This Week in Noe Valley: Le Cupboard Closes, Home Prices Soften and Other Noe Valley Mysteries

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

• Crab season is here – and Barron’s Meats has it! [@BaronsonChurch]
• Noe Valley home fails to fetch 2015-era price [Socketsite]
• Folio Books sales benefit Children’s Book Project after Thanksgiving [@ChildrensBookSF]
• Le Cupboard abruptly closes, new team supposedly on the way? [@CourtneySF]
• Uma Casa makes a best new restaurants of 2017 list [Thrillist]
• Martha & Bros makes the best coffee shop list [Thrillist]
• A profile of the eccentric Noe’s Nest founder [JWeekly]
• A rundown on the first D8 Supervisor debate (housing, housing, housing) [Bay Area Reporter]
• Noe Valley mysteries [@NoeValleySF]

[Photo: Salesforce tower from Laidley at Noe via thatswhathappensman]

This Week in Noe Valley: Monster House Rising and the Trouble with Hills

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

• 24 hours of hip store hopping and eating in Noe Valley [Bob Cut]
• Noe Valley Gala - fundraiser for the Town Square on Oct 27 [NVGala]
• Noe Valley Girls Film Festival back this fall [SF Chronicle]
• The problem with @fordgobike and hills [@djconnel]
• 21-year old entrepreneur and Noe Valleyeon Mehak Vohra running for mayor of SF [SFist]
• The wild and wonderful Pritikin Mansion at the edge of Noe is on the market for $12.5 million [Curbed]
• Lock your doors [@bryce]
• 20% off Folio books coupon [Folio Books]
• Spotted: Vintage muscle car [sfgrecia]

[Photo: Behind the scenes of a new monster house taking shape on Church St via eyeofted]

This Week in Noe Valley: Lots of Rainbows, Old Noe NIMBYs and WiFi Crackdowns

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

• NOFX rocker Eric Melvin’s home is on the market for $3.6 million [SocketSite]
• Noe Valley: Where the (double) rainbows are [spincitycoffee and @nbcbayarea]
• Weather also brings rainbow sunrises [av_kav]
• 1976: Noe Valley residents complain about median boarding platforms for easier access to the JChurch [@IDoTheThinking]
• Also, it stormed - alot! [H/T Mike Bolos]
• And lightning struck Sutro [Jesse]
• Where the bodies are buried - playing with succulents [@RollTheBarrel]
• Fun times at Folio Books – undoubtedly an excellent addition to the neighborhood [Hoodline]
• Cool paintings by Shalom Flash, an accidental artist who loves painting our village [JWeekly]
• The ride to last weekend’s women’s march on the #overstuffedJ [morgansfunny]
• ICYMI: Green11 closing (but still a class act) [NVSF]
• Cafes consider cracking down on WiFi freeloaders (including in Noe Valley) [CIO]

[Photo: gt_goff ]

NVV Dec 2014: 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 notable highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF or other resources. Follow the NVV link at the bottom for full articles and all the ads.

December 2014

Front Page: A profile of the Tom and Jerry Holiday House at 3650 21st. St; Plans move forward at the former Real Food space (you can see our take and comments from Scott Wiener here); Renovations - and temporary classrooms - commence at James Lick High School and should take about two years.

Letters: Castro Computers thanks everyone who donated recycled electronics to the recent recycling drive for the NVMPA - it was a huge success; A Clipper St resident beseeches you not to donate to local panhandlers - your taxes contribute to the $167 million spent annually on homeless programs; Gwen Anderson of Video Wave writes that the video store's lease is up in July - she asks fans of the store to watch their website and storefront for meetings about how you can help keep the 20,000 piece video collection in Noe Valley.

Feature: Details about holiday festivities in Noe Valley this month (aka 24 HoliDAYS on 24th); Scott Wiener held a local town hall with District 8 residents to discuss rising crime in Noe Valley and surrounding neighborhoods.

Short Takes: Looking for places to do good for the holidays? Folio Books is having a fundraiser for the Children's Book Project, and SF firefighters are taking food and toy donations for the needy (as are several other local businesses); The dog park at Upper Noe Rec Center will be closed on Thursdays for maintenance and to "give the turf a day off"; The Noe Valley Ministry is raising funds for a new stained glass window; The Garden Tour is looking for nominations for its 2015 event.

Cost of Living in Noe: 18 single family homes changed hands in October, all for over $1 million. The most expensive was a $4.85M home on Jersey.

Store Trek: Mapamundi Kids (1306 Castro St at 24th); Ambiance is combining two small stores into one big one in the former Sway and Streetlight Records space at 3979 24th St; An eco-friendly clothing store called Podolls will be moving into one of the spaces Ambiance is vacating - the other is still for rent.

Rumors: The former Pasta Pomodoro space will become a new restaurant serving an all-day menu of American/Mediteranean food called NōVY and will be run by the owners' daughters who also live in Noe Valley; The UPS store has temporarily moved into the Cardio-Tone space while their current space undergoes ADA and seismic work - they expect to be there until mid January; The towering retail space across the street from Shufat on 24th St is listed for $16,000 per month; L'Atelier Artist Collective is open for business - as is a new hair salon called Mio Mio on Castro above Subs, Inc; Not everyone is happy about the location of the new city carshare parking spots in front of LaBoulange because...parking. Bill Yenne (and his new book Beer: The Ultimate World Tour) was the guest of honor at Folio's one year anniversary; Porcellino is closed for good; There's a gorgeous new mural on 24th St.

[The Noe Valley Voice]

Local Author Alexis Coe Reads At Folio Books This Sunday

Alright so who is Alexis Coe? She's kind of a big deal, actually:

Alexis Coe has contributed to The Atlantic, Slate, the Paris Review Daily, The Hairpin, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, Modern Farmer, and many others. She is a columnist at The Awl and The Toast, and holds an MA in American history. Before moving to San Francisco, Alexis was a research curator at the New York Public Library.

And the book? It's her first, and it's garnering great reviews. Here's the description of Alice + Freda Forever from Amazon:

In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn't her crime that shocked the nation—it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiancée Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again.

Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter—and her father’s razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancée’s throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail—including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of "the finest men in Memphis" declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later.

Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes—painting a vivid picture of a sadly familiar world.

Alexis will be at Folio Books on Sunday, November 9th, at 4pm. She promises erotomania and murder:

Appetites will be sated @FolioSF Sun, 4pm. They'll have tea+cookies, I'm bringing erotomania+murder #books #NoeValley pic.twitter.com/qRAjmsmi7R
— Alexis Coe (@Alexis_Coe) November 7, 2014

[Official Site: Alexis Coe]

This Week In Noe Valley: Halloween Excess, Pasta Pomodoro Exits, And GO GIANTS!!

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

• Noe Valley gets wild after Giants World Series win [eefeefeef]
• S**t going down in Whole Foods during the World Series final [@zamosta]
• A Giant plan to improve Muni (and speed up the 48) [Burrito Justice]
• Halloween, Noe Valley style [gfillonramos]
• Where they stand: Candidates for Supervisor in District 8 [SF Gate]
• A writer's guide to SF cafes names Bernie's best in Noe Valley [7x7]
• Plumpjack, which has been looking for a restaurant spot in the area, is opening a bar in the Luna Park space on Valencia [SFist]
• Folio Books turns one [@FolioSF]
• Pasta Pomodoro is closed on 24th St – but hey, you can still visit one of their 18 other Bay Area locations [NVSF and @PastaPomodoro]
• Massimiliano Conti talks La Nebbia and La Ciccia [Inside Scoop SF]
• A review in pictures of Martin Maddox [Spotted SF]
• Short films about SF's ecological anomalies at the Roxie – Tues Nov 11 [Kyle Garrett]

[Photo: Orange sky for the Giants parade via js42]

NVV July/August 2014: 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 notable highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF or other resources. Follow the NVV link at the bottom for full articles and all the ads.

July/August 2014

Front Page: 3 scenic walks around Noe Valley; Folio Books offers some summer reading choices including Americanah, Carsick, Midnight in Europe and more; a local gives up her car (and parking spot) and lives to tell the tale.

Letters: A Castro street resident is outraged at the city's cavalier and inept sewer contractors who have ripped up the sidewalk 3 times; a complaint about the ad in the last issue title "Considering a Move from SF to the Peninsula?" from a longtime Bernal Heights (!) resident; the unmarked crosswalk at Church and Elizabeth Streets needs signs; a 30th St resident rails against the "over-salaried, post-teenage technocrats now marinating in the city..."; the Noe Valley Garden Tour was a success with over 275 tickets sold.

Short Takes: In memory of Angus Brunner, landlord of the Just for Fun building, who died in March; an open letter from Gwen Sanderson of Video Wave about the proposed $15 minimum wage and how it hurts small businesses; the historic trains of the F Line will no longer run on Church Street; Noe resident Steve Fox's new business Urban Putt has been open for a few months in the Mission (South Van Ness at 22nd St).

Cost of Living in Noe: $2.2 million is now the average price for a single family home.

Rumors: Ambiance is moving from it's current 2 storefronts to the spot recently vacated by Sway - the move is expected to happen after the new space is retrofitted, in about 2 months; Joshua Simon is closing after more than 35 years on 24th St - the building will also need a retrofit once the store closes at the end of July; Decor Galore is closed; Wink is renting out shelf space to a pop-up store; Yes more speculation that Neutraceuticals will be applying for permits to demolish the old Real Foods building [Ed note: a permit was posted on the building today for a new roof, and a reader wrote to say she saw stacks of plywood being brought inside so a teardown is unlikely]; the Town Square is now fully funded and any additional money at this point is "for embellishments" - construction will likely start in the summer of 2015 and be done by Spring 2016; Of the 15,911 people registered to vote in our little village, 5531 of us (or about a third) took the time to cast a ballot; former Voice contributor and Noe Valley resident Bill Griffith who created the Zippy the Pinhead cartoon recently came back for a visit and discovered his former 25th St home had been "renovated beyond recognition."

[The Noe Valley Voice]

NVV June 2014: 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 notable highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF or other resources. Follow the NVV link at the bottom for full articles and all the ads.

June 2014

Front Page: Summerfest and a day of petting zoos, jumpy tents and activities is coming on Saturday June 14 to 24th St.; maggots at Whole Foods have been cleared, plus a poor health score at Safeway in Diamond Heights; remembering the sandlot at 30th that became the Upper Noe Rec Center.

Letters: A reader wants to know why Chloe's on Church is packed for brunch when the excellent Fattoush down the street is empty; a first-world problems poem about Noe Valley (first line: Eat organic, stay focused); resentment for an ad for Google Shopping Express in the May issue that lists all the "wonderful mega-chains one can order from" instead of shopping locally (meanwhile, real estate ads = 17).

Short Takes: The Noe Courts plan was approved; 5 paintings of the Golden Gate Bridge will be at Hill & Co. until the end of July; Noe Valley Garden Tour is this Saturday, June 7; Bethany United Methodist Church will be celebrating Pride with a BBQ at noon on June 29 following the morning service.

Cost of Living in Noe: The Cube House on 26th Street sold for $5.25 million; everything is going for over asking. Average rent for a 2 bedroom? Still $4542.

Store Trek: Holy Kitchen (4166 24th St at Diamond)

Rumors: The Noe Valley Town Square grant was approved; NV resident Mike Adamick published Dad's Book of Awesome Projects which is for sale at the local Folio bookstore; thanks to the residents who helped with the CATs fundraiser on May 15; the old La Sirena Botanica space on Church is for rent again; the Valley Tavern patio and beer garden is open for business; a for rent sign is up at the former Global Exchange space; renovations are planned for the former Sway/Streetlight space; permits should soon be issued for what was Bliss Bar at 4026 24th St. (unclear if Bliss is rebuilding); and in non-news the Asian fusion mystery restaurant is (as always) still a mystery; Daniel Perea, a Noe Valley native is the new police chief at Mission Station.

[The Noe Valley Voice]

This Week in Noe Valley: What Noe Is Reading, New Heights For Church St. Homes, More Kids Clothes Coming To 24th St

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

• Bay castle cleaners getting "sustainable (work)wear for children." CEOs are so young these days. [@nickoneil] - preview of TugTug here
• Designer home on Church fetches $3.225 million [SocketSite]
• What Noe Valley is reading [Folio Books]
• Single family homes In Noe Valley have appreciated an average of 9% per year for the past five years [Jackson Fuller]
• Linguist and Noe Valley resident Geoff Nunberg weighs in on techies and the Google Bus [NPR]

[Photo:  Dolls in the window at Heroine on 24th St. - embem30]

NVV Nov 2013: 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 notable highlights from the latest issue. Links are to stories we've covered here on NVSF or outside sources as the Voice doesn't post stories online until the middle of the month.

November 2013

Front Page: Valley Tavern hosts "Pub Quiz" Nights every Tuesday; Aesthetic Dentistry participated in Give Back a Smile to help a battered woman; Phoenix becomes Folio; Noe Valley Ministry remodel is on schedule and will reopen with ¡HolaKids! preschool next fall; Mazook gets 4" of Rumors on the front page.

Letters: The NVMPA wants you to know that 24th between Castro and Noe made San Francisco Magazine's top ten blocks for gift buying; Poet Tom Peck is angry Scott Wiener helped shut down the Market Street Recycling Center.

Short Takes: Plans to renovate Noe Courts stalled when tennis players showed up in force at last meeting, so there's a new final meeting on Nov 13 from 6-8pm at St Philip's.

Cost of Living in Noe: Low inventory, relatively lower prices for homes in September; 1 bedroom apartment average hovers around $2,700/month.

Store Trek: Buttons Candy Bar.

Rumors: Scott Wiener and Carol Yenne went to Utah and met with Nutraceutical Corp, which plans to demolish the Real Foods building next year and construct an unspecified replacement that won't include one of their own stores (start dreaming); Tom Taylor and Jerry Goldstein of the "Christmas Tree House" on 21st St got married once the Supreme Court struck down DOMA and Prop 8 - 40 years after they hooked up at the baths; Be Yoga has opened; "Best of" lists recounted; La Ciccia offshoot La Nebbia plans to open by the end of November; Firefly celebrates 20 years.

[The Noe Valley Voice]

Come Celebrate 28 Years Of Phoenix Books And Meet The New Owners Of Folio Books

We posted in August that Kate Rosenberger was looking for a buyer for Phoenix Books so she could simplify her life and this week we learned who the new buyer is. More on that lower down. Phoenix Books is shutting down this Sunday, October 20th, and Kate would like to celebrate her 28 years in Noe Valley with a party. There will be pie, cake and drinks all day with live music by Octomutt from 2-5pm.

If you recall, Kate is not getting out of the book business - she will continue to operate Dog Eared, Alley Cat and Badger Books. Here are a few details from the FAQ posted at the store for those of you who have done business with Phoenix:

Can I sell/trade my books? Will it have new used books?
No, the new store will carry only new and remaindered books.

Will my credit still be valid?
Credits on a Phoenix trade slip will be valid until the end of the year.

Will there be a sale?
No, the used books are going to the other stores.

The new owners will also be at the party and will be familiar to many: Paula and John Foley were partners at the Castro St location of Cover to Cover Books from 2003-2005. We contacted Paula for a few more details:

At one point you were involved with Cover to Cover. What have you been doing since it closed?
I left Cover to Cover in 2005, and have spent much of the time since working at a couple of other great Bay Area independents - Book Passage and The Booksmith. I managed the Book Passage store at the Ferry Building for a number of years, and also did all sorts of back office jobs at their main store in Marin.

What made you want to open a bookstore of your own?
When I was growing up my grandfather owned a small restaurant. It was a wonderful place with a lot of regulars and a warm staff who made everyone feel at home. It’s still my ideal of a small, neighborhood business and I hope I can follow his example. It’s always a privilege to further people’s reading lives, and being able to do that in a neighborhood setting is really special. In a neighborhood like Noe Valley, even more so.

Folio is a great play on your name, and has great book related meaning. Is there a story of how you chose the name?
When we were searching for a name, I made a long list of book-related words and read them aloud to my husband. He has a theater background, so “folio” immediately brought Shakespeare’s First Folio to mind. I liked how it refers to physical books and the making of books, and also that it comes from the Latin word for leaf. We were so focused on the meaning of the word that it took me a bit to realize that it was also basically our name. I felt a little self-conscious about that, and at first I couldn’t say “Hi, I’m Paula Foley from Folio Books” without cracking up. But now I’m having fun with it – it’s a built-in way not to take things too seriously.

In a nutshell, what’s the focus of the shop? What types of books will you be featuring? Bestsellers, fiction, travel or …?
We’ll search for great choices across a wide variety of subjects and genres, and we’ll be putting a lot of emphasis on the children’s section. We’ll also feature small, focused collections – maybe around a particular small publisher, or tied to something going on in the city, or just because, and those will change out often to keep things fresh.

Do have plans for events at the store?
Yes, definitely. Everything from author nights with Noe Valley characters like Peter Gabel and Bill Yenne, to authors on national tour, to fun things like spelling bees and word-game nights. We also hope to participate in Litquake, One City One Book, that sort of thing. We’ll have events for kids as well.

Why did you decide not to carry used books?
My goal is to have a financially healthy bookstore that will serve the neighborhood for a long time. I can best accomplish that with a “new” bookstore. As different as a used bookstore and a new bookstore can be for a customer, they are even more different to run, with very different business models and economic realities.

How do you plan to be involved in the community?
First and foremost, I hope we’ll serve as a “third place”, one that helps anchor the community and cultural life of the neighborhood. We want to be a place where you get into a conversation about books with a neighbor you haven’t yet met, or run into your friends. Beyond that, we hope to partner with groups and organizations with fund-raising nights, special events, and other ways to help them in their efforts. Schools and literacy are obvious areas of common interest, but I also have an interest in elder issues and trying to help people continue to have meaningful reading lives as they age.

Bernie’s, Philz, Starbucks or Martha’s?
Spinelli’s!

Folio Books plans to open the first week of November. Stay tuned.

Folio Books
3957 24th St

[NVSF: For Sale: Phoenix Books]