Anlan Cheney

Joe Raskin, 37, poses in Mama's Market at 22nd and Dolores streets on Feb. 2, 2022. Raskin has been shopping at the corner store since he was ten years old and became its manager in September 2021. Photo by Anlan Cheney. Joe Raskin, 37, manager of Mama’s Market at 21st and Dolores streets, stood in the doorway and pointed to his San Francisco Giants ball cap, a World Series version. “I’m a local guy,” he said. Shrink-wrapped bundles of firewood act as door stops under the vintage Mama’s Market sign.

Renée DeCarlo has no delusions about life as an artist. As the multimedia artist and owner/founder of The Drawing Room studio and gallery transferred rent and PG&E money into her bank account last week, she explained to the teller this was the first time she would be able to pay her utility bill from business income. “I’d been funding [The Drawing Room] off of my unemployment,” she said.

Tim Ferron, Media & Brand Manager at Bernal Cutlery, poses in the showroom at 766 Valencia St. on Jan. 19, 2022. Photo by Anlan Cheney. Tim Ferron, a butcher turned professional knife sharpener, is literally surrounded by knives in the Bernal Cutlery showroom on Valencia Street. Hundreds of these European- and Japanese-made blades line the walls as he descends what he calls the “rabbit hole of the rabbit hole of sharpening” to explain the craft to Mission Local.