San Francisco Has a New Slogan, and Not Everyone Is a Fan

Walking around my San Francisco neighborhood of Glen Park the other afternoon, I saw them everywhere. New signs with the logo “It All Starts Here” hang in most windows — at the corner cafe, the bar, the bakery, the hardware store and the hair salon.

The placards, with the motto depicted like two street signs crossing at an intersection, are all part of a $4 million advertising campaign funded by the city’s business leaders to try to lure new business to San Francisco and repair the city’s beleaguered image.

Not everybody gets it.

“I have no idea what it’s about,” said Evan Ryan, a bartender at Glen Park Station. He was just happy that his bar was full Monday night as 49ers fans awaited the game before drowning their sorrows hours later after the team’s shocking second straight loss.

Eric Whittington, owner of Bird and Beckett, a bookstore that hosts live jazz shows, said people behind the campaign brought signs by, but he declined to hang one. He wanted to save precious window space for advertisements about books and music.

“What does it mean?” he asked of the motto. “I’m glad it starts here, but I don’t even know what it is.”

I went to the source to find out.

Rich Silverstein of the San Francisco ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners said leaders of Advance SF, a pro-business group, approached him in January about designing its new campaign.

“My wife said: ‘Don’t do it. Marketing can’t save the city,’” recalled Silverstein, 74, who’s lived in San Francisco for 53 years. “I said: ‘I know that. I don’t believe it can. But you have to start somewhere.’”

He said he was frustrated that San Francisco’s leaders can’t get a handle on dirty streets, homelessness and prolific public drug use. But Silverstein, a native New Yorker, also madly loves his adopted city, bicycling every day to the Golden Gate Bridge to soak up the beauty.

He said the slogan “It All Starts Here” nods to the city’s fascinating history, its track record of innovation and the fact that bringing San Francisco back to its full glory has to start somewhere. He said the street sign shape alludes to the famous intersection at Haight and Ashbury Streets.

Not every advertising executive in the city is convinced. Kyle Rios-Merwin, who co-founded the branding agency Born & Bred five years ago, said that most people already knew creative companies have started in San Francisco, and that he would have liked to have seen a focus on people’s compassion in trying to solve the city’s problems.

“Maybe the tone of the campaign could have done more to highlight how some of these issues are being solved rather than reminding people that their favorite ride-sharing app or coffee company came from San Francisco,” he said.

Kevin Gammon, founder of the San Francisco branding agency Teak, said that Silverstein’s firm was “legendary,” but that he felt the new campaign was too corporate and lacked heart. He said he was also not clear whom it’s targeting.

His company was hired a few years ago by the local visitors’ bureau to come up with a similar campaign and landed on: “Never the same. Always San Francisco.”

“Even though it’s always changing and always different, there’s that soul that feels consistent,” Gammon explained.

Back in Glen Park, Paul Park, owner of Buddies Market, said he hung the sign because he liked the look of it, even if he didn’t know what it means. What he’s really worried about is rising rents and a shrinking customer base.

He recently scaled back his store’s hours because there’s less foot traffic than there was before the pandemic.

“After 8 p.m., nobody is here,” he said. “How can you survive that?”

He said he welcomed any bit of help — even in the form of a window sign.

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Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Deborah Buck, who recommends a visit to the Central Coast:

“My husband and I just came back from a trip to Morro Bay. It was exciting and fun and delicious given the restaurants in that area like the Galley for dinner and the Blue Sky Bistro for lunch, both with outstanding views of Morro Rock. We stayed in the state park at the Inn at Morro Bay, with the golf course right across the street, which my husband loved. So many wonderful trails to take in the park and a small Museum of Natural History that I always enjoy visiting.

Morro Bay is close to the Avila Hot Springs, the El Chorro Country Park and San Luis Obispo Botanical Gardens. The Discovery Trail in the park takes you into the hills with wonderful views of Hollister Peak and Morro Rock beyond. You can also easily drive to Cambria.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to [email protected]. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

Tell us

Today we’re asking about love: not whom you love but what you love about your corner of California.

Email us a love letter to your California city, neighborhood or region — or to the Golden State as a whole — and we may share it in an upcoming newsletter. You can reach the team at [email protected].

And before you go, some good news

Beyond the bustle of Downtown Los Angeles and the glamour of Hollywood studios, the heart of Southern California may lie in its network of scenic trails and astounding natural landscapes.

But many of the region’s hikes, walks and trails, though beautiful, are inaccessible to those with limited mobility, be it people who use wheelchairs, those with physical disabilities, young children or older adults.

A new guide published this summer by The Los Angeles Times outlines eight fully accessible trails all around or within an hour’s drive of L.A. Check out the best accessible trails near you, including a tree-lined path up to the Mount Wilson Observatory and a wetland walk around the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach.