One San Francisco keeper every Saturday. Reader-funded.https://sftimes.com/en-ushttps://sftimes.com/stories/mrs-kim-tofu-house/https://sftimes.com/stories/mrs-kim-tofu-house/For 34 years, Mrs. Kim has been ladling soondubu before sunrise. As her block changes around her, she's not going anywhere, and she has things to say.Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/lake-merritt-tai-chi/https://sftimes.com/stories/lake-merritt-tai-chi/Twelve regulars meet at the southwest corner of the lake at six in the morning. They have done this every day for sixteen years. Through fires, through pandemic, through the year three of them died.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-mariachi-tailor/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-mariachi-tailor/Don Ramiro has been hand-stitching trajes for 41 years. His children are arguing about the shop.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/oakland-roller-skating-pastor/https://sftimes.com/stories/oakland-roller-skating-pastor/Sermons at 11. Lake Merritt at 6. Usually in vestments and skates.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/pacifica-skateboarder/https://sftimes.com/stories/pacifica-skateboarder/He doesn't push hard. He just doesn't stop.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/hayward-driveway-skate-park/https://sftimes.com/stories/hayward-driveway-skate-park/Twenty years ago they paved over their lawn. The kids still come.Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-surf-school/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-surf-school/Lulu Garcia teaches kids from inland neighborhoods to swim and surf. There is no fee. There is a waitlist.Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-russian-bakery/https://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-russian-bakery/Cinderella Bakery has been on Balboa Street since 1953. The recipe for the napoleon has not changed. The owner has, twice.Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-barbershop-youth-program/https://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-barbershop-youth-program/Big Mike's Cuts opened on Eddy Street in 2008. By 2014 it was also a place for kids to do homework, eat lunch, and not be on the street.Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/daly-city-pho-shop/https://sftimes.com/stories/daly-city-pho-shop/Pho Anh has been on Mission Street for 22 years. Last September, the owner died. His daughter took over the kitchen the same week.Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-shop-photographer/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-shop-photographer/Andre Diaz has photographed 412 small business owners on Judah and Noriega. He gives them the prints. He keeps the negatives.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-community-kitchen/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-community-kitchen/Comedor Comunitario opens its doors every Wednesday afternoon. There is no menu, no charge, and no questions.Sat, 14 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/bart-conductor-blue-line/https://sftimes.com/stories/bart-conductor-blue-line/Tomas Reyes runs the 6:14 a.m. out of Daly City. A woman in a yellow scarf has been on the same train, same car, same seat, since 2017.Sat, 07 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/pacific-heights-piano-block/https://sftimes.com/stories/pacific-heights-piano-block/On a single block of Vallejo Street, eighteen of nineteen homes have a working piano. Six of them are tuned by the same man.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-trash-depot/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-trash-depot/Recology's Sunset transfer station processes 280 tons of San Francisco residential garbage every day. Twelve people sort it. Some of them have been there 19 years.Sat, 24 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/castro-record-shop-friday/https://sftimes.com/stories/castro-record-shop-friday/After hours at Vinyl Vault, six men have played the same five-dollar buy-in since 1995. The shop has changed owners twice. They have not.Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/bayview-seed-library/https://sftimes.com/stories/bayview-seed-library/Behind a converted laundromat on Third Street, the Bayview Seed Library has held about 1,800 varieties of seed since 2014. There is no fee. There is one rule: bring something back.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/chinatown-locksmith/https://sftimes.com/stories/chinatown-locksmith/Mr. Wong has run a locksmith shop on Stockton Street for 32 years. He has a small wooden cabinet of spare keys for his elderly neighbors. He has used it about 90 times.Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/geary-fishmonger/https://sftimes.com/stories/geary-fishmonger/Mr. Tanaka has worked the same counter at New Sun Market for 38 years. He keeps a small notebook of every fish he has gutted. He is on book seven.Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-letter-writer/https://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-letter-writer/Auntie Lourdes Aquino has written about 4,200 letters in 27 years. Most of them to landlords, to Social Security, to grandchildren. She does not charge.Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/bernal-piano-teacher/https://sftimes.com/stories/bernal-piano-teacher/Frances Eldridge has taught piano in the same bedroom on Cortland Avenue for 51 years. Her current student book has 22 names. Eight of them are children of children she taught.Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/muni-38-geary-driver/https://sftimes.com/stories/muni-38-geary-driver/Bessie Hu has driven the 38-Geary for 27 years. She has had three husbands and one route. She knows the regulars by the way they get on the bus.Sat, 22 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/chinatown-protest-grandma/https://sftimes.com/stories/chinatown-protest-grandma/Mrs. Lin Chen is 89. She carries the same wooden sign with rotating cardboard inserts. She has been arrested twice and lost no friends to it.Sat, 15 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-night-dentist/https://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-night-dentist/Dr. James Reeves opens his clinic at 8 p.m. every Wednesday. He treats the unhoused, the uninsured, and people on third-shift jobs. He closes when the chair is empty.Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-memorial-card-printer/https://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-memorial-card-printer/Mei Lin runs a one-person letterpress shop on Clement Street. She has printed memorial cards for about 11,000 Chinese funerals in 19 years. She has never lost a name.Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/hunters-point-welder/https://sftimes.com/stories/hunters-point-welder/Ramona Acosta is 38. She is the third welder in her family. The shipyard her grandfather worked is rubble and condos now. She works on the bridge.Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunnyside-bocce-court/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunnyside-bocce-court/Aldo Pacelli sweeps and chalks the bocce court behind St. Finn Barr every morning. He has lived three blocks away since 1971. He is 78. The court has never had a closed sign.Sat, 18 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/north-beach-cat-widow/https://sftimes.com/stories/north-beach-cat-widow/Mrs. Gianelli has fed and named every stray on her block since her husband died of AIDS in 1991. There are eleven cats now. There used to be thirty-eight.Sat, 11 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/marina-dog-walker/https://sftimes.com/stories/marina-dog-walker/Tariq Sims has walked the same twelve dogs at 6:30 a.m. for fourteen years. He has called four owners over the years to say, take your dog to the vet. He has been right four times.Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-tamale-woman/https://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-tamale-woman/Doña Luz Estrada has cooked tamales for the women who serve school lunches in the Excelsior every weekday since 2003. They feed children. She feeds them.Sat, 27 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-bart-cellist/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-bart-cellist/Marcus Owen has played cello on the eastbound platform at 16th & Mission since 1994. He is blind. He knows every transit cop by voice. The platform sounds different when he is not there.Sat, 20 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/coit-tower-elevator-operator/https://sftimes.com/stories/coit-tower-elevator-operator/Manny Salgado has run the Coit Tower elevator for 32 years. He greets every passenger in their first language. He has not been wrong in 19 years.Sat, 13 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-midnight-bookstore/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-midnight-bookstore/The Last Word opens from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., three nights a week. The owner is 39. He sells about $11 in books a night. He has no plans to close.Sat, 06 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-pinata-maker/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-pinata-maker/Don Julio Mendoza's garage on Folsom is half-piñata, all the time. He charges what he charged in 1989. He has never run out of newspaper.Sat, 30 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/forty-nine-bus-poet/https://sftimes.com/stories/forty-nine-bus-poet/A woman named only as M. leaves a haiku, on cream cardstock, at the driver's seat of the 49 every weekday morning. The drivers keep them. There are 2,300 of them in a binder at the Presidio division.Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/glen-park-pizza-dough/https://sftimes.com/stories/glen-park-pizza-dough/Antonio Russo bought the recipe from his uncle in Naples for $200 and three bottles of grappa. The dough has not changed. The neighborhood around it has.Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/oakland-chinatown-lion-dance/https://sftimes.com/stories/oakland-chinatown-lion-dance/Sifu Wu is 76. He has taught lion dance in the same basement on Eighth Street for 43 years. His current students include three grandchildren of his original students.Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/pacifica-surfboard-shaper/https://sftimes.com/stories/pacifica-surfboard-shaper/Beto Ortiz shapes 200 surfboards a year by hand in a garage in Pacifica. His waitlist is 18 months. He does not advertise. He does not have a website.Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/castro-aids-memorial-garden/https://sftimes.com/stories/castro-aids-memorial-garden/Patrick Halloran has tended the small AIDS memorial garden behind a duplex on Hartford Street since 1997. There are 412 names planted under specific flowers. He has not missed a Saturday in five years.Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/visitacion-church-mechanic/https://sftimes.com/stories/visitacion-church-mechanic/Reggie Smalls has fixed the cars of his Pentecostal congregation in the church parking lot every Saturday for nineteen years. He charges nothing. He has fixed about 4,400 cars.Sat, 19 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-mariachi-trumpet/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-mariachi-trumpet/Don Beto Vargas plays a 30-minute trumpet set at three Mission restaurants every Friday night. The walk between them is part of the act. He has not missed a Friday since 2003.Sat, 12 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/berkeley-bookstore-stackwalker/https://sftimes.com/stories/berkeley-bookstore-stackwalker/Phyllis Karam has worked the floor of Moe's Books on Telegraph for 19 years. She has not consulted the catalog computer in six. She has been wrong eleven times.Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-russian-banya/https://sftimes.com/stories/richmond-russian-banya/Yuri Kraevski has run Banya Sokol on Geary since 1965. The wood-fired sauna has not gone cold in 19 years. Same regulars. Same towels.Sat, 28 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/bayview-boxing-coach/https://sftimes.com/stories/bayview-boxing-coach/Coach Marvin Wilson has run a free Saturday boxing gym out of a Bayview community center since 2003. Three of his kids have gone pro. He has never charged a kid.Sat, 21 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/marina-yacht-rope-splicer/https://sftimes.com/stories/marina-yacht-rope-splicer/Captain Frank Costa has spliced rope for every fishing boat on Fisherman's Wharf since 1984. He lost two fingers in 1991. The splicing did not slow down.Sat, 14 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/castro-drag-mother/https://sftimes.com/stories/castro-drag-mother/Miss Vivienne LaRue is 71. She has been the house mother of the Haus of LaRue since 1989. She has raised forty-four drag daughters. Three of them have died. The rest call every Sunday.Sat, 07 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-barong-seamstress/https://sftimes.com/stories/excelsior-barong-seamstress/Tita Aurora Reyes has hand-sewn barongs for Filipino weddings, baptisms, and graduations in the Excelsior since 1984. She has finished about 6,000 of them.Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-greek-donut-shop/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-greek-donut-shop/Athena's Donuts on 16th Street has been open 24 hours a day since 1962. The same family. The same recipe. Three deaths and three weddings later, the fryer has not gone cold.Sat, 24 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/north-beach-jazz-tuesday/https://sftimes.com/stories/north-beach-jazz-tuesday/Lonnie Pierce plays solo piano at a small bar on Broadway every Tuesday night, 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. He is 78. He has not canceled a Tuesday since 1984.Sat, 17 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-boba-shop-esl/https://sftimes.com/stories/sunset-boba-shop-esl/Wendy Lin runs a boba shop on Irving Street. She closes it Sunday afternoons to teach English to her customers' grandparents. Forty-one Sundays a year, twelve years.Sat, 10 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/twin-peaks-fog-forecaster/https://sftimes.com/stories/twin-peaks-fog-forecaster/David Hsu, 71, climbs Twin Peaks at sunrise every weekday and sends a hand-typed fog report to a private email list. He has 1,400 subscribers. He has not missed a weekday in seven years.Sat, 03 May 2025 00:00:00 GMTDaisyhttps://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-night-dog-rescue/https://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-night-dog-rescue/Maxine Otter patrols the Tenderloin between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m. four nights a week, looking for abandoned dogs. She is a former addict. She is in her ninth year clean. She has rescued 412 dogs.Sat, 26 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/general-hospital-yellow-vest/https://sftimes.com/stories/general-hospital-yellow-vest/No one pays him. No one assigned him. Every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m., Brother Charles stands at Potrero and 23rd in a yellow vest pointing people to the ER. About 4,000 strangers have asked him for help.Sat, 19 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/hayes-valley-violin-teacher/https://sftimes.com/stories/hayes-valley-violin-teacher/Geraldine Sokol is 84. She has taught violin in her Hayes Valley apartment since 1973. One student has come every Tuesday at 6 p.m. since 2002. He is now 38 and a software engineer. He has not improved much. He keeps coming.Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/mission-pipe-organ-tuner/https://sftimes.com/stories/mission-pipe-organ-tuner/Father Ignacio is 79 years old, a retired priest, and the last man in Northern California who can tune the 1,200-pipe Aeolian organ at Mission Dolores by ear. He climbs inside it once a year. He is afraid of heights.Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTErichttps://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-fire-truck-mechanic/https://sftimes.com/stories/tenderloin-fire-truck-mechanic/Sergio Banales is 62. He has been the lead mechanic for one San Francisco fire engine, Engine 3, out of the Tenderloin, for 36 years. He has slept in the apparatus bay twice. He has cried in it once. The engine has not failed to start in 11 years.Sat, 29 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTNicholashttps://sftimes.com/stories/ocean-beach-lifeguard/https://sftimes.com/stories/ocean-beach-lifeguard/Marlena Ortiz has been a National Park Service lifeguard at Ocean Beach for 19 years. The current at Ocean Beach is one of the deadliest in California. She has pulled 41 people out. She remembers the names of the two she did not save.Sat, 22 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTEric