San Francisco, CA
Has Sunset Dunes helped local businesses? It depends who you ask
Since the Great Highway was transformed from a roadway into Sunset Dunes, the park’s supporters have heralded it as a paradise for bikers, skaters, and families.
Indeed, the park is immensely popular, having drawn 1.2 million visits since its grand opening April 12, with an average of 3,700 visitors on weekdays and 13,400 on weekends, according to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department.
You’d think all that foot traffic would translate into a bump in sales for nearby businesses, as the Dunes’ boosters have claimed. But nearly one year in, it hasn’t been a boon for everyone.
While cafes generally report an uptick in revenue since the two-mile stretch of the Great Highway closed to cars on March 15, 2025, restaurants and retailers have generally seen flat or lower sales, owners say.
Andytown Coffee Roasters CEO Lauren Crabbe said revenue has spiked between 15% and 20% at its three Outer Sunset locations during that period, but at the Outer Richmond cafe north of the park on Great Highway, near Cabrillo Street, they are up 0.03%.
Crabbe said the park has brought more tourists and people from around the city to the Sunset, thanks to the skate park, murals, and other attractions. “I do think the park made [the Sunset] more of a destination,” she said.
Sales at Black Bird Bookstore & Café are up 44%, according to owner Kathryn Grantham.
Tuesdays, historically the slowest day of the week, have seen both book and coffee sales increase 60% since the park opened, Grantham said, adding, “It’s been nuts.”
Other restaurants, retailers, and bars have seen mixed results from the park’s debut.
Tunnel Records on Taraval Street experienced a 17% drop in revenue between March 15, 2025, and Feb. 28, 2026, compared with the same period one year earlier, according to its point-of-sale data.
Owner Ben Wintroub said his store is a destination for record collectors — not a business that attracts passersby. He believes there is less parking near his store because the Great Highway, which used to be an arterial road for locals, is now a destination that people drive to from all over the city.
“It’s made people think twice about coming to the Taraval corridor,” Wintroub said.
Matt Lopez, who owns White Cap on Taraval and Pitt’s Pub on Noriega Street, both a short walk from the park, has seen a negligible impact. Across his two bars, the increase and decrease in sales basically cancel each other out.
Gross sales at Pitt’s in the year the park has been open rose from 3.9% to $721,000, while Whitecap’s fell 3.9% to $618,000, Lopez said.
“The numbers at my bars haven’t changed,” he said.
French bistro Galinette, located at 46th and Taraval, has seen a 2% year-over-year increase in sales, owner Julie Fulton said. “A couple thousand [dollars] difference, like, literally nothing,” she said.
Roughly 80% of the bistro’s clientele is regulars and locals, she said, adding that she doesn’t see park visitors stroll in for a bite, not even for “Le Burger. (opens in new tab)”
“It’s the weather that leads to us being busy or not busy,” she said.
Still, some full-service restaurants have seen an uptick since the park opened, but owners didn’t attribute it to the park itself.
Thanh Long co-owner Ken Lew said sales at the restaurant are up 22% year over year, but only because they picked up significantly late last year, surging 30% since November.
Lew attributed the improvement to a decline in the number of unhoused people in the area. During the pandemic, he said, four or five people were often camping at the bus stop across from the restaurant at 46th Avenue and Judah Street. Now, he said, he only occasionally sees one or two homeless people.
“I’m not sure the Great Highway affects us too much, since we’re a destination restaurant,” Lew said.
Though Lew’s restaurant is only three blocks from Sunset Dunes, it’s far from his mind. In fact, he has never been.
“It’s a little out of the way,” he said. “If I go to work, I stay at the restaurant.”
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced multiple hate crime charges, as well as assault and vandalism charges against an Oakland man for an incident that happened in the Castro District last month.
On Thursday afternoon, Hans Haken pleaded not guilty to one felony count of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury, one count of vandalism, one count of hit-and-run, and one count of reckless driving.
Prosecutors also allege each of the felony assault counts was a hate crime.
“In San Francisco, we have zero tolerance for any hate, hateful acts, certainly that cross the criminal line, and we will do everything that we can to protect our residents from these types of incidents,” said Jenkins at a Thursday afternoon news conference.
It was on May 16, around 5:30 p.m., when prosecutors say Haken spray-painted a homophobic slur on the wall next to Chartreuse by Roje, a gay-owned floral boutique in San Francisco’s Castro District.
“It was a reminder that even though we’re here in Castro, San Francisco, we live in this well-protected bubble that we have created very passionately and strongly, that that can still happen,” said Jeffrey Dumlao, the owner of Chartreuse by Roje. “If anything, that is what’s scary, that it happened here in broad daylight of all times.”
Dumlao says his store had already closed by that time, but Justin Donnelly, who lives above the store, heard the spray-painting and came down to confront the man and tell him to stop.
“He just became very agitated,” Donnelly said. “I tried to remain calm and just tell him, like, sir, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I’m not involved in any of that. I’m just, I live here, right, and this is, this is my home, and you know, this is vandalism.”
Donnelly says when he took a picture of Haken’s license plate, Haken got in the car and tried to run him over. Then, prosecutors say he got out of the car and punched Donnelly in the jaw while uttering homophobic slurs.
“I’m definitely doing a lot better than I was. It’s been, I don’t know, a month or so,” Donnelly said.
He says the incident has shaken him, but he’s been lifted up by the community’s support and law enforcement.
“A lot of people have said, ‘oh my god, I can’t believe something like this could happen in San Francisco, of all places.’ And the fact is that something like this can happen anywhere, but in San Francisco, we don’t stand for it, and we deal with it, so, so that makes me feel good,” Donnelly said.
In announcing the charges, Jenkins pointed out the climate in this country has become more hostile to the LGBTQ community. She says that makes it even more important for elected officials to protect that community, just like they do every other community.
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San Francisco, CA
Artwork quilt unveiled at San Francisco dirt alley that was mistakenly bought at auction
In the fall of 2025, CBS News Bay Area first brought you the story of a Sunset couple that had the winning bid for a piece of property next to their home. They thought they were getting the duplex next door. Instead, they got a small patch of land known as Dirt Alley.
This story has many chapters, but it ended with a community celebration.
The final chapter in the story of Dirt Alley was written Wednesday night as they unveiled the tiles of artwork on the pavement.
“I’m very happy today,” JJ Hollingsworth said. “It’s just amazing that these artists that I’ve been working with and sold the alley to have come through with this incredible art.”
JJ Hollingsworth was the original property owner. She took out $25,000 from her retirement to pay for this parcel in a city auction. She thought she got a bargain for the duplex next door. When she found out it was actually the alley, the stress led to health problems and a lot of anxiety.
“I’m trying to forget, but I caused all this,” she said. “That’s what happened. I caused all this.”
Then came an email that would help her get out of the Dirt Alley nightmare. A group of friends from San Francisco was interested in buying this 82-foot-long alley.
“I know she was really stressed out when she first bought this and kind of didn’t know what she was going to do with it,” Theo Bleier said. “It’s really lucky. We were going to buy a different parcel, and we lost the auction. It was more than we wanted to spend. We felt really lucky the coincidence worked out, and we were able to help out JJ.”
The new owners then had the idea of laying an artwork quilt on the pavement and took submissions online.
“I think we had about one million people visit the website at least,” owner Patrick Hultquist said. “1.2 million, I think is the number of people that visited the website.”
The tiles with the most votes made it onto what is now called Notion way.
“Now, it’s not an official name of the street. It’s an unofficial name, but we did get an official-looking sign,” he said.
JJ Hollingsworth, who is a music composer, wrote a ballad called Notion Way for the special occasion. What started as a horrible mistake ended up bringing the community together.
“It’s really beautiful,” neighbors Tom Goslinga & Nesha Niezrecki said. “It’s how culture gets created in a lot of ways. People kind of being creative with an interesting situation. It’s really cool.”
While Hollingsworth is grateful for how this story ended, she says she learned a valuable lesson from this whole experience.
“Read the fine print and ask a lot of questions,” she said.
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