24th Street Series: Pig and Pie
Pig & Pie
Last week I wrote up La Palma as being a paragon of a Mission District 24th Street that is fast being drowned out by higher-end cafes and eateries that cater not to the longtime residents, but to the recent influx of wealthy tech boomers. This week, I figured I’d visit a spot there that would seem to symbolise its changing face.
I could have written up Wise Sons, a recent addition to the strip that purports to be an authentic Jewish Deli, but that’s too easy; 12 dollars for a small, ungenerous and bland pastrami sandwich? Fuck off. So, Pig & Pie it is- the restaurant I’ve somewhat arbitrarily chosen to be my emblem of 24th Street gentrification, although perhaps it doesn’t merit that designation. Now, this isn’t going to be an irrational screed, no pummeling of the proprietors who’ve no doubt worked their asses of in the creation of their little corner of the universe; market forces are mostly to blame, as well as our city government’s predictable pandering to them. I say mostly: sometimes business owners charge the absolute upper limit of what the market will bear, keeping pace with the ever-increasing altitude and girth of The Bubble until its wobbly dissipation.
The food at P&P is Southern comfort food, a cuisine that used to be synonymous with affordability, but has of the past few years received a fetishistic face-lift. That’s not what you’re getting here, though. And while it’s not cheap, you don’t feel as if you’ve been taken for a fool. A rich, flavorful pork pot pie ran me nine bucks, as did a dish of braised beef tongue with beets and a bracing sauce of horseradish and salsa verde on the side. The greens with ham hock was exactly as you’d expect, with no re-imagination or deconstruction. There’s a mac ‘n cheese, too, and a pickle plate, among many other little dishes. Pickling is a theme at P&P, much of whose real estate is occupied by rows of large jars full of briny water, and vegetable matter. They make almost everything else in-house, too- always commendable.
Pig and Pie is doing its best to weave itself into the fabric of 24th Street; they’ve let their storefront be dominated by the signage of the establishment that preceded them, a fixture of The Mission for 40 years. Discolandia was a record shop specializing in music from all over the Americas. It played host and offered a measure of patronage to many of the great acts nurtured in the neighborhood through the seventies, eighties and nineties. It’s a nice, respectful touch, a tipping of the cap to another era slowly evaporating into the either.
Pig and Pie
2962 24th Street (@Alabama)
[The Mission]
SF
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