Jul 11, 2023
Welcome to the final episode of
Season 5! We saved a special one for last for a good
reason.
Mini Bar is, of course, where we're
having our first art show (Hungry Ghosts) in more than three years.
But it's also a neighborhood bar, and neighborhood bars are such a
great symbol of the beating heart of San Francisco. Our whole dang
thing, Storied: SF, was founded in a neighborhood bar, in
fact.
In Part 1, we meet Mini Bar
co-owner John Ordoña. (Nerius Mercado is Mini's
other co-owner.) John was born in the very maternity ward at Kaiser
on Geary where his mom, a Filipina immigrant, worked. He was the
third of three sons to his mom and dad, both from the Philippines.
Born into a Catholic family, John attended school at Star of the
Sea and then Sacred Heart, where he was part of the last boys-only
class at that school.
He grew up in 1970s and 1980s San
Francisco. John shares a funny story about being young and seeing
TV ads for the Planet of the Apes show and news
stories about the SLA's kidnapping of Patty Hearst. He'd hear the
SLA described as "urban gorillas [sp]" and his parents would
exploit this misunderstanding to get John to behave. Then John goes
on a sidebar rattling off many of the notable incidents in San
Francisco in the late-'70s.
John says he went to the "hat trick"
of Catholic education in San Francisco, as he later attended USF
for college. In grade school, he played some sports, and especially
took to basketball and boxing. He shares stories of his dad taking
him to Newman's Gym in the Tenderloin at Leavenworth and Turk. He
loved it and eventually needed to get there without parental
accompaniment. This meant riding the bus to, not through,
the TL.
He spent some time at City College
before getting into USF, working jobs including one at a fledgling
company called Esprit, run by Susie and Doug Tompkins. He answered
phones at Esprit's 900 Minnesota Street office in Potrero Hill and
loved it. John said he still runs into Susie Tompkins Buell from
time to time.
From right after high school until
the end of college, John partied and went clubbing a lot. Over the
years, he also worked at Dryer's and Levi's to help put himself
through college. He got offers to move to New York City
and thought about it, but never took the leap.
For a while, the idea of opening a
bar was in the back of his head. John shares a story about his dad
showing him and talking about drinking spots around The City when
he was a kid. "Bars are a great business to open," the elder Ordoña
told his son.
Check back Thursday for Part 2 and
the story of opening a tiny neighborhood drinking hole and art bar
on Divisadero.
We recorded this episode
at Mini Bar on
Divisadero in June 2023.
Photography by Jeff Hunt