Before and After

It may be hard to tell–halfway through Jake’s sandwich, comfortable in this finished space, mid-browse through our website–but there was no kitchen in which to cook, no counters, soffits, recessed lights, wood, plants, nor artwork, and no logo, menu design, nor website.  We did not create something from nothing, but it was pretty close.

Our commitment to being local extends beyond our food.  Our building supplies were purchased from Mission lumberyards, our wallpaper from Bradbury & Bradbury in Benicia, our tiles from Heath Ceramics in Sausalito or salvaged from Building REsources in Bayview, and our WoolyPockets and the plants in them from the nearby Flora Grubb Gardens.  Even more local, the Douglas fir of the facade and tables and the redwood slats that hang from the ceiling were all salvaged from and painstakingly restored for our site.

Materials are nothing without designers and builders.  A creative, young (eldest was thirty-three), and inexhaustible (trust us, we tried) team defied design and budget skeptics, overcame unexpected lightwells and shaved floor beams.  Read about them, hire them, and–when you are seated next to them–thank them.

Sterling Tougas

Contractor
sterlingdesignbuild.com
How many contractors conclude the Friday site-meeting and race to yoga?  One, and it’s Sterling.  A Green Building Council member, master of Japanese joinery, patient and omnipresent manager, punctilious builder, and alchemist, Sterling (with Pedro, Cruz, Carlos, and Salvador) turned piles of raw and salvaged materials into this refined space.

Seth and Kelli

Designers
atelier-ks.com
From their craftsmen, North Beach bungalow, the husband-wife team design commercial and residential projects that balance practical solutions, green construction (they are Certified Green Building Professionals), and innovative modern designs.  For us, Seth and Kelli transformed a 2,025 square-foot rectangle into a gem of a restaurant and bakery with seating for forty, preserving its historic details and infusing it with modern and seamless lines.

Jon Fischer

Artist
feather2pixels.com
From Cellspace, an Inner Mission arts collective, Jon documents the changing landscape of the city through print screening (when not teaching undergraduate engineering), an alternative image of San Francisco as a global commerce center and picturesque sightseeing destination.  We commissioned Jon and asked only that the subject be 24th Street.  His thirty-foot grid of wood tiles is an authoritative and comprehensive reflection on our streetscape–the twenty-four intersections of 24th Street from Valencia to Vermont.

Daniel D’Arcy

Graphic Designer
danieldarcy.com
Based in Sacramento, Danny funnels his experience in music, film making, and interior design into his primary work as a graphic designer. Though predisposed to eating cereal, Jake, Danny’s childhood friend, has made a strong case for the wonders of fine dining.  Look at Local and you see Danny’s  labor of love:  From the logo to the menu design, from the book embosser to this website, it’s stamped with Danny.

Emanuel Miller

Web Developer
ccorpsoft.com
From back-end to front-end, Manny has over fourteen years of development experience (and, at 27, he is the youngest member of the team).  He has worked for many startups, but none as threadbare as ours.  Right now, he spends his nine-to-five helping scale the platform at SunRun.  After hours, from his desk in Castro Valley (pictured), Manny masterfully converted Danny’s web-design into a framework maintainable even by people who cannot tell a back-end from a front-end.