• Storied: San Francisco

  • By: Jeff Hunt
  • Podcast

Storied: San Francisco

By: Jeff Hunt
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  • Summary

  • A weekly podcast about the artists, activists, and small businesses that make San Francisco so special.
    Copyright 2024 Storied: San Francisco
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Biographies & Memoirs Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • Amparo, Pattye, Lorenzo, and Willy Vigil/Puerto Alegre, Part 1 (S7E5)

    Amparo, Pattye, Lorenzo, and Willy Vigil/Puerto Alegre, Part 1 (S7E5)
    Jan 7 2025
    Puerto Alegre has been one of my favorite places in San Francisco since around the time I moved here in 2000. I'm finally able to share their story here, and I'm humbled and honored to do so. In Part 1, we meet the Vigil siblings—Amparo, Lorenzo, Willy, and Pattye. Their parents opened Puerto Alegre around 1970, and these four continue their family's legacy on Valencia to this day. ​To start things off, we travel to Ayutla, Jalisco, Mexico, which is where the Vigil family came from. Their dad was one of five boys and several sisters in his own family. They were working class folks who didn't have a lot of money, and so they decided to leave. Following a couple of his older brothers, their dad came to California when he was 14. He started in the southern part of the state and made his way north, working mostly in fields. The brothers from this older generation all ended up in San Francisco, where they lived together and eventually brought their wives up to join them. The Vigil siblings' dad had known their mom back in Mexico, and brought her to The City around 1957. At this point in the recording, we go on a sidebar about the size of Ayutla and how much it's grown over the years. The Vigil siblings do visit their family back in Mexico from time to time. Before their parents got started in the restaurant business, their dad worked at a laundromat here in SF on 17th Street. They had their first baby, an older sister who isn't affiliated with the restaurant at all, and made ends meet to support her. Their mom stayed home to care for their sister, and it was around this time that she started cooking. The parents lived in a shared space with family around 14th and Folsom before a move south to 24th and Folsom when one of the uncles bought a house there. More and more members of their dad's family moved to San Francisco, and the Puerto Alegre Vigils bounced around the Mission from home to home during this time. Their dad's idea was to save up enough to move back to Mexico (ed. note: The idea of saving money in San Francisco today is a different story). But eventually, the opportunity to buy an entire building, which came with a restaurant on the ground floor, arose, and their dad seized on that. That spot was between 19th and 20th streets on Folsom. And so the family moved again. Several members of their parents' generation worked at that first restaurant, which was known as Mexico Lindo. (The space is still a Mexican restaurant today—Chuy's Fiestas.) Various members of the family, including the Vigil siblings when they were young, took turns working at Mexico Lindo. Eventually, that worked out to different families taking over the restaurant for yearlong stints, while others went and worked other jobs. Two uncles branched out to open Vigil's Club, in the spot that today is Asiento, 21st and Bryant. The siblings' dad and one of his brothers stayed back at Mexico Lindo. In one of those years "off," 1968 or '69, the siblings' dad decided he didn't want to be away from the restaurant business for such a long period of time. He went looking and found the spot on Valencia between 16th and 17th where Puerto Alegre is today. The building's street-level space had been a second-hand store. The Vigils' dad built it out as a restaurant. Back then, Valencia was known as "auto row" and "funeral row." It was much different than it is today. The space next door, where Blondie's is today, was a bar called Vic's. We go on a quick sidebar about how, many years ago, it was common for kids to go into bars in San Francisco. It's something that comes up from time to time on this podcast. ​Then Amparo lets us know how good their dad was, even at his first restaurant, about creating spaces where people would want to hang out. Among other touches, he placed pinball machines and a jukebox in the eatery on Folsom. On the weekends, they served birria and menudo, which didn't hurt the operation at all. Getting back to their dad's venture over to Valencia, the siblings discuss the idea that he and their mom were really branching out on their own after so much time in business with their family members. But the new space, having previously not been set up as a restaurant, needed work done on it. A lot of work. There's a side story about a contractor from Watsonville who stiffed their dad on a deposit he'd handed over. Some of the siblings joined their father to chase the guy down. Wild. The new restaurant would be called Puerto Alegre. Pattye lets us know the meaning of the phrase in English, which is "happy port." The menu was all original, of course. Some items, in fact, came from Mexico Lindo. Many of the recipes were their mom's or their aunts'. Chile verde, enchiladas, chile rellenos, and chile Colorado were mainstays. Back at the old place on Folsom, the siblings all worked when they were kids. Their dad even built a box they could stand on to clean the meat for menudo. When he opened his place on Valencia, ...
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    37 mins
  • Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus)

    Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus)
    Dec 17 2024

    This bonus episode is presented in collaboration with the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund.

    ​Season of Sharing Fund gave some peace of mind to aspiring boxing champ Keoni Washington, who became parent and breadwinner to his brothers after their mother passed away early in the pandemic. We meet him at the East Bay apartment he shares with three of his brothers. Keoni received rental assistance from Season of Sharing Fund in 2023, which has allowed him and his brothers to stay in their home. If you want to hear more profiles of help and hope, go to https://podfollow.com/1781750916. And if you want to find out how you can help neighbors in crisis, go to SeasonofSharing.org/podcast
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    23 mins
  • Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4)

    Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4)
    Dec 10 2024
    In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Allegra was bartending at Second City in Chicago. The day of her graduation ceremony, at Columbia College Chicago, she packed up all her belongings and drove to LA with a friend. Allegra really wanted to be in California. Not yet totally sure about what she was gonna do, she took the plunge, so to speak. She'd realized that she wasn't going to pursue art. But she figured, correctly, that in addition to the warmer climate, there would be opportunities to seize in Los Angeles. But Allegra soon found that the challenges of a pre-smartphone Southern California were overwhelming. But she gave it a go. Allegra managed to get what she refers to today as "the worst job she's ever had in her life"—taking school photos of kids. On September 11, 2001, as planes hit the Twin Towers on the other side of the continent, Allegra was at a school in LA taking photos of schoolchildren. Later that day, she had a job interview that, of course, required driving. The freeways were empty, which is an eerie sight. But she got that job. And that's the story of how Allegra Madsen became an art handler. Following a couple of years hanging art (Warhol's Mao and Brillo Boxes among the art Allegra handled), she dabbled in freelance work, putting art up on walls in the homes of Los Angeles billionaires among them. Several years into that, Allegra started to feel that energy—this time, pushing her away from LA. She packed up her red sports car again (a 1988 Porsche, by the way) and headed to The Bay. Going back to the time in her life when she immersed herself in books, Beat writers caught Allegra's imagination. She recounts her first visit to San Francisco and her eventual move north. Like me, she had no idea that she'd still be here all these decades later. It took Allegra some time to "unpack," so to speak. She moved around The Bay a little, before eventually settling back a block from her first spot in Oakland, where she lives today. She went to school at CCA (then known as CCAC) and studied curatorial practice. It's where she discovered and got really into social art practices, which she goes into in our talk. "Using art to build community," essentially. Her thesis project took place on Third Street, just as the light rail was being built along that corridor. Her thesis exhibition took place at the Bayview Opera House. A few years after getting her Master's degree, Allegra opened a cafe in Temescal in Oakland. The neighborhood was rapidly gentrifying at the time, and she wanted to have a space where folks from many different walks of life could visit and have a good experience. Allegra sold the café after about five years. She pivoted back to art and event planning. Most of her work took the form of events in the Bayview. And part of that event planning involved movie programming. This led to a role at the BVOH, where she did more movie showings. During her time at the opera house, she began to partner with Frameline. In 2021, she joined the film fest org as programming director. It was the first year since the pandemic started, and Allegra believes part of why she was hired is that she had proven that she could program movies in "weird" places. They hosted a movie as part of Pride that summer at Oracle Park and did some drive-ins (remember those?). In late 2023, Allegra became interim executive director of Frameline. She assumed the permanent job this February. Follow Frameline on Instagram and other social media to stay up to date on everything they do. We end the podcast with Allegra's take on our theme this season: Keep it local. We recorded this podcast in the Frameline office in South of Market in November 2024. Photography by Dan Hernandez
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    35 mins

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