Richie Azzolino Of Sotto Mare: The Road Back From Covid If you were out in San Francisco this past weekend, you probably saw exactly what I saw: San Francisco is coming alive once again. The streets were thronged here in North Beach on Friday and Saturday, and although masks were … Read the rest
Bringing It Back: Al’s Attire Is A Godsend For Fashion Restoration For me, well-made clothing qualifies as one of the great pleasures of life. I’m not sure why that came to be, exactly. It may go back to watching my father suit up for the workday; having served in the Air … Read the rest
A Century On, An Iconic North Beach Club Transforms As one of the original neighborhoods of San Francisco, North Beach has always been steeped in its own rich history. Though we sit at the center of a thoroughly modern city, our enclave somehow feels more like a cloistered European … Read the rest
With A View To Thrive, Real Old Paper Gallery Returns In Wharf Location The last year has been brutal on small business in San Francisco, and like scores of American cities, ours has faced an unimaginable number of retail closings. In a city largely defined by its local businesses, the toll has been … Read the rest
The Biggest Local Project You Might Not Know About: Music City SF Following on the heels of the inauguration, the recent loosening of Covid-19 restrictions in California and return of outdoor dining to San Francisco has been a dose of much-needed optimism. Local residents, many of whom have been sheltering at home … Read the rest
Family Matters: A Conversation With Sotto Mare’s Ria Azzolino Over fourteen years have passed since I relocated to the North Beach neighborhood from New York, and lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my first days here. Coming from the much grittier East Coast, I felt just a little … Read the rest
Giving For The Holidays: Tony’s Pizza Napoletana’s Tony Gemignani As we step into the New Year, in spite of the pandemic and the depressive effects of the lingering lockdown, there seems to be a potent sense of expectation in the air. There are good reasons for it: Americans have … Read the rest
North Beach Fix: Glimmers Of Hope For A Strange Thanksgiving As we head into Thanksgiving this year, San Franciscans are confronted with an entirely new reality. But as much as the Covid crisis has slowed things down in the city, North Beach has shown a lot of resilience over the … Read the rest
Never Better: My Birthday At North Beach’s Sotto Mare Growing up in a big and very traditional Italian-American family, from an early age I was immersed in the foods of Italy. The dishes my Calabrese grandmother cooked, and that she taught my mother after my parents were wed, defined … Read the rest
North Beach Style: Dressing Up For Halloween At Al’s Attire If you’re at all familiar with these pages, you know that I spend a fair amount of time writing about food. Over these last seven and a half months that hasn’t changed much, but the material somehow seems to be … Read the rest