In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Aaron talks about volunteering at a nonprofit in The City called the Trust for Public Land, where he learned about land acquisition for parks and open spaces. Through that gig, he got a paid internship and eventually, a job. In fact, he met Nancy, the woman he would later marry, there.

Around this time last year, I covered my first film festival, SFFILM's Doc Stories. The screenings and other events all took place at The Vogue Theater, which is just a short walk from where I live. Long story short, I was hooked. Since then, I've covered SFFILM's International Film Festival, CAAM, and Frameline this year. And so I wasn't going to pass up a chance to speak again with Director of Programming at SFFILM Jessie Fairbanks. In this bonus episode, Jessie talks about this year's Doc Stories, the 10th such festival that SFFILM has put on to celebrate documentary filmmaking. Learn all about this year's programming, which includes many films and talks I'm hoping to attend. Event Details Thursday, Oct. 17–Sunday, Oct. 20 All screenings held at The Vogue Theater Go to SFFILM's website to learn more and buy tickets We recorded this bonus episode over Zoom in October 2024.

Aaron Peskin is incredibly easy to talk with. And his life story is one you have to hear to believe.

In this podcast, Episode 1 of Season 7 of Storied: San Francisco, the multi-term D3 supervisor-slash-president of the Board of Supervisors-slash-current candidate for mayor of San Francisco shares his story, beginning with the tales of his parents and their families' migration to the United States.

On Aaron's mom's side, the story goes back to Russia. His maternal grandfather was one of five boys born to a Jewish family in Saint Petersburg. Two of the boys stayed in Russia, one came to San Francisco, and the other two migrated across Russia amid revolutionary upheaval there to the Mediterranean and later, to Haifa in Palestine. Aaron's grandfather ended up in Tel Aviv. His mom was born there in 1940, when it was still Palestine. She migrated to the US in 1963 to visit her sister, who taught at a temple in Oakland. Aaron's mom ended up meeting his dad on that fateful trip, and the two were married five weeks later. On his dad's side, his grandparents came to the US from Poland before the Nazi invasion in 1939, arriving in New York City where they ran a candy store. Aaron's dad went to City College of New York, where he graduated and got into UC Berkeley grad school for psychology. On his bus ride west, though, the elder Peskin got drafted to serve the US Army in its war in Korea. After service, he finished his doctorate at Berkeley and got a job teaching at SF State, where he stayed for 40 years until he retired. Aaron goes on a sidebar about running into many of his dad's students from over the years, something that happens to him up to this day. His parents settled in Berkeley shortly after they got married, in 1963. They had Aaron in 1964. As a kid, in the 1970s, he remembers some of the goings on at SF State, when student-led protests and sit-ins were happening and the Ethnic Studies was founded. Back in the East Bay, Aaron attended the first fully integrated public school class in Berkeley. One of his classmates, from kindergarten through third, was none other than Kamala Harris. (See photos in the episode post on our website!) Aaron's younger brother is a professor at Arizona State University. Both his parents ended up in higher education. He calls himself the "black sheep" of his family in this regard, as he "only" ended up with a bachelor's degree. Both parents were also therapists, something they carried on amid their academic careers. Growing up in the 1970s, the family spent significant time in The City, coming over as often as possible from their home in Berkeley. Aaron rattles off a litany of activities his parents engaged him and his brother in when they were young. He says that his time in high school in the East Bay was idyllic. He went to Berkeley High, still the only high school in that city. He fell in with a group of four other boys who took weekend hiking and backpacking trips as much as possible. Also around this time, in his later teen/high school years, Aaron popped over to San Francisco to do things like see kung-fu movies in Chinatown or go to The Keystone to see The Cure and punk bands. He saw The Greg Kihn Band, Talking Heads, and other legendary groups at places like the Greek Theater and Mabuhay Gardens. He graduated Berkeley High in 1982, though he and a handful of friends got out a semester earlier than everyone else. They packed up a van, the five of them, and drove around the Western United States and Canada for 100 days. They ended their trip spending the night in the van in the Berkeley High parking lot. The friend group then scattered, predictably, with Aaron and a couple others heading down to UC Santa Cruz. In his freshman year, he and a friend took the spring semester off and rode their bikes from California to North Carolina and up to Washington, DC, as you do. Santa Cruz was different enough from home, but not too far away. The school provided a challenging academic environment for him, also. He ended up studying animal behavior, specifically the northern elephant seal. Through that program, he lived with a team in experimental housing on Año Nuevo Island off the San Mateo coast doing research. But physical chemistry precluded Aaron from going for a marine biology degree. He instead got into a liberal arts program called "Modern Society and Social Thought." While he was going to school in Santa Cruz, he experienced his first political awakening. Aaron was involved in the effort to make the banana slug become the school's official mascot. The student government wanted the slug, but the chancellor wanted the elephant seal. Aaron had the idea of putting the decision to a vote of the student body. They put ballot boxes all over campus, and the slug won overwhelmingly. But the chancellor rejected the results. News articles helped the students' cause, and they won in the end. During his college years, he travelled to Asia on money he'd saved from a job at a photo store. Neighbors in Berkeley had climbed the Himalayas several times, and it had an effect on Aaron. He and some friends went and travelled over parts of South Asia to do some climbing themselves. He was gone for a year and four months. Upon his return to the US, still working toward getting his bachelor's, Aaron ran into trouble getting student housing. And so he set up a tent in the woods above campus, slept there, went to class during the day, and then did it all again the next day. Check back next week for Part 2 and Aaron's life after college.

Photography by Jeff Hunt

We recorded this podcast at Aaron Peskin for Mayor HQ on Market Street in July 2024.

Look at that gorgeous updated logo! Many thanks to my friend Lisa Wong Jackson for enhancing Jim Murphy's design from 2017. In this special episode, Jeff talks about what to expect in Season 7 of the podcast—what's changing and what's staying the same.

Part 2 picks up where we left off in Part 1. Spike shares details of his West Coast road trip, the one where he shopped for a city to move to and possibly lay down roots.

It was 1993 and, of all those West Coast cities, San Francisco won. "The energy, the feeling that you belonged, the creative draw," they all contributed to Spike's decision to move to The City. "This is where I wanted to be," he says.

He had $600 to his name, which was possible back then. He rented a basement room and got a job at SF Golf Club as a caddie. Spike saw an ad for a creative assistant at an advertising agency in the newspaper, and he got the interview. The other candidates came prepared with portfolios. They were all design-school grads. Not Spike. He brought in painted golf balls and comics.

John McDaniels (famous for the well-known "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?" ads) ran the agency and hired Spike. They bonded over comics, of all things. They became friends in the two years Spike worked for John, and enjoyed (I mean, really enjoyed) lunch together every Friday.

Then, in 1995, a New York agency bought the firm and hoped to force John into retirement. They took Spike to lunch and offered him more money and a promotion. But Spike saw how they thought of his mentor, and decided to bail. He took a buyout and went to Paris for a year, where he drew comics and took language classes. He tried to get his comic, Man vs. Woman, syndicated in newspapers. That didn't work out, but it was a learning experience.

And so Spike came back to his 4,000-square-foot loft in South of Market, kept the comics going, and got a job bartending at many places all over SF. One of the places he sent his single-panel comics to was The New Yorker. He'd included a bottle of wine in one of his shipments, and that helped him stand out. Spike got an invitation to the magazine's office the next time he was in NYC. Folks at the table that day told him to go experience life, but keep doing comics.

One of the things they told him to do was paint. And so, upon his return to The City, Spike picked up a paint brush. Eventually, he started to earn a master's degree in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute (RIP), but never graduated. He made important connections at the school, though, and picked up skills along the way.

He kept bartending while going to SFAI. When he stopped going to grad school, he realized that his life had two streams—bars on the one hand, and art on the other. In 1997, his buddy Alex had the idea to take over what was called Jack's, a bar/venue at the corner of Fillmore and Geary. Alex asked Spike to help open the new spot—newly dubbed The Boom Boom Room—and Spike agreed.

They started with the gutted shell of a space. They aimed to create a classic Fillmore-style juke joint, a throwback to the incredible legacy of the neighborhood. Folks from the hood brought in photos of old spots, and Alex and Spike did their best to simulate that look and feel. Through his time with Alex opening The Boom Boom Room, Spike started to get to know so many musicians, some of whom play at Madrone to this day.

After Boom Boom opened, though, Spike went on to bartend at other spots around town, places like Tunnel Top, Tony Nik's, and Paragon. A new baby, his first kid, was on the way, and he tried to figure out a way to make more money. Managing a place could mean more money, but he also didn't want to manage for anyone else. He wanted to be his own boss.

For the next five years, Spike developed a vision of what it could mean to have his own place. Along the way, he'd sometimes stop in at The Owl Tree and chat with the owner. He thought, "I could do a place like this." He mentioned buying the place from Bobby, who owned it. But Bobby wasn't ready. Then Bobby told Spike, "OK, when I'm ready, I'll sell it to you. But I'm not done!" Bobby died a month after that, and so it never happened.

Then the spot that would become Madrone became available.

Starting in 2004, the Madrone Lounge opened. Spike would come to the hood a lot and liked the place. He knew the original owner, Layla, from their time at SFAI. Spike and I sidetrack just a bit to talk about the history of the building and the space.

Built in 1886, it was formerly a pharmacy. That shut down after the 1989 earthquake, and Burger King, who wanted a 30-year lease, wanted to take over. But folks in the immediate area opposed that plan. It was then that Layla got a liquor license and opened Madrone Lounge.

Layla ran the place for the first four years, until the day-in, day-out took its toll. And so she began to think about selling the place, but not to just anybody. She wanted the new owner to share a similar vision of what the place could be. Needless to say, that person was none other than Spike Krouse. But it didn't happen overnight.

Spike wasn't able to get the money together, but they had talked about the place enough that Layla came to realize how right it would be for him to take over. Shortly after Spike's dad passed away, he got the call on his first cellphone. Layla told him that she was about to list the place, but would sell to him if he was interested. He didn't have enough for a name change or a closure, so Spike just took the reins and went with it.

He started reaching out for mentors and investors, one of whom ended up being the then-owner of Tunnel Tops, who came through in a big way. Spike wasn't going to change the place itself, but he wanted to run things a little differently, and he knew there would be folks who wouldn't stick around.

To get things going, Spike put himself in the role of every employee, and he also got an idea of what it was like to visit the place. He would make the changes he felt needed to be made, and he'd do so in the time it took. It was 2008, and when Obama was elected in November, the street party was off the hook. At this point, Spike knew he was in the right place for him.

Some employees from back then are still with Madrone today. Some kids of those employees are around, even. That says so much.

At this point in the recording, I go off to Spike, gushing about how much I love Madrone and how I'm sorry that I only really discovered it about five or six years ago.

About the New Orleans vibe of Madrone, Spike said he had never been there when he started putting that aesthetic together. That's amazing, but you'll have to just see for yourself.

Speaking of seeing for yourself, I hereby invite you all to the Storied: SF Season 6 Wrap Party Happy Hour, happening tomorrow night (Wednesday, Aug. 21) from 6 to 9 p.m. There'll be free Brenda's Meat and Three (while supplies last), free music, drinks, and just good vibes all around. I really hope you can make it!

We end this podcast and Season 6 with Spike's take on our theme this season—we're all in it.

See you tomorrow or in October, when we come back with the first episode of Season 7!

We recorded this podcast at Madrone Art Bar in May 2024.

Photography by Jeff Hunt

Patrick Costello used to work at Anchor Brewing, where he was the production lead for the bottling and keg lines. He was also a member of the Anchor Brewing Union, where he served as a shop steward—essentially the union rep on the floor. Anchor's union was part of Local 6 of the ILWU. But Patrick wasn't exactly born into all of this.

His mom and dad met at a house party in the Mission in the 1980s. Patrick's dad was stationed in the Presidio and his mom came here from Nicaragua. His dad wouldn't leave his mom alone at this party, or so the story goes. They were married at a church in the Presidio soon after that. (Patrick and his wife recently got married nearby, at Tunnel Tops park.)

The family moved to Germany shortly after his mom and dad got married. This is where Patrick was born, in fact. They moved back in time for his younger brother to be born in The City. Then they went to Sacramento, where he went to school. After graduation, Patrick made his way back to The Bay, around 2010.

He worked for a while at Farley's on Potrero Hill, where he met Jerry, a maintenance worker from the nearby brewery. Farley's gave Anchor employees free coffee, and they paid it back with a keg now and then. Patrick loved chatting with the guy. One day, Jerry mentioned that the brewery was opening a bar and that Patrick should apply.

When he visited, the place was packed, with a line out the door. But the manager told Patrick that they didn't need help. He came back a week later—same thing. Same response. It went on three or four more times before the tap room figured out that they weren't going to get rid of this guy. They'd be better off hiring him.

He came on as a barback at first and hit the ground running. This was around the time that the Warriors were starting to win, and the place was always packed. Patrick learned fast.

When COVID hit, all the service jobs disappeared. But folks who ran the brewery brought a lot of the tap room workers over, to help keep them employed and also to keep up with demand. This is how Patrick got into the brewery. A production lead left, and he took over.

At this point in the recording, we take a step back as Patrick tells the story of how the Anchor Union came about. He says there'd been talk of forming a union for some time before Sapporo took over, because workers felt that management wasn't listening to their demands. When the Japan-based company bought Anchor, they felt it was a good time to try, with a large corporation now in charge.

At first, the efforts centered around educating employees on what a union means, countering popular misconceptions along the way. The campaign was tough and it took a minute, but they organized and got it done in 2019.

We do a sidebar on the rebranding of Anchor that happened, something most area beer lovers (including me) were not happy about. Not at all. Union members knew it was coming, but they didn't get into a room during the development stage, and it was too late. Many union members agreed, but they wanted to give it time for the beer-drinking public to decide.

The reaction was overwhelmingly negative, but ownership doubled down. The union made a statement. But it didn't matter. What was done was done.

Patrick says that workers felt the closing coming on. Orders had slowed down. There was a brooding feeling in the air. Supply chain issues affecting markets worldwide hit them. Then, in 2023, came the news that Anchor wouldn't be making its famed and beloved annual Christmas Ale. Shortly after that announcement, Anchor would be shut down totally.

Leading up to that, Patrick says employees found a way to get as much beer made and distributed as humanly possible. Even though he was a brewery guy, Patrick joined bar staff and worked for free the last night that the tap room was open. He says lines were out the door and that the whole thing was bittersweet.

In May 2024, Chobani yogurt founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya bought Anchor. My initial reaction was wondering whether Ulukaya would bring brewery employees, and therefore, the union, back to work. Not only is it the right thing to do, but also, no one knows the product or the equipment better. Ulukaya has said publicly that he wants to do this, but nothing is certain even as of this writing.

We recorded this podcast at Lucky 13 in Alameda in July 2024.

Z had started a family whom he had to leave when he toured for rollerblading. It didn't take long for him to feel that he should be home—both to be there for his newborn son and to assist his partner in raising him.

Being back in San Francisco, Z started searching for the new him, the next phase. Adding to his new role as father, he enrolled in culinary classes at San Francisco Cooking School. Compared with other things he'd gotten into, this was much more intense. Z was learning from others, rather than making it up "on the fly." But he took to the kitchen right away.

He ended up doing mostly knife-for-hire work around The City and the Bay Area. Z shies away from dropping names in the restaurant industry, pointing to the fact that he feels like the people who get credit take all the shine, while those who do most of the work are in the shadows, so to speak. He says that even back then, he decided that if he branched out on his own, he'd do things differently.

Following his stint as a knife-for-hire, Z became a private chef. Then the pandemic hit. In addition to making sure his kids were doing their at-home schoolwork, he'd joined a chef's thread online. It was a space for those in his community to share how they were coping with shutdown and the loss of doing what they love. Like approximately half of us who aren't chefs, many of the people in these forums were making bread.

At first, Z was apprehensive about making bread. But his friends in the industry kept nudging him. Reluctantly, he gave in ... and at first, the results weren't good. He went at it over and over and just wasn't getting it right. Slowly, over time, he started having some success. And then cops murdered George Floyd.

Z talks at length about the effect that Floyd's murder had on him. He stayed out of protests in public for fear that he wouldn't be able to contain all the anger and frustration he felt at that moment. Instead, he turned inward.

And in that solitude, he worked and worked on his bread. It was the only thing, he says, that gave him solace. The bread got better and better and Z got to a point where he wanted to share his creation, first with his community, then with the world. A friend out in Brooklyn asked Z to ship a sourdough. The day after he did that, orders exploded.

It didn't take long for Z to scale his operation up. A bigger mixer, a second rack ... it all allowed him to keep up with demand. Then he began adding flavors to the bread, at first just for himself. One of the first of these was called The Ninth Ward, a loaf with Louisiana hot sausage inside it (yum ...). Next, he added blackberries to a loaf, which are tricky because of how wet they are and how much they stain.

People started to notice ... people like food writers. One such writer from the Chronicle asked if she could buy a loaf and hang out and talk with Z. He didn't know she was a writer, and they sat down and chatted.

By this time, Z already had the name Rize Up. He had taken his kids to see Hamilton, which has a song about rising up. It was the summer of 2020, and people were actually out in the streets protesting racial injustice. And of course, bread rises as it bakes. The name was perfect.

Once vaccines came around and it got safer to leave the house, Z moved into a bigger kitchen facility, one that allowed him to hire and be able to deliver bread to stores and other customers. Rainbow was the first grocery store to carry Rize Up. Z developed the ube loaf for Excelsior Coffee.

Z talks about those ingredients and flavors he puts into many of his loaves. In the bread world, they're called "inclusions." "Our inclusions are inclusive," he says. They are intentional and reflect his love and appreciation for his community and his neighbors.

We end the episode with Z's take on this season's podcast theme: "We're All In It."

Photography by Jeff Hunt