
• S**t cabbies say about Noe Valley (ouch) [All Out on Muni]
• There are always 2 all-veggie dishes on the main course menu at Firefly [SF News]
• Spanish and Portuguese wine lovers: Intimate wine dinner with Miguel Merino at Contigo [Uncorked]
• A lady on 24th St. [Flickr]

[Photo: A love letter to downtown Noe signs via LivsPlusGibs]

Tidbits: Cause, Cosmetics, Cops and Chicken

Benefit: The 7 Squared Project: "...a community-based video adventure that aims to raise awareness for 14 organizations that are doing purposeful, socially responsible work in San Francisco. This project is a collaborative endeavor between Seven Summits Productions, 7 non-profits, 7 businesses, and you."

Elizabeth Street Cosmetics: Kelly Crispen announces: "I'm a longtime resident of Noe Valley [and] I just launched my boutique line of lipsticks and lipglosses in honor of our beloved neighborhood!" All lipsticks and glosses are named for streets in Noe Valley. Currently available at Rabat on 24th St and through the website.

Meeting: Vicki Rosen (the "Upper Noe Valley representative on the Ingleside Station Police Community Advisory BoardPolice") Sends this meeting announcement: "Chief Suhr will be hosting a community meeting to solicit input from your community on a new Community Policing General Order on July 26 at 826 Shotwell, The Cesar Chavez School, at 6:00 pm. Ingleside and Mission Stations will share the venue. Please advise your respective community members and I encourage as many as possible to attend--this will be an excellent opportunity for the Chief to hear from you regarding YOUR ideas on Community Policing."

Fried Chicken Tuesdays - Frustrated that Firefly doesn't have their Famous Fried Chicken when you go? Try Tuesdays. "When it came to our ever popular fried chicken, however, we had to be satisfied with pleasing all of the people only some of the time. But now, we have committed ourselves to pleasing all of the people all of the time…sometimes."

And finally...it's been around a while but the above video - with a section on Noe Valley - is worth (another) look.

Noe Valley: Home to the Best Home-Style Fried Chicken in the Bay Area

We love our fried food in Noe. In addition to the best glazed donut in SF, Bay Area Bites says Noe Valley is also home to the Bay Area's best home-style fried chicken:

Firefly knows how to do homey. Their menu changes regularly, so keep an eye out for this nostalgic gem, The Fried Chicken of Your Dreams with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Peas & Carrots and a Damn Fine Buttermilk Biscuit. Yes, that is what it's really called. The chicken is tender and well-seasoned, and the skin has that magic quality of sticking to the meat so that you get a mouthful of crunchy goodness in each bite. The sides are classic wins, and the biscuit served with local honey is damn fine, just as advertised.

Bonus: All Firefly meats are hormone and antibiotic free. And in case you're craving it after reading this, it's not on the menu tonight.

[Bay Area Bites: Bay Area Fried Chicken Guide]

[Photo: Bay Area Bites]

NVV: We Read It So You Don't Have To

The Noe Valley Voice is published ten times a year and has been a neighborhood fixture since 1977. Here are highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered at NVSF.

May 2009

• Front page: Pritikin Mansion to become "Only in SF" museum?; Tuesday Farmer's Market; Noe Valley Quest; more parking tickets for parking...illegally (interesting tidbits: parking in a blue zone is $300, and you can print your own passive aggressive missives to leave on windshields).
  
• Cost of Living in Noe: Housing market is still slow and expensive.
  
• Event: Local entrepreneurs are invited to showcase their wares/services on 24th St on May 16, 10AM-2PM. More info at SF Small Business Week's website, or send an email to the NVMPA or So Tell Me More.
  
• Letters: Someone is happy the evil shrine to Obama finally came down at Just For Fun; complaints about off-leash dogs; a long letter about teens behaving badly on the J-Church.
• Obits: Bacco's Paolo Dominici.
  
• Store Trek: Arara, an eco-boutique way out on San Jose and Valley across from Mitchell's. (Ed.--Is that really the only business even a little to close to Noe that opened?)
  
• Rumors: The Chronicle won't reveal circulation numbers for 94114 and 94131; the Examiner states their NV circulation has gone up (read: more litter on our doorsteps); 24th St gets news racks; Bell Market's manager Enrico Fornesi will join the management team at Whole Foods when the last Bell closes this December; Peter Gabel wants to turn Real Foods into a food court and DVD movie theater; Just Awesome games reports the most popular game is...Pandemic; Bacco, Incanto and Firefly made the Chronicle's Top 100 (Ed.--Bacco didn't actually make the list); Cook's Boulevard and Global Exchange have added wedding registries.
  
• Traveling Voice: It traveled to Bhutan, Java and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hope it wore sunblock.
  

[The Noe Valley Voice]

Food Bites: What's New In Noe

A quick round-up of the latest Noe Valley food news:

Incanto is now offering a Leg of Beast dinner as a simpler version of Cosentino's popular Whole Beast events. Best for 6-8 people, the meal "is centered around a whole leg of beef." Reservations and pre-order required; $200.

La Ciccia is hosting another of its popular Cena di Porco dinners on January 26th featuring a whole roasted suckling pig and wine pairing. $75 per person, plus tax and gratuity. Reservations by phone only - (415)550-8114.

Firefly celebrated its 15th anniversary in November. (We ate there the first month they were open and can't believe it's been 15 years!)

Contigo hired a General Manager and hopes to announce an opening date soon. Go Brett!

City Grill opened as expected on January 14th. The website isn't up yet (citygrillsf.com), and the menu is evolving. But for now they're offering steak, a pork chop, burger, and fish, chicken and veggie options. Now we know what "classic American fare" means to Stefano Coppola.

Cooks Boulevard has announced their new class schedule, and classes are filling up fast. Also be sure to check out the upcoming events at Omnivore Books.

It may be January, but the warm weather continues to bring crowds to the Farmer's Market. This week there was a new vendor selling organic vinegar, and there's talk of more vendors to come - possibly on a rotating basis. Spring is just around the corner...

Nothing new to report on the "Vietnamese Fusion" at 1298 Church St. except that there's nothing new to report. There's been no work on the space for a couple of months. Anyone have details?

Finally, Elizabeth Street Brewery. Yes... Noe Valley has a brew pub. They Tweeted this weekend that they're set to brew another 200 gallons of beer this year and hope to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Drink up!

[Food Gal: Take Five with Chris Cosentino, A Chef Who Is Offal Good At What He Does]
[NVSF: Opening: City Grill]
[NVSF: Update: "High End Vietnamese Fusion"]
[Image: Elizabeth Street Brewery]