July 13, 2008
SOME 15 years ago, Valencia Street was a forbidding mix of auto body shops, papered-over storefronts and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Despite a smattering of Victorian houses and lesbian bars, few outsiders were drawn to this grungy edge of San Francisco’s Mission District.
Then came the dot-com money. Trendy coffeehouses arrived. Hip boutiques opened next to cool bars. And now the wide, low-slung street has become a gathering spot for the city’s latest breed of cool-hunting hipsters.
