It should go without saying, even in hyper-casual San Francisco, that you dress one way to go to Tacolicious and you dress another way to go to Gary Danko. Sure, nobody at Saison is going to say anything if you walk in in jeans and a t-shirt, and people do in fact do this. However, Perbacco chef-partner Staffan Terje is getting tired of seeing guys lumbering into his restaurant "with shirt untucked, baggy pants, and a baseball cap on backwards," because clearly they didn't get the memo that Perbacco is not Tacolicious. And he makes the important point in this little video from Chefs Feed that while SF's restaurants may not be in the habit of enforcing dress codes, it's still sort of inconsiderate of other diners in a fine dining setting when you show up dressed like shit. "You have somebody coming in celebrating a birthday or an anniversary and they look over at another table and a guy looks like he just came from a baseball game."

It has a way of making the whole experience feel a little less special for everyone, you know?

Also, let's not prove this New York Magazine writer's point about the "stubborn un-coolness of San Francisco's style," in which tech dudes only wear dress sweats and Patagonia. Get it together, people. You clearly have the money.

The storied (and, in recent years, scandal-beset) high-end fashion retailer Christian Dior on Tuesday announced that they will be opening a 10,000 square foot flagship store in San Francisco's Union Square.

According to a press release sent by Grosvenor Americas, an international property developer, the luxury label will move into a three floor space at 185 Post Street following a two-year "interior fit-out."

To keep all you fans of the extremely expensive designer clothing, leather goods, jewelry, skin care, and fragrance house going until then, keep an eye out for documentarian Frederic Tcheng's Dior and I, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival last week to glowing reviews. Or, like me, you can just enjoy this (surprisingly relevant!) late 70s-early 80s b-side from the great Adam and the Ants.

Your Britta water filter, if I may, is vile. Little back specks. Green algae forming around the bottom. The plastic-ness of it all. Gross. Which is why San Franciscan and innovator Mike Del Ponte went about to create a minimal, sleeker water carafe and filter. And what a beauty it is. It's called Soma (not to be confused with the neighborhood) and it does more than just clean your drinking water.

Soma formed a partnership with charity: water to provide clean and safe drinking water worldwide (i.e., for the "the 'bottom billion' who live in slums and impoverished rural areas and survive without access to safe drinking water"). And seeing as how tomorrow, March 22, is World Wide Water Day, this might be the perfect time to change that nasty thing you call a water filter.

"When we first started to design the Soma carafe we absolutely knew we had to make it from glass," Ponte tells SFist. "Anything else would have been a compromise we were not willing to make."

If you buy Soma this week, which you really should because it's downright gorgeous, they'll donate an extra $5 to charity: water. The carafe and filters (100% compostable, by the way) come to your door.

Find a plan that works for you here. Learn more here.

Are you a male urban freelancer/professional with $7,000 to burn, an endless capacity for dressing hiply, and an inability to grow a proper, manly beard? Stop your fretting!

Plastic surgeons are now taking patches of hair from mens' heads and transplanting them on their faces in a growing craze of artificial beard generation, as DNA Info reports. It's unclear how one keeps from then having weird bald spots on one's head, especially if shooting for a full-on lumberjack beard.

The hair for beard transplants typically is taken from the patient's head — roots and all — and then planted through micro-incisions on a bare patch of face, in an eight-hour procedure under local anesthesia, similar to how hair transplants are done, doctors said.

The procedure ranges in price from $3,000 for fill-ins of beard sections to $7,000 for a full beard, doctors said.

While doctors prefer head hair, on rare occasions patients who are balding might be able to use hair from the chest for the surgery, doctors said.

So, sure, if you already are spending $4,000 on rent and have no interest in authenticity or resigning yourself to nature's limits, go for it! What could possibly go wrong?

I found at least one doctor in San Jose who does this stuff, but no doubt there are more in the city. They'll probably be leaving their names and numbers in the comments, in fact.

[DNA Info]
[NY Mag]

Only 67 more days until the Giants open at AT&T Park. And what a long 67 days those will be. To help ease your Giants delirium tremens, allow Brandon Crawford to show you the new "old school" jerseys your San Francisco Giants will wear on Fridays. Nice. Circa '82, I think.

What has the team been doing lately, you ask? Well, for example, Sergio Romo played with some socks (and did something inexcusable with his sunglasses):

Hunter Pence appeared in a one-man show of Pirates of Penzance. (No, sadly, he did not.)

Matt Cain, clearly the dad of the group, dressed up in firefighter and mustache garb:

Brandon Belt took some of the shine off his nose while filming a Giants 2014 commercial:

And, just prior to losing the NFC Championship game, 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick joined Romo for some team unity:

[h/t: David Elrod]

Photo by Troy Holden.

Troy Holden snapped this shot of a dapper dude, vertical stripes and all, on Market Street. We like.

For serious collectors of hand-carved phallic items, this "WOW" table made from one massive, hard piece of driftwood that recently turned up on Craigslist may be the conversation piece you've been searching for.

According to the Craigslist poster, who has apparently kept a firm grip on this gem since the early seventies, the male member was carved by Chico-based chef and artist Angelo Lucido in '73. The glass tabletop is cut to fit, naturally.

If you're in the market for a one-of-a-kind dick table, you'll have to bring your own truck: The table is listed in the Castro (the wellspring from which everything gay pours forth), but is actually located in Chico — about a three hour drive from the city's rainbow arrondissement.

Actually, there is one former Folsom Street leather bar where it would fit right in with the decor.

[Craigslist]

Photo by David Root.

Shot by Travis Jensen along the Embarcadero.

Back in 2010, Hani Khan, an 18-year-old Muslim, claimed Abercrombie & Fitch fired her for wearing a head scarf at work. Well, today a judge agreed with her. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said that the confusing (and arguably bland) outfitter violated anti-discrimination laws when they canned her for sporting the religious scarf at their San Mateo Hollister store.

Judge Rogers said, "Abercrombie only offers unsubstantiated opinion testimony of its own employees to support its claim of undue hardship." While company spokesman Bruce MacKenzie argued, "Abercrombie & Fitch does not discriminate based on religion and we grant religious accommodations when reasonable."

The company said Khan's head scarf clashed with their "policy governing the look of its employees," which is part of its marketing strategy. And what an unfortunate strategy it is. Earlier this year, a former manager took Abercrombie & Fitch to task for firing employees who were deemed too fat. The company also settled in a 2004 lawsuit claiming they discriminate against against black, Asian, and Latino job applicants. (They also frown upon wearing too black. Which is downright bizarre.) The retailer is notorious for an aesthetic philosophy that centers around white, young, sporty people.

Regarding a much-needed punitive beat down, Associated Press goes on to report, "A trial on the company's liability is scheduled for later this month. The judge said the jury is free to award punitive damages if it chooses."

[AP]
[Mercury News]

Wednesday evening, the Board of Appeals voted 3-2 to allow a Jack Spade store to continue building out their controversial new store on 16th Street in the Mission. Despite an aggressive campaign from the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, the vote means the Board of Appeals decided Jack Spade did not fit San Francisco's definition of formula retail.

Under the Planning Commission's current ordinance, stores or chain operations are considered formula retail if they have 11 or more locations in the U.S. that all have the same merchandise, design or other similar qualities. (If you missed it, check out our formula retail explainer from June.) Currently, the noted manpurse maker will be just slim enough to fit into San Francisco: the Mission district Jack Spade store will be the company's 11th outpost in the states and their 14th worldwide. That, of course, doesn't include the 100-plus locations of sister/wife company Kate Spade or their parent company Liz Claiborne.

Under the slogan, "a spade is a spade," members of the VCMA argued yesterday that the smaller menswear brand certainly benefits from the association between the two brands.

As Mission Local reports, local consultant Phil Lesser and the company's Jack Spade New York "co-leader" Melissa Xides continued to claim that Jack Spade is a completely separate entity and that the company is committed to the neighborhood and (cringe) gentrification:

“We are a neighborhood retailer through and through, there is nothing formulaic about our stores,” said Xides. “We fell in love with the uniqueness of 16th Street…We fell in love with the food scene and gentrification that’s happening there.”

Not all of the small business owners in the neighborhood are against having Jack Spade on their block. Mission Local also surveyed neighboring businesses and found them to be split on the matter. (A fine grain of salt though: most of the businesses surveyed were still on the fence.) Others, as Uptown Almanac points out are actually excited to see how a business with the resources of Jack Spade (and Kate, and Liz) can help clean up the corridor.

For their part, the Board's voted not to immediately repeal Jack Spade's building permits because the company simply didn't fit the current definition of formula retail. Several did, however, believe there should be a conditional use hearing to allow for more neighborhood input. The Valencia Merchants, meanwhile, can file another appeal in the next ten days although the momentum seems to be shifting away from them.

Finally, as an addendum: when a similar issue popped up with the Gant store in Hayes Valley, District 5 Supervisor London Breed attempted to introduce legislation that would have tweaked the formula retail ordinance to include worldwide outlets and not just U.S. locations. That legislation was put on hold earlier this month.

Previously: Mission Merchants Continue Campaign Against Jack Spade
Final Death Knell Tolls for Adobe Bookshop
[MissionLocal]
[UptownAlmanac]
[Racked]

Those turtlenecks! That scarf! That 'fro! Those poses! This vintage photo from the 1970s shows four female BART employees standing in front of a set of turnstiles, capturing a decidedly different era in the annals of Bay Area transportation.

It was a time when pant legs were flared, hemlines were high, and an array of what we're gonna have to call "burnt salmon" dresses and separates were standard issue for transportation employees. Take us there!

* Indeed, we ran this photo during the public transit system's 40th anniversary. But it's so far out, you see, that it deserves another look!