Another One Bites the Dust

It happens so often in the BIG (ish) CITY; you're away for a couple of weeks and when you return, a little piece of your world has gone missing. That little bit of San Francisco was Bob's Broiler on Polk Street. Bob's wasn't the sort of place you would recommend to others. The food was mediocre, at best. But it did have something going for it. I don't know whether it was the comfortably-worn gray vinyl booths or the hand-written signs or the mangy houseplants, but Bob's was truly a part of the character of Polk Street. It was the kind of place you ate at because it was there and it was open. A few years ago there was a wonderful essay by Mike Weiss in the Chronicle on the closing on Herb's Fine Foods on 24th Street. I think it captures the sense of loss of a place like Bob's better than I can. Bye Bob's.

Signs of the Times

Cities handle change in very different ways. San Francisco can be quite resistant to change for a place with a reputation for "setting the pace" in so many ways. We seem to like things as they are, at least superficially. This is especially true of the "look" of our City. Still, so much change is really beyond our control. Natural disasters and economic forces will always alter our environment. It's hard not to see the signs of economic distress in The City of late. I've come across a couple of interesting examples; this shop on Kearny took down the sign of its last tenant and has revealed its former incarnation as a hat store, and this former Washington Mutual branch on Polk and California has a new name. The hat shop will have a new tenant soon, I hope. I pray that Chase will spend a little of that bailout cash on a new permanent sign (could they have done the new sign MORE cheaply?) Other sad changes; Morrow's Nut House on Geary has gone after over 60 years in the same location, as has the See's Candies shop on Polk (the oldest outlet in the chain, it's been on Polk since 1936).

Little losses perhaps, but threads in the fabric of The City that was.