The Toe

by Michael Iacuessa : potreroview – excerpt

With live entertainment dormant over the past year, theater companies have shifted to offering shows online, a tactic that hasn’t generated significant revenues. As operating losses grow, ongoing uncertainties brought by the pandemic make it difficult to plan for whatever seasons lie ahead.

PlayGround pivoted to the web at the start of the public health crises. When Potrero Stage, the venue it operates on 18th Street, went dark last March due to COVID-19 restrictions, the company was celebrating its 25th anniversary, featuring its annual New Works Festival. The production morphed into the PlayGround Zoom Fest which, with 50 offerings over six weeks, laid claim to being the country’s largest live-streamed offering of new works, with actors performing in separate locations.

“It ended up being an experiment in what worked and what didn’t,” Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann said. “We were one of the lucky ones. We figured out the tools and we were able to use a lot of what we learned during that time.”…(more)

It is good to se how some of the theaters and event venues pivoted to survive. I suggest people in Artaud who have survival stories to tell, contact the author and share them. This article leaves out a few local Mission Theaters that may have some stories to tell. You may want to reach out to them too. The way the unions handled the change is interesting. Who knew that internet acts fall under the Screen Actors Guild. Read the article for more details.

By Bettina Cohen : potreroview – excerpt

Decreased sales and increased costs are threatening the survival of San Francisco’s breweries. On Second Street, 21st Amendment’s recorded message indicates that the brewpub is temporarily closed. On Howard Street, ThirstyBear Organic Brewing’s website states, “ThirstyBear has gone back into Hibernation. Hopefully just a short winter nap!?”…

San Francisco had an explosion of independent craft breweries in the past decade. Magnolia expanded from its Haight Ashbury location to Dogpatch in 2013, near where Triple Voodoo opened the following year on Third Street. Harmonic Brewing launched a year later on 26th Street. Gathering places to drink beer brewed onsite added to neighborhood character, supplied bars and restaurants with libations, and helped fuel the City’s celebrated hospitality industry…

More than a year into San Francisco’s public health order to mitigate COVID-19 transmission, bars and restaurants have been hobbled by recurrent easing and retightening of operating restrictions. These establishments aren’t buying kegs like they did when social interaction wasn’t linked to a potentially fatal virus…

Sales to grocery stores and directly to customers through curbside pickup or delivery have replaced some lost revenue, but at a steep cost increase. Instead of distributing beer in kegs, breweries pay more for packaging liquid product into aluminum cans. Greater demand for aluminum for canning has resulted in a 27 percent cost rise since COVID struck, according to the Bay Area Brewers Guild. Smaller breweries that don’t have canning equipment rely on Can Van, a mobile canning company, to drive up and perform this service.

Magnolia invested $200,000 in its own canning line. Reccow remarked that the installation conjures the American Can Company, which in the last century built and occupied the American Industrial Center building that houses the Dogpatch brewery.…(more)

The return to former use of warehouses is the subject of interest here. And the American Can Company. After I saw this article and the one that follows on Local Theaters, I reached out to the authors with some questions and suggestions on more coverage on these subjects. Bettina is taking comments on the empty office spaces now.