San Francisco is My Home

30
Jan

Luna re-opens!

Author: kris, Category: Castro, Food

Sometimes, without warning, the gods drop a gift in your lap. This time it happened to me as I was walking up Castro Street. I passed the site where Luna, my favorite neighborhood restaurant, once stood, before it closed about a year ago, and while I normally avert my eyes out of respect, this time I forgot to. This time I glanced in, and found — Luna? Open? What?

Yes indeed. It appears this peerless place had closed merely for renovations (man, I wish they’d posted a sign or something). It’s re-opened now under the best kind of new management: one of the former longterm waiters and his boyfriend bought the place. Now they’re committed to customer service in the way new restaurant owners often are. I had dinner there last night and my fellow’s burger came with a head-high stack of bacon, multiple slices of fresh avocado, sweet, non-mealy tomatoes, and so on. My glass of champagne was almost overflowing.

The things that are awesome about Luna are as follows:

• The restaurant is almost all patio. It’s covered in the rainy months, and liberally strewn with heatlamps. Even in the coldest weather, the Luna patio is warm and dry.
• The food is excellent: fancy fare but not overly-fancy prices. This was our favorite breakfast place in a three-block radius that’s almost entirely breakfast places, because you can get eggs and fruit and potatoes and bacon and a really good biscuit for fairly cheap.
• Right now the management is trying hard to woo new customers and retain old ones. If you don’t like anything on the dinner menu, you can always ask for one of their awesome burgers, something that used to be on the menu and isn’t now. They will cheerfully make this for you.
• Your waiter will probably be the owner, which means you get to have a normal human conversation as equals instead of getting that ishy feeling when you’re served by a customer-service automaton.

Luna is half a block up from Castro and 18th, and for some reason there is no sign out front except one that says “Heated patio dining.” It’s easy to miss. Just look for the Nirvana sign (another excellent restaurant, but not good for breakfast) and Luna is once door further.

NOTE: There is another restaurant in SF called Luna Park. Very different.

29
Jan

Filming at the Castro

Author: kris, Category: Castro, Celebrities, News

One morning many years ago, long before I moved to The City and became Cool, I spotted Adam Duritz (lead singer of Counting Crows, a band some of us cut our teeth on thanks very much) out the window while breakfasting at All You Knead. My friend, who did live in the city and was and always will be Cooler than me, stopped me from leaping up and running shrieking into the street after him. Apparently, that is not very Cool.

Now that I’ve lived here for a while, I know better than to chase celebrities down the street. And that’s good, because there’s yet another movie being filmed here in the SF, and specifically in the Castro, a block away from my house. This one stars Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to hold political office, a local hero. They’ve seventies-ized much of the area around the Castro Theatre, where filming is currently happening. Head down and check it out if you’re interested, but remember to only stare out of the corner of your eye. That is how the Cools do it.

Other movies filmed in SF include So I Married an Axe Murderer, Dirty Harry, and The Pursuit of Happyness. Check out my friend and neighbor’s amusing tales of running into the props from the last film here and here.

Do not run after this man, cools.