A Very, Very, Very Fine House
Dogpatch is the neighborhood to be in San Francisco, and the new Yellow Building is the place to be in Dogpatch.
By KATIE POPOFF
Photographed by WINNI WINTERMEYER
The weathered warehouses and converted loft spaces, remnants of San Francisco's industrial heyday of the late-1800s, have made the Dogpatch neighborhood a natural draw to a growing number of designers, foodies and artists who have been flocking to what's been touted as the city's Bushwick-in-the-making.
Seizing an opportunity to join the neighborhood's burgeoning creative community, the brother-sister duo behind SF's 30-year-old clothing boutique Modern Appealing Clothing, Ben and Chris Ospital, have joined forces with restaurateurs, Sher Rogat and Margherita Stewart Sagan, of Dogpatch pizzeria Piccino, to convert a 170-year-old horse stable into an artisinal mini-mart of sorts.
Armed with a fresh coat of vibrant yellow paint, the aptly named Yellow Building, which opened in mid-March, will house a new outpost of Piccino and a branch of their famed Blue Bottle Coffee café, MAC's second store and the specialty wine bar DIG. Moving to Dogpatch was a no-brainer, says Ben Ospital, who's always believed "foot traffic and expensive real estate should take a backseat to doing something that really excites people."
In addition to their signature, meticulously-curated selection of high-fashion and up-and-coming designer apparel (they sell everyone from Dries van Noten to Lanvin to SF designers Ryan Roberts and Serial Cultura), MAC's new location will feature made-to-measure workwear-inspired garb, as well as the reinstated Chez MAC home collection, with exclusive goods from locals: Boulette's Larder and surf-boutique Mollusk. "Dogpatch is such a creative neighborhood," says Ospital. "It is sort of the last bastion for people who make things in San Francisco."
To honor this, in June, the Yellow Building will partner with a local philanthropist to host a "Makers-in-Residence" program, which will invite designers and artists from all over to live and manufacture their products on the premises. "There's a sensibility and sense of tradition," when it comes to craft in San Francisco, says Ospital. But at the same time, "Let's move it forward."
★ THE YELLOW BUILDING IS LOCATED AT THE CORNER OF 22ND AND MINNESOTA STREETS IN SAN FRANCISCO. ★
Your Comment
Posted at 3:28 on Apr 19, 2011
I think it can be seen from space! It'll be like summertime in Alaska. You have to wear SPF-100 just to walk by the place! Looking at it from across the street at Cup-O-Blues, you'll need one of those solar eclipse pin-hole projectors. OK, it's not that bad, but it's pretty darned yellow.
Posted at 5:34 on May 23, 2011
Dogpatch was also one of the last bastions for working class people who couldn't afford to live and raise families in most other parts of the city. Let's get real here. 10 years from now, SF is going to be a cage full of yuppies, who yawn on and on about the great social and creative history of San Francisco, while renovating their million dollar homes right on top of any semblance of that history. The energy that brought artists and activists to this city is dead and now it's time to leave.