San Francisco kicked off Pride weekend with the return of the Market Street Pride lasers, while the Golden State Valkyries celebrated Pride Night alongside the ValQueeries, an LGBTQ fan group building community through basketball.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — On Friday in San Francisco, hundreds of newlyweds began the next chapter of their love story at City Hall.

As they got married inside, Pride preparations were also underway outside of City Hall.

These Pride-themed City Hall weddings were all happening as the setup for the Pride celebration at Civic Center were wrapping up in preparation for Pride Saturday and Sunday.

More than 250 couples arrived for Pride Friday, some of them getting commemorative Pride marriage licenses.

2026 SAN FRANCISCO PRIDE PARADE: How to watch exclusively on ABC7, what to know

Couples like Chris Parker and Jared Duensing got a very special officiant: San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie.

“This is such a wonderful day, and so happy to finally be married after four years of knowing each other in such a wonderful location. Being married by the mayor was so special,” said newlywed Chris Parker.

“Just happy and excited for those couples, and I’m happy and excited for our city to show off what makes San Francisco so great — and our LGBTQ+ community is a huge part of why San Francisco is so special,” Lurie said.

All of this leads to a huge weekend in San Francisco.

The stage being set up just outside of City Hall will mark the end of the parade route — but there’s a lot happening before that.

MORE: San Francisco Pride insiders reveal their must-know tips for the weekend

On Friday afternoon, the annual Trans March takes place at Dolores Park.

On Saturday, both the Trans Ally March and Rally and the Dyke March will take place.

On Saturday, performers will start taking the stage at Civic Center Plaza starting at noon.

All of this, of course, is leading up to Sunday’s big parade when thousands will line Market Street.

Zach Fuentes will be hosting SF Pride Parade coverage only on ABC7 Eyewitness News this Sunday with Drew Tuma, Cameron Bopp and Tara Campbell — as well as with our community guest hosts.

This as-told-to essay is based on an interview with Aziz Aslan, 45, the owner of Turquaz, a Turkish restaurant on Mission Street in San Francisco. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I opened my Turkish restaurant, Turquaz, in San Francisco in February 2025. Typically, most of our customers are locals, and Turkish diners make up a small minority.

But Turkey’s World Cup appearance in San Francisco has brought a different type of customer through our doors.

Over the past week, we’ve had far more Turkish customers dine with us. Reservations are up, walk-in traffic has increased, and we’ve hired additional staff to keep up with demand.

Turkey qualifying for the World Cup changed my business

As soon as we heard that San Francisco would be one of the World Cup host cities, we were thrilled. We knew it would bring visitors to the city, and potentially new customers to our restaurant.

At that point, we didn’t yet know whether Turkey would qualify.

In March, Turkey secured its place in the tournament, and we later learned the team would be playing at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on June 20. That’s when I knew we needed to start preparing for the tournament.

Over the last few weeks, we launched targeted advertising campaigns on social media. One Instagram post was written in Turkish. In another, we told visitors that wherever they were traveling from, if they were looking for good food, they should come to us. It helped spread the word about our restaurant.

Most of my customers aren’t usually Turkish

I’m originally from Istanbul, although I’ve been in the Bay Area for about 10 years. Compared with places like New York and New Jersey, there aren’t as many Turkish people in this part of California.

Usually, our customers come from a wide range of backgrounds, with Turkish people making up only 5% to 10% of those who dine with us.

With our usual customers, our most popular dishes are chicken kebabs and lahmacun, a flatbread topped with minced meat, vegetables, and herbs. We’re a traditional Turkish kitchen, and our pastry section is popular as well, especially our fresh baklava.

In recent weeks, however, we’ve had a lot of Turkish customers, which is unusual for us. Some have come from places like New Jersey and Texas, while others have flown in from Istanbul, all to watch Turkey play.

Turkey’s World Cup match in San Francisco has changed who our customers are and what they’re ordering. Dishes like beans and braised meats aren’t as popular with our usual clientele, but we’re selling a lot more of them now because of our Turkish customers.

They’ve been ordering foods like white beans with pilaf, braised meat with pilaf, and salads, all of which are really traditional dishes. Turkish customers can be tough critics because they’re comparing our food to what they have back home, but I feel confident in our food, and we’ve received compliments so far.

It hasn’t really affected our stock, thankfully. We have good inventory management, and my warehouse for the wholesale food business is only a short drive away, so we can pick up products whenever we need.

We’ve hired extra staff to meet demand

To prepare for the World Cup, we’ve had to hire additional employees. On top of the 24 staff members we already had, we added three more because of increasing demand. The staff is also working longer hours than usual.

For Turkey’s first match, against Australia, we didn’t do anything special, other than create a football-shaped cake. We decided to host watch parties for Turkey’s second and third matches because customers kept asking for them. We set up a big screen for fans to watch together.

I think the World Cup is giving Turkish people a reason to gather, reconnect, and talk about soccer.

I hope the World Cup leaves a lasting impact

The first few months of opening a restaurant are never easy. We spent them getting things set up, perfecting our recipes, and building awareness. We’re still a relatively new restaurant, so it’s been encouraging to see this positive momentum from the World Cup.

The city feels busy. You can see it on the streets. There’s an energy in San Francisco right now that’s having a positive effect on businesses like ours, and I hope we can keep that going.

Of course, the World Cup is a one-time event, but we’ll do our best to serve these customers well. If we can meet their expectations, I hope they’ll come back.

And who knows? Maybe the Turkish national team will stop by for a meal before the tournament is over. I’m still holding out hope.