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In these neighborhoods, the tastes of the yuppie class have spoken. Chain stores that cater to upper-middle-income habits are warmly received, while other, less tony enterprises get the cold shoulder. McDonald's is bad, Pasta Pomodoro good. "No" to Burger King, but "yes" to Wrap Works.
(Meanwhile, residents in economically depressed Bayview-Hunters Point, for example, have to beg for a simple supermarket. In this neighborhood, the very opening of a McDonald's is cause for celebration.)
Chain businesses that fit these unwritten, upscale class-and-image criteria report that setting up shop in San Francisco is, in fact, easy. Starbucks, the scourge of the independent coffee shops, reports it has done so well that the chain recently opened its 25th San Francisco store (that's roughly one for every two square miles of the city) at the foot of Mission Street.
"We've had a really good reception in San Francisco," says spokeswoman Elise Wolford. "We've had great success here."
If changing demographics have driven the increase in chain outlets, other factors have helped the trend along.
Under the unabashedly pro-business, pro-development leadership of Mayor Willie Brown, city government has given Starbucks and other chain retailers a warm welcome. Where once San Francisco seemed to hinder at least some attempts by national chains to open branches here, since Brown's election, developers say they have noticed a new can-do climate in city government.
"This administration wants to see things happen," says realtor Carol Gilbert, who specializes in retail and restaurant leasing throughout the Bay Area. "In the past, the permits process was unnecessarily cumbersome. Since Brown became mayor, there's a feeling you can get things done -- today."
To "get things done," businesses have frequently looked to key lobbyists who are close to city government. Home Depot paid political consultant and party boy Jack Davis (friend and campaign manager for Willie Brown) $90,000 to help bring the hardware chain to San Francisco. Last year, Starbucks paid lobbyist (and another mayoral friend) William "Billy" G. Rutland $7,000 to help the bean chain open more stores.
Growth controls in San Francisco's downtown area remain among the tightest in the country. But in the city's commercially promising neighborhoods, despite a common misconception to the contrary, commercial development regulations do not stand out from planning and zoning restrictions in most other major American urban centers.
Legally, Starbucks and other chain retailers and restaurants encounter few barriers in San Francisco. New projects must abide by the zoning and size regulations that are specific to each of the city's 20 "neighborhood commercial districts." But these projects are not subject to public hearings unless they seek to go beyond the city's zoning and size guidelines.
The city's Master Plan asserts a vaguely worded commitment to preserving the character of San Francisco's neighborhoods. After 1986, when voters passed the slow-growth initiative Proposition M, all development proposals approved by the Planning Department were to be consistent with eight "priority policies." The policies include requirements that projects preserve and enhance existing neighborhood businesses and character.
But history has shown that these policies are given little consideration, if any at all, in the Planning Department's decision-making processes.
One longtime neighborhood activist describes a pervasive and long-standing pro-growth ethos in the Planning Department, which all but ignores the city's Master Plan:
"They bend over backwards to make sure projects get through," he says. "The Planning Department sees itself as primarily there to encourage business -- and to get out of the way of development."
If the city government is compliant and zoning regulations are not particularly onerous, don't national firms looking to set up shop in San Francisco still face daunting opposition from the city's vaunted neighborhood activist groups? Isn't the common culture of San Francisco a real deterrent to franchise development?
Not really.
With the right team of realtors, lawyers, and consultants, opening chain business locations in San Francisco is actually pretty simple. Here's how it's done:
A national business that wants to open a location in San Francisco scopes out a desirable neighborhood with the right demographics -- that is, a neighborhood where age and income levels suggest a high probability of success for the product, whether it be khakis, home furnishings, or wood-fired pizzas.
The chain then hires a consultant to help navigate the city permits process and act as a liaison with neighborhood groups.
Chevy's Wrap Works, for example, hired lobbyist Jane Winslow to negotiate with neighbors around planned stores in Noe Valley, the Castro, and on Fillmore Street, after its Union Street shop encountered opposition from the neighborhood.
"Problems happen because businesses don't do their groundwork beforehand," says Winslow, also a longtime neighborhood activist. "Talking with the neighbors is something businesses have learned they need to do."
It's a lesson that many chain businesses have taken to heart.
Charles Schwab wanted an office on West Portal Avenue, but zoning laws prohibited any new financial institutions without special permission from the city. So the company paid Solem and Associates nearly $40,000 to help secure a conditional-use permit, and to make sure neighbors were happy.
It is true that chain stores often must spend thousands of dollars to set up shop in San Francisco. But that money has become an accepted part of the cost of doing business in S.F.
Large companies like Boston Market have their own real estate departments to research and identify potential new sites. The chain has four stores in San Francisco.
"Real estate is very limited, but otherwise, opening locations in San Francisco has been no more difficult than anywhere else," says spokeswoman Margaret Bradley. "The whole Bay Area has embraced Boston Market."
If it weren't for an informal alliance of media and neighborhood groups, the myth that San Franciscans hate chain stores would be long dead and buried. But the coalition has kept the belief on life support, artificially oxygenated well past its natural years.
