If you re looking for an excuse to get off your couch and do some social distancing while supporting local business, celebrate the end of a long week of Zoom meetings by heading to two closed-off blocks of Valencia Street on Thursday through Sunday nights for shopping, outdoor dining, and even some .
San Francisco s Valencia Corridor lights up
San Francisco s Valencia Corridor lights up
The newly installed lights are only temporary and meant to help bring customers back to the area. KTVU s Amber Lee reports.
SAN FRANCISCO - For the first time in its history, the Valencia corridor in San Francisco is lit up.
The lights are temporary and meant to help bring customers back to the area.
For the small businesses, the lights are a symbol of putting the pandemic behind them.
Valencia Street was known for its vibrancy before the pandemic and merchants say business is starting to pick up.
If you light it, they will come. Such was the successful reasoning of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association as they sought to beautify and promote the Mission District avenue that has become a symbol of the area s resilience during COVID and its recovery as we move beyond it. On Friday, May 7 at 8pm, a ceremony between 16th & 17th on Valencia Street will officially launch the project that has electrified community support - and the neighborhood - with LED ambient string lights stretching all the way to 24th Street. Lighting up Valencia from end to end, from 14th to 24th street, will bring a sense of community and warmth we all need as we re-emerge as a City and come back swinging. It s a project built by the community and we should all be so proud of that fact. We did this together. said Jonah Buffa, co-owner of Fellow Barber and President of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association. TheVCMA as the group, in service of the merchants, the corridor, residents and neighborh
For Jen and Kristi Maxwell, 2020 was the year they began living the dream.
The couple, who married in 2008 (when Kristi took Jen s last name), had the same vision: to open a neighborhood-centric business that would add value to the community. The specific idea of opening a pet-related business was Jen Maxwell s, who learned about pet health and nutrition while working at Pet Food Express.
In late November, they opened the doors to Maxwell s Pet Bar at 1734 Church (between 28 and 29th St.) a storefront previously occupied by a dog groomer, VIP Scrub Club, which closed last year and had been owned by a lesbian couple, Sage Cotton and Lancy Woo. (The Maxwells said that they don t identify as lesbian or queer because they don t like labels. )