Before she opened Linda’s Ocean Nails, Chris worked at another nail salon down the street for 10 years alongside her mom while also working part-time at Wells Fargo. After majoring in accounting at San Francisco State, she decided to open the nail salon instead of becoming an accountant so that her mom could work for her and get the treatment she deserved. “I came back here and I decided to run the place myself because, you know, with the language barrier, my mom’s English was not that well, and I see her struggling with the business she’s at,” she remembers. That was in 1998. Her younger sisters, Bella and Cindy, joined them later after both acquired their cosmetology licenses.
At the time of our meeting, her mom and dad were in Vietnam on holiday, visiting friends and family they once left behind. Though it took tremendous sacrifice for Chris to keep the salon running during the pandemic and through her sisters’ multiple maternity leaves — at one point she was the shop’s lone nail tech — she was able to raise her two kids with her husband, with one daughter graduating from Lowell High School and UC Davis, while purchasing a home in the adjacent Lakeview district.
After our first lunch stop, we cross back over Ocean to Pho Ha Tien, the Vietnamese eatery right next to Chris’s shop, to meet owner Steve Cheng. Though I’m already pretty full, I always have room for pho, and their chicken pho broth turns out to be perfectly clear and abundantly seasoned. But the standout dish is their special five-spice chicken thigh, which comes deboned and served with rice — an easy dinner that Chris orders for her family every time her mom is out of the country.
Cheng also is a City kid, graduating from Redding Elementary in the Tenderloin, Marina Middle School and a year before Chris at Lincoln High. Like Chris, he took over the family business to “semi-retire” his parents, who now come in whenever they want to help or just hang out. “You can tell them to stay home and they’re like, ‘What am I gonna do at home?’” Cheng laughs. With three kids of his own, and two in their twenties, I ask if he wants to pass the business on to them. “To be honest, I don’t want them anywhere near the restaurant business,” he responds, shaking his head.
“It’s tough,” Chris agrees. During the pandemic, her landlord didn’t give the nail salon much of a break in rent, saying that they had bills to pay, too. It took a long nine months for her to open back up. In the case of Cheng’s restaurant, it took two months. He owed back pay, and the landlord still added the yearly rental increase. Both businesses just barely survived their hardest year to date, and it’s still unclear whether things are getting better or worse. “It is what it is, you just gotta weather through it,” says Cheng.
Though San Francisco allowed businesses to get out of long-term leases during the pandemic, it never gave shops like Linda’s Ocean Nails and Pho Ha Tien an incentive to stay. Once the CVS down across the street closed, Cheng noticed the decrease in foot traffic, and even more so when the Target down the block followed suit. “It’s kind of like a domino effect. You see these small businesses and it’s like, if these big franchises closed down, what chance do we have? Now every single block that you go to, there’s a minimum of three to five places shut down. You see, I can count it from here,” he says, gesturing toward the window.
Before, all three businesses were open late, and Chris would often unwind after work by ordering food and patronizing the nearby shops. There even used to be live music playing across the street. But now she takes her last client at 6:30 p.m. for safety reasons, wondering if Little Sweet’s late hours and frequent break-ins contributed to its closing. “We need mom-and-pop stores around here, especially on Ocean Ave.,” she says. But the neighborhood’s recent challenges need specialized attention from the city that goes beyond pandemic measures that many immigrant-run businesses did not take full advantage of anyway.
There are some glimmers of hope on the block, however. Some places were able to pivot, like the cafe owned by two brothers that switched up to a pizza shop when business opened back up, and the jumpy house across the street that’s promoting a night market.
“A night market would be excellent. It would draw people into Ocean Ave. and let them know we exist,” Chris says. But the little things also help — like word-of-mouth from her clients and the string of lights that the city recently installed along the avenue over the holidays. “They put ’em up and it makes it feel so bright and safe and nice. Just being there all those years, those changes make a huge difference.” She wants Ingleside to be a neighborhood where residents mingle and get to know each other.
“Like the Sunset, I want to be able to sit outside, drink coffee, enjoy the weather — well maybe not enjoy the weather,” she laughs, knowing she has to be realistic.
Though I’m hardly around Ocean Ave. in the evenings, this day in Ingleside makes me wonder about the potential of this part of the City I love. I don’t live here or even work here, but every three weeks, I drive across the bridge and make it my destination, rain or shine. Whether it’s for a chromed-out set of reptilian talons or a delicious steaming bowl of pho, I know with Chris working her magic, I’m in good hands.
This article was originally published by a www.kqed.org . Read the Original article here. .