The Lone Stranger

All of the Utopias will come to pass only when we grow wings and all people are converted into angels

Fyodor Dostoyevski

Diary of a Writer (1873)

On this clear-as-water Tuesday night I am penning my thoughts in the 821 bar located at 821 Divisadero.  It's a feast or famine type of bar.  Last week I was in here with my good friend Libby and other than the Colombian bartender Juan we were the only one's sucking air in the place.  The music was low and Juan put on a show charming us with is megawatt smile and samples of concoctions he was inventing behind the bar.  Tonight the place is fairly full.  There are two semi-large groups anchoring the bar.  One group is here to suck down some brews and watch the Giants who are absolutely clobbering the Rockies.  The other group is here to celebrate someone's birthday as evidenced by the raucous happy birthday serenade just delivered to someone in the group.  The place is earplug loud.  Everybody is at top volume with conversations jostling like a game of Jenga.  At times some of the women are actually shrieking in that fingernail-across-the-chalkboard manner.  Not exactly music to my ears but I will survive.   My buddy Libby is sitting next to me chatting it up n Spanish with her companion for the evening Enrique.  We didn't arrive together we just happened by chance to pick the same place to hang out.   She probably thought it would be a nice quiet place to practice her Spanish.  NOT!   The volume of the music is way up challenging the crowd for the Master of Decibels title.  Juan's movements are robotic.  He's laboring to make sure all whistles are wet.  The cheshire cat grin is temporarily in storage but he's a born charmer so he musters up some energy to sweet talk a duo of ladies drinking Chardonnay at the bar.  I'm not too sure if the crowd are locals.  I don't see any tatoos, body piercings, unique hair stylings, funky clothing or transgender types.  Maybe it's me.  The neighborhood is always changing.  For most of my existence here in the City Divis has been an urban gulag attracting all varieties of fringe type people.  This crowd seems more mainstream, more like dressed down suburbanites than born-to-be-wild transplant San Franciscans. 

 A couple of doors down in between the tatoo parlor and Cafe Abir is the neighborhood video store the Film Yard.  It's the place to go if you want to see tried and true locals.  We are fortunate in the Netflix-digital download era to have the Film Yard.  It's a throwback place with that funky SF vibe and hand written signs by the employee's of suggestions of movies you should watch that you probably never heard of.  On any given day the owner Andrew might be working the counter.   Andrew is a hulk of a man who's size belies his graciousness.  He loves to play computer games and would rather talk to you about that than films.  I've had several lively conversations with him about the latest shooter or rpg.  That's how all the establishments in the neighborhood used to be, owner operated.  There used to be another video store two blocks down just below Hayes owned by a Korean family.  Alice, the matriarch of the family ran the place 24/7.   She would always be accompanied by her young son who would behind the counter playing with his latest action figure or crayon drawing super hero extravaganzas.  I remember when he was just a toddler barely able to walk.  By the time they closed up shop he was well into grade school and I would always marvel at his super hero drawings she would post on the walls.  The kid definitely had talent.  Like many Korean shop owners Alice was super nice and spoke in a sing song style of English.  On some occasions during off hours I would walk in to drop off a movie and she would be on the phone gossiping with friends in her native hard accented and guttural Korean.  As soon as she would see me she would switch back to her high pitched, songbird American voice and give me a warm greeting.  I always got a big kick out of that.  

Half a block up from Alice's video store was the Bean Bag Cafe on the northwest point of Divis and Hayes run by two of favorite neighborhood people Mo and Luba.  The Bean Bag opened up in the mid Nineties not long after the ever popular Cafe Abir.  It was the place you went to for peace and quiet in contrast to the shake and bake, seen-and-be-seen scene at Cafe Abir.  I started going to the Bean Bag whenever the line at Cafe Abir would get backed up and start snaking out the door.  A brotha shouldn't have to wait in line 12 deep just to get the morning java.   Like many places I frequented in the neighborhood I became a regular with priviliges at Abir.  I could make eye contact with one of the baristas and they'd pour me my usual large coffee and I could bypass the line and just throw a couple of bucks on the counter, grab my coffee, and be on my way.  When I didn't feel like doing that I'd just walk down two blocks to the Bean Bag where there was never a line and empty seats aplenty for me to stretch out and do my daily perusal of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Another reason I liked going there was because of the sparkling personality behind the counter named Kristian.  In the early days before Mo and Luba became fixtures Kristian single handedly held the place down.  He was a jolly lad who had short dyed blonde hair and crystal clear blue eyes. Kristian had a twinge of an accent, perhaps German or Dutch.  He was from the neighborhood and everyone who came into the Bean Bag was treated like a best friend.  He may or may not have been gay, that's something I never ask people I meet in the City.  He was definitely gay in the sense that he exuded happiness and good cheer about 99.9 percent of the time.  

After a few years of existence and finding it's niche the Bean Bag made a name for itself by expanding its food menu from the usual croissant, pastries, crepes, and deli sandwich to adding appetizing burgers and fries.  They extended their hours and started serving delicious and cheap pasta dinners and got a few beers on tap.  It was rumored that a chef from North Beach had defected to the Western Addition and was the creator of the distinguished list of pasta meals now gracing the menu.  For $4.99 you'd get a pasta dish that could last two meals and hefty slice of cheesebread.  This was right about the time the dot.com was getting ready to rearrange the City's priorities when everybody I knew was still living on the cheap.  The scrumptious pasta dinners for under $5 was the deal of the century so I was hittin it about 2-3 times a week, always call in/pick up which any wise San Franciscans know is the only way to go.  As the word got out and the price creeped up a few bucks the Bean Bag transformed itself into a place where you could actually go to sit down and have a meal.  This is when Mo and Luba came on the scene.  Mo was the proprietor.  He was a handsome, well mannered guy who wore his long black hair in a ponytail.  You could tell Mo worked out from the muscles straining under his black tight fitting t-shirts.  He was dark olive skinned and had that Mayan look.  He was a traveler and always had a tale to tell from his latest adventure in Thailand, Brazil, or some other exotic place beyond our borders.  Mo was the owner but it was Luba who commanded the place.  She was a sexy, robust woman with straight long bright blonde hair and had naturally tanned glowing skin which was always on display.  Day or night, winter/spring/summer/fall she always looked like she just arrived from a backyard cookout with her casual attire of shorts and tasteful tank tops.  She was a double-taker, the kind of woman you'd walk by and have to look at twice... or three or four times if you were a dawg like me.  She had the force of a field general but was also personable in a way that could draw you into conversation and the next thing you knew you'd be telling her your life story. Whenever I would pass by the Bean Bag even if I wasn't planning on getting anything I'd drop in and talk to her for a bit.  Mo and Luba worked from early afternoon to closing at 10pm when the Bean Bag transformed itself from standard cafe to neighborhood restaurant extraordinaire.  It was my favorite place to eat for years.  At the high point of dining there I used to call Luba and tell her I'd be there in 10 minutes.  When I arrived there'd be a table in the back with a glass of red wine, a crispy salad, and a hot piece of cheesebread waiting for me.  I always came at 9:30ish for the last half hour when the place would almost be empty so I could have Luba all to myself.  She'd entertain me with gossipy conversation while I dined and on quite a few occassions I got to be guinea pig for new crepe desserts.   When I was a real good boy I'd get my whole meal on the house and I was a real good boy quite often.  It was as good as it gets, why would I even bother eating anywhere else?  

Like many of my all time favorite city hangouts it is all just a memory now.  Back in 2006 Mo started selling beer on tap for $1.29 a pint after 3pm everyday.  Yet another deal of the century at the Bean Bag.  During the day the Bean Bag was populated by the wi-fi crowd.  The free wi-fi made it so popular that the local snatch-and-run laptop gangs were punking unsuspecting customers about once a week.   One gangster would walk in and cause a diversion while one or more cohorts would bogart a laptop and break for the door and bolt in any direction the wind could take you.  Now the bargain basement brews started attracting the young and restless who would come in groups of four, five, and six or more and liquefy themselves to their hearts content.  They weren't exactly neighborhood people so the atmosphere changed and it became more like the Zeitgeist bar on 14th and Duboce  which I'll have to tell you about in another entry.  Mo and Luba were seen less and less and at present they aren't seen at all.  Some hired hands now handle the mostly beer drinking afternoon/evening crowd.  On my way to the 821 bar this evening I walked by the Bean Bag and it was overflowing with twentysomethings  chugging beer in plastic cups.  On the outside tables I noticed a few people smacking on Popeye's chicken (which is right across the street) washing it down with their Stella Artois and Prohibition Ales.  That's the difference between now and then.  In the beginning you had loyalty.  It's the loyal people that make an establishment a second home and provide just enough business and population to keep a place from going under in the first years of business.  Once a place gets popular and established and becomes the latest cool place to hangout you get the people who are just looking to be part of the in-crowd or those looking for the latest in bargain dining.  I was loyal as man's best friend to the Bean Bag as I was a frequent flyer, even after the the formerly $4.99 pasta had breached the $10.00 mark and the takeover by the beer hall crowd.  As I have learned painfully, time and time again, nothing good in San Francisco lasts forever....

...to be continued.