SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) — Businesses in the San Francisco Excelsior District are hoping to bring more customers into the area with the help of a community design project.
The initiative’s leaders chose one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city as the next place to continue the work that has revitalized stores in other parts of San Francisco and Spain.
“I wanted to establish myself and build a foundation for myself, as a woman of color, from a multiracial background, and I have children now,” says Lea Sabado, the owner of Excelsior Coffee.
Sabado co-owns the business with her husband, which will celebrate five years in the area in August. They saw an opportunity to add a coffee shop to the street that could highlight their multicultural family with roots in the Filipino, Black and Mexican communities.
“If we don’t do it, maybe someone else will. At least we can represent the cultures we come from and do it our way,” she told KPIX.
In an effort to preserve the character of the Excelsior District, business owners welcome the opportunity to get a new storefront that makes their stores or restaurants more inviting to anyone who walks along their street. Sabado points out that a company’s facade can tell its story, and if someone doesn’t have a website, it can be their best opportunity to connect with new customers.
“Having a beautiful storefront or assets that help cultivate that brand will only uplift other people and draw attention and curiosity,” Sabado said.
Freepik is an image bank website founded in Spain. The company’s neighborhood design project has already supported businesses in the city’s SoMA district and was launched in the city of Freepik, Malaga.
Independent designers were given the opportunity to participate in the project to help create a new look for stores along Mission Street in Excelsior using artificial intelligence-generated content.
“We love it, it’s a very vibrant neighborhood, a lot of families live here, and this is a super diverse group of people,” said Katie Thrash, a local resident who was one of the first customers at the coffee shop.
The love for this community of neighbors and employees helped fuel the desire for the Freepik Neighborhood Design Project.
Sabado said it is an old, underrepresented neighborhood that is undervalued, but its history and diversity are worth celebrating and preserving. As she looks to expand her operations into roasting and add more food and drinks to the menu, she wants to see the Excelsior thrive in the coming years.
“I feel like this is a neighborhood that is the last of the real San Francisco,” she said.
Shawn Chitnis
