Exporting Fillmore’s coffee culture

By Anne Paprocki Tucked in an unassuming office behind two Fillmore boutiques, longtime local residents Elise Papazian and Scott Pritikin hope to expand the horizons of coffee connoisseurs everywhere with their recently launched online service GoCoffeeGo. “Nobody should be drinking the same cup of coffee every day,” says Papazian, “It’s just boring. Would you eat [...]

Checking out of the checkout line

After more than two decades of offering up good cheer and wry observations while ringing up groceries and restocking the shelves, Allen Brandstein has retired from Mollie Stone’s. His last day was March 31. Stoking his decision to leave were two life passages: a bout with colon cancer last year and his first Social Security [...]

Celebrating 70 years together

A taste of the old Fillmore will be on display today at a special celebration being held at Jones Memorial United Methodist Church honoring local residents Norman and Mable Stewart on their 70th anniversary. “We are so proud of their accomplishments in business and marriage and we want to share it with everyone,” says granddaughter [...]

A news project: reinvent journalism

Q & A | ROSE ROLL R ose Roll, a local resident and occasional contributor to the New Fillmore, is involved in creating the Bay Area News Project — a new nonprofit venture funded by neighborhood philanthropist Warren Hellman that is being heralded by some as a reinvention of journalism. With The New York Times signing [...]

To Haiti on a medical mission

Neighborhood physician Dr. Eduardo P. Dolhun is with a team of doctors in Haiti treating earthquake victims. Here is a portion of his first dispatch from the front: “Within a matter of minutes we were presented with a wide assortment of severe illnesses, all of them traumatic and now nearly six days old. “The first [...]

The artistic inkeepers

Story and photographs by Carina Woudenberg Half a block up Pine Street from Fillmore, behind a perfectly maintained white picket fence, stands the Artists Inn. A flag flies in the breeze, but there is no sign of what lies behind the pale blue and white facade: three former art studios that a decade ago were [...]

The end of a design era

By Thomas Reynolds In the springtime came the annual invitation to stop by the corner of Alta Plaza Park and tour the elegant home of interior designer John Wheatman. Hundreds of current and former clients walked through on May 3, a cool, grey Sunday afternoon, to admire the treasures Wheatman has acquired and the good [...]

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!

By Joanne Weir It all started several years ago when an invitation arrived in my mailbox on Pine Street beckoning me to the launch of a spiffy new tequila in a sexy square bottle. It took place at Tommy’s, the well-known tequila bar out on Geary, and was mostly men who were sniffing and swirling [...]

A lifetime of loving film

“What should I see?” It’s the question the eminent film critic and historian David Thomson is asked most often — sometimes even as he walks his dog in Alta Plaza Park or runs errands on Fillmore Street. Now, more than three decades after he published his landmark Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson has responded to [...]

A merry band of Food Runners

By Marjorie Leet Ford Like Robin Hood and his band of merry men, Mary Risley and her crew of Food Runners take from those who have too much and give to those who don’t have enough. It all started when she realized she had a problem at Tante Marie, her cooking school: Her student chefs [...]