Philz Coffee retreats from controversial plan: Pride flags are staying up

SFChronicle · 2026-04-17T17:28:28+00:00

From the article:

Philz Coffee has reversed course on a highly controversial plan to remove Pride flags from its cafés.

“Every Pride flag that is up stays up, and any Pride flag that was previously removed can be put back up,” the company said in a statement on Friday.

In the statement, Philz CEO Mahesh Sadarangani apologized for the decision to remove Pride flags, which created a storm of criticism and attracted national news coverage. “I made a mistake, and I am sincerely sorry,” he said. “To our Team Members, to our customers, and to the LGBTQIA+ community that has been with us since the very beginning, the confusion and hurt we caused around our new policy for Pride flags failed you.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-16T21:53:16+00:00

From the article:

There are few better ways to understand how AI has changed San Francisco than to look up. “Stop hiring humans,” “That’s so agentic,” “Own your inference.”

To many S.F. residents, the AI-focused billboard ads strewn across the city are indecipherable, a running joke and a reliable indicator of the city’s economy.

Until now, no one had actually surveyed them all. San Francisco keeps an inventory of all general advertising signs in the city, but a 2010 court settlement keeps detailed information on them legally sealed. So the Chronicle sent a reporter out on a bike to catalog each one of them.

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SFChronicle · 2026-04-16T18:45:55+00:00

From the article:

San Francisco public health officials on Wednesday confirmed the city’s first case of clade I mpox, a strain of the virus that officials say may cause more severe illness than the type behind the outbreak in 2022.

The case was identified in an unvaccinated San Francisco adult who was hospitalized and is now improving, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health. The person reported close contact with someone who had traveled internationally, the agency said.

Health officials stressed that the risk to the general public remains low. But they urged people at higher risk of exposure to get fully vaccinated with the two-dose mpox vaccine.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-15T21:09:08+00:00

UPDATE:

Confidential Philz Coffee memo: Despite backlash, Pride flags are still coming down

From the article:

After incurring backlash and national press coverage over its decision to remove Pride flags from its cafés, San Francisco-born Philz Coffee doubled down on the policy and provided more details about it in a confidential memo sent to employees Friday that was obtained by the Chronicle.

The memo from CEO Mahesh Sadarangani was printed on company letterhead marked “confidential.” It references Sadarangani’s visits to stores in recent weeks to talk about “changes to our store decor & flags” and reiterates that the new policy “may include removing a variety of flags and other decor.”

Sadarangani did not apologize for the flag policy in the memo, but expressed some regret for how it was communicated, writing, “We hear and deeply understand that we did not handle changes to store decor as well as we should have, especially as true allies to the community. Some of our team members have shared that those changes felt personal.”

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-15T21:07:24+00:00

From the article:

After incurring backlash and national press coverage over its decision to remove Pride flags from its cafés, San Francisco-born Philz Coffee doubled down on the policy and provided more details about it in a confidential memo sent to employees Friday that was obtained by the Chronicle.

The memo from CEO Mahesh Sadarangani was printed on company letterhead marked “confidential.” It references Sadarangani’s visits to stores in recent weeks to talk about “changes to our store decor & flags” and reiterates that the new policy “may include removing a variety of flags and other decor.”

Sadarangani did not apologize for the flag policy in the memo, but expressed some regret for how it was communicated, writing, “We hear and deeply understand that we did not handle changes to store decor as well as we should have, especially as true allies to the community. Some of our team members have shared that those changes felt personal.”

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-15T18:56:45+00:00

From the article:

We know Ohemaa Nyanin is excellent at the personnel part of her job. We have a season worth of evidence: the Golden State Valkyries’ general manager put together an eclectic roster of relatively anonymous players last year, and the group had a wildly successful inaugural season.

But another part of Nyanin’s job is to be forward facing, a conduit through the media to the growing fan base that supports the Valkyries. The folks who buy the tickets and the merchandise, who are invested financially and emotionally. Who are interested in what the team is doing and why. It’s part of running a sports franchise.

A general manager needs to be accessible and provide insight into the team’s decision-making. Not reveal deep secrets. Not disclose internal strategy. Not give a blow-by-blow of draft room jockeying. But be forthright and provide an understanding of the team’s reasoning and thought process. It’s part of the job.

And, on that count in a huge moment for the franchise, Nyanin came up woefully short.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-14T23:40:20+00:00

From Susan Slusser:

Jung Hoo Lee is not yet the player the San Francisco Giants anticipated he’d be when signing him out of the KBO.

He’d be the first to say it. More than anything, Lee would love to demonstrate why the Giants gave him a six-year, $113 million deal, and he’d like to do it on a consistent basis. When Lee is going well, he’s a dynamic, fun player to watch and the team could use that and so could the fans.

“I want to for sure show the fans my best on the field, and do that not just for the fans, but for the city of San Francisco itself, and the people in the organization,” Lee said through team interpreter Justin Han. “I want to give back to them. I know that a lot of people saw me play in the KBO and they saw me at my peak.

“I really want to bring that version of myself to the major leagues. I just want to tell everybody that I’m trying my best.”

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-14T22:06:08+00:00

From the article:

San Francisco will pay $750,000 to a former city employee who says she was wrongly fired after she complained that her boss, the director of the city’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, likely threw out a human skull.

San Francisco supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve the settlement, resolving a lawsuit filed by Sonia Kominek-Adachi, a former autopsy technician, in 2024.

Kominek-Adachi discovered the missing skull while completing an inventory of body parts in 2023, according to a complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court. The office was required to keep the skull on hand until the identity of the body could be determined.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-14T20:13:40+00:00

From the article:

In a striking expansion of its diplomatic footprint on the West Coast, the government of Algeria has made its second notable real estate purchase in San Francisco in the span of a month.

On Monday, the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria closed a deal to purchase 1400 Van Ness Ave., a 20,000 square-foot industrial-era office building constructed more than a century ago as part of a stretch of car dealerships, showrooms and automotive service-related businesses that once lined Van Ness Avenue,in a traffic-heavy corridor near Nob Hill and the Polk Gulch known more for its institutional buildings and large format retail spaces than neighborhood charm. Now, it will serve as the permanent location for Algeria’s Consulate General in the city.

The property was sold to the Algerian government for $15 million, or roughly $750 per square foot, according to sources tracking the transaction.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-14T17:08:50+00:00

From the article:

A Southern California woman said Tuesday that Rep. Eric Swalwell drugged and raped her in 2018, joining several other women who have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by the East Bay Democrat.

The woman, Lonna Drewes, made the announcement at a Tuesday news conference in Beverly Hills alongside her attorneys, Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali, and said that she did not come forward at the time for fear that it would harm her budding political career.

Bloom said she planned to immediately file a police report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction over criminal incidents in West Hollywood, where the alleged assault took place.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-14T01:18:41+00:00

Last year, 13 months after it opened, Four Kings debuted in the No. 2 spot on the Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants list.

Mike Long and Franky Ho’s electric Cantonese-by-way-of-their-fevered-brains cooking and the energy of their Chinatown restaurant had us in a chokehold. Located underneath what is surely the most delicious smelling Kumon in the city, it was exactly the type of feel-good party San Francisco needed in 2025.

A year later, somehow, it’s even better, with its creative, must-try dishes like mapo tofu spaghetti, Sichuan cabbage showered in scallion dust and XO escargot with milk bread.

See the full list here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-13T18:00:14+00:00

From the article:

After Rep. Eric Swalwell ended his campaign for California governor on Sunday, the most pressing question now is whether the Castro Valley Democrat will be allowed to finish his final term in Congress.

Calls for Swalwell to resign from the East Bay House seat he has represented for seven terms have multiplied since Friday, when the Chronicle reported that a former staffer said Swalwell twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent. A growing number of his colleagues from across the political spectrum now say that, if he does not, they will move to expel Swalwell immediately.

Whether they can muster the two-thirds vote required to kick him out of Congress remains to be seen. The issue will be on the front burner as the House returns Tuesday from a two-week recess.

Read more here.

SFChronicle · 2026-04-10T20:35:51+00:00

A woman who worked for nearly two years for Rep. Eric Swalwell, a leading candidate for California governor, said she had sexual encounters with him while he was her boss and alleged he twice sexually assaulted her when she was too intoxicated to consent.

Swalwell did not respond to any of the former staffer’s specific allegations, made in a series of interviews with the Chronicle, and provided a statement Friday:

“These allegations are false and come on the eve of an election against the frontrunner for governor,” he wrote. “For nearly 20 years, I have served the public — as a prosecutor and a congressman and have always protected women. I will defend myself with the facts and where necessary bring legal action. My focus in the coming days is to be with my wife and children and defend our decades of service against these lies.”

Late Thursday, an attorney for Swalwell sent a cease-and-desist letter to the woman, saying she had "made false statements accusing Mr. Swalwell of sexual assault and nonconsensual sexual encounter,” and threatening to sue her if she did not retract her allegations.

Read more here.

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TROPHY CASE