vegansaurus!

ACT FAST: Free Sandwich at Ike’s Place!   »

You all know how Ike’s Place is back up and running at a location catty corner to his original and we’re all very very happy about it?? Well! Now they’re giving away FREE IKE’S PLACE SANDWICHES and you don’t even have to send one million dollars to a Nigerian prince to get it! Amazing!

The actual sandwich is the Vegan Ugly Owl (vegan breaded chicken, vegan cheese, teriyaki sauce, HELLO DELICIOUS) and you need to just go to Scoutmob and give them a fake email address and then GIRL, HOOK IT UP! You gotta order it today and it expires on November 13 so you MUST ACT FAST! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Also, in other awesome Ike’s news, you know there’s a VEGANSAURUS SANDWICH, right?? To find out what it is, you have to go to Ike’s Cold at Stanford, and pick one up. All we can say is, it’s delicious, and there’s a fucking VEGANSAURUS SANDWICH AT IKE’S. We’ve truly arrived in the land of deliciousness!

[delicious vegan ike’s sandwich photo via yelp]

This Tuesday: Oprah goes vegan + SF viewing party! Be there!  »

So, you’ve probably already heard but Oprah (WE LOVE OPRAH) and her staff are going vegan for a week and the show on Tuesday, February 1st at 4 p.m. (that’s TOMORROW!) is all about it. Rich, beautiful vegan Kathy Freston (check out her excellent interview in Vanity Fair!) is gonna be on the show talking up veganism and her new book, Veganist. Woo! In crappier news, Michael Pollan is also going to be there. He’s telling his fans to watch the show because he’s gonna talk about meat. Like, a lot. BECAUSE HE DOESN’T ALREADY DO THAT. Ugh, I really hope Freston can hold her own against Pollan and it’s not just 44 minutes of him mansplaining “humane meat and its environmental benefits.” Because, MURDER.

ANYHOO, that joyful vegan genius, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, is hosting a viewing party at Harvey’s in the castro. Harvey’s has a crazy amount of vegan options on the menu based on CPG’s recipes and they’re offering 10% off the vegan dishes for the viewing party! Oh, snap! Their onion rings are vegan! That’s all I needed to know.

From the invite:

We’re asking folks to get there by 3:30 latest to settle in (we’re expecting a packed house) and prepare to watch the show at 4:00. You can order food during the show, but you’re also invited to stick around for dinner, FREE cookies (thanks to Eat Pastry), and a brief discussion afterward.

RSVP on Facebook and we’ll see you there! 

[Image from Petfinder! Adopt!]

Ike’s Place may be coming back to 16th Street! With your help!  »

Looks like Ike’s Place is closing in on a new and permanent location, and they need your help making it real. You might remember 2010’s Ike’s Place eviction drama, leaving Ike’s homeless, until local Castro straight bar Lime took them in on a temporary basis. But let’s face it, mixing the white pants blind-before-breakfast crowd with low blood sugar Dirty Sauce junkies has never been a sustainable arrangement.

Ike’s Place hopes to move in to their new location at 3489 16th Street on January 2nd, and they can do it with your help:

On December 16th at 10:30am, show up to the San Francisco Planning Commission meeting at City Hall, Room 400, and voice your opinion. If you’ve never been to a Planning Commission meeting, it’s really easy. Just wait around until your issue comes up, then when they open up the floor for public comment, go up to the mic and say that you’re in favor. You don’t need a suit or a prepared speech; this isn’t CSPAN.

Can’t make it on the 16th? Here’s something easier you can do instead. But you have to do it by the end of today. Send an email to Sharon Lai at Sharon.W.Lai@sfgov.org, and tell her you support Ike’s Place moving in at 3489 16th Street. It’ll take 15 seconds.

The new location will be 3500 square feet, which is seven times bigger than their previous hole-in-the-wall. So, the new neighbors will be hard-pressed to find anything to complain about. Who knows, they might even support having Ike’s below them as their own personal pantry. I know I would.

BREAKING: Escape from New York Pizza in the Mission HAS VEGAN CHEESE!  »

Yo! Another SF pizza parlor serving up the good stuff with Daiya. That makes Amici’s (the review says they serve Cheezly but it’s Daiya now!), Patxi’s, and now Escape from New York Pizza on 22nd Street in the mission, all carrying vegan pizza made with Daiya! Delightful! We have confirmation that their crust is vegan, but we’re not sure if the other locations are serving it. Street team, where you at?! If you know, leave it in the comments and we’ll update the post. Further, you can get POTATOES on your pizza. I love potatoes on a pizza. That starch-on-starch goodness makes me very happy. We haven’t tried this one yet but we hear it’s amazing so everyone, order it tonight! And report back! Thank you much!

UPDATE 11/7/10: They’ve got Daiya at all five Escape from New York Pizza locations! Get on it!!

[image by Troy Holden on Flickr!]

Wait what? Ike’s Place is already back in SF?  »

It seems like only just yesterday that I was walking down 16th, wondering what THE HELL I was going to get for lunch today now that the local sandwich-hating Brownshirts have run Ike’s out of town. And if it seems like it was yesterday, it’s because it was. Literally yesterday.

So this morning (and by morning I mean noon, and waking up at noon doesn’t mean you’re lazy, it just means you work all night, so don’t judge) I woke up to news that Ike’s found a new temporary home, on Market Street in the Castro, inside Lime, as if the invisible hand of the free market teamed up with The Secret to give me exactly what I wanted for lunch (read: breakfast) today. There’s no Ike’s signage at the moment, and they’re taking phone orders only, but there’s also no line so sandwiches are coming out in 10 to 20 minutes. Get on that before everyone finds out. (And what I am doing blogging this? Part of the problem, right here.)

Ike is expecting to stay as Lime’s roommate for at least three months. He also said that there’s a second location in the works (no details yet) and that SF can and will support two locations. Truth. Also in the works: online ordering, iPhone and Android apps, and improved in-person ordering to cut down the wait times.

Everyone wins! Except for Ike’s old neighbors, who have to live out the remainder of their lives hating city life yet hating themselves too much to move. They don’t win. Still, part of me wishes I could cheer them up somehow. I was going to send flowers with a “Hey, let’s be friends” note, but now I’m thinking sexy fireman kissogram?? I don’t know, etiquette is exhausting.

Ike’s neighbors want $1 million from him to stay in business  »

You read that right. According to the New York Times’ Bay Area blog, Ike’s neighbors have laid out their demands, and they’re ridiculous, bordering on extortion. Doubting that any demands could be that ridiculous, I went down to Ike’s Place and talked to him in more detail. So here are the facts, according to Ike.

Ike’s neighbor dispute is between Ike and the two couples living in the two apartments above him. The two couples are renters, sharing a landlord with Ike. The neighbors on either side are either supportive or neutral, and many are his regular customers.

There are three separate legal actions taking place: the eviction, a small claims case with one couple, and the settlement demands discussed in the Times blog post. We’ll call the two couples A (small claims case couple) and B (million-dollar-demand couple).

In the small claims case, Ike had engaged in settlement discussions, but A stopped responding. The court date is July 1, and damages in small claims are limited to $7,500. If Ike were to lose the case, A could still open another case outside of small claims for additional damages.

The “$1 million” demand is one of four possible settlement options presented to Ike by couple B:

• Ike must “drastically” adjust hours and business practices, as defined by couple B. Ike must sign over to B the backyard and garage that he leases from the landlord. In addition, Ike must pay $250,000 to couple B.
• Ike stays, changes nothing, and pays $800,000 to couple B.
• Ike stays and pays nothing, and couple B sues Ike in court.
• Ike leaves and pays $200,000 to couple B.

Remember, these aren’t the landlord’s demands. If the landlord successfully evicts Ike, Ike would still have to either pay $200,000 or face a lawsuit, in addition to his legal fees from the eviction—a tall order for a business that only broke even in December.

Ike plans to fight the eviction in court (no court date has been set at this time) realizing that the alternative would mean immediately laying off his staff. The grounds for the eviction? “Nuisance.” But according to Ike, he’s been inspected and visited by various city departments over 40 times, including the health department, the building department, and the San Francisco Police Department. He has never received a single citation—not even on the air quality inspections.

The permit complaint is about air quality. As a remedy, Ike installed a ventilation hood over his kitchen area in January, which was fully permitted by the city. However, the neighbor complained to the landlord before the final inspection, and the landlord ordered Ike to halt all construction on the hood. As we spoke, the hood was installed and turned off.

In other words, the legal grounds for the eviction are nothing more than a pretense for evicting Ike. If they really cared about the air quality and permit issue, they wouldn’t have stopped Ike from finishing construction on the hood.

An interesting twist to the story? Who-Wants-to-Be-a-Millionaire couple B moved into their apartment 19 years ago, at which time Ike’s was a noisy bar, where loud music would rattle through the house, sometimes as late as 3 a.m. The noisy bar is why their rent is so cheap, and probably explains why they’re so reluctant to give up 19 years of rent control. But I don’t know what explains the $800,000 demand. Leverage? Greed? Who knows. All I know is that $800k would get you a pretty nice place in quiet Walnut Creek. City living isn’t for everyone, after all.