May 7, 2024
In this episode, meet and get
to know Danny Montoya, who owns and operates
Butterfly Joint and Café in the Outer
Richmond.
Danny starts his story by
letting us know that, growing up, he had family in The City and
visited a lot from his various homes in Southern California. He was
born in Burbank and grew up in Santa Clarita Valley, where some of
his friends still live. He was immersed in punk and skate cultures
from a young age, and once he had friends who were old enough to do
so, they drove "everywhere" to skate.
His parents, both of whom are
from Colombia and met in LA, divorced when Danny was 5. He and
his older brother went to live most of the time with their mom in a
trailer park. This was Danny's primary residence from age 5 to the
beginning of ninth grade, and he says it shaped him
deeply.
He started skating at the
trailer park when he was 8. At this point, Danny and I go on a
sidebar about what skating and skate culture did for us as people.
He did a lot of street skating and was one of the younger kids in
his crew. He's quick to point out that he was also way into
basketball. He skated until he was 10 and didn't pick it up again
until high school.
Thanks to a friend, he got into
music when he was in junior high. His step dad and mom got married
before Danny started high school, and he moved with them to
Valencia, California. In his sophomore year, he started skating
again and was going to hardcore shows in Hollywood and San
Diego.
Danny was the first person in
his family to go to college. He says it wasn't a question of
whether he'd go, but more of where. It boiled
down to SD State vs. SF State, and he chose (wisely, I might add)
to come up to The Bay.
Danny's mom gave him and his
brother lots of freedom, he says. They went on road trips up
here unsupervised several times to visit a friend who lived in the
dorms at SF State. And so by the time he entered college, at age
17, he already had friends here. He spent five years at SF State
and graduated in 1994.
After earning his bachelor's in
Education, Danny worked on getting his teaching credentials. He
taught for a couple years at public schools in The City. After
that, he did preschool observation at Tule Elk Park Early Education
School. The young woman he was dating at the time worked at Live
Oak, a private school, and got Danny an after-school job there.
Soon, he started subbing at Live Oak while also doing work-study at
SF State. He got his credentials and ended up teaching for about a
decade.
Check back next week for Part 2
and Danny's story of leaving teaching to start his own woodworking
and design studio for children grades kindergarten and up—The
Butterfly Joint.
We recorded this podcast
at The Butterfly Joint and Café in the Outer
Richmond in March 2024.
Photography by Jeff
Hunt