Danny Montoya/Butterfly Joint and Café, Part 2 (S6E15)
Release Date: 05/14/2024
Sharing Stories: Keoni Washington (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
This bonus episode is presented in collaboration with the Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund. gave some peace of mind to aspiring boxing champ Keoni Washington, who became parent and breadwinner to his brothers after their mother passed away early in the pandemic. We meet him at the East Bay apartment he shares with three of his brothers. Keoni received rental assistance from Season of Sharing Fund in 2023, which has allowed him and his brothers to stay in their home. If you want to hear more profiles of help and hope, go to . And if you want to find out how you can...
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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 2 (S7E4)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Allegra was bartending at Second City in Chicago. The day of her graduation ceremony, at Columbia College Chicago, she packed up all her belongings and drove to LA with a friend. Allegra really wanted to be in California. Not yet totally sure about what she was gonna do, she took the plunge, so to speak. She'd realized that she wasn't going to pursue art. But she figured, correctly, that in addition to the warmer climate, there would be opportunities to seize in Los Angeles. But Allegra soon found that the challenges of a pre-smartphone...
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Frameline Film Fest's Allegra Madsen, Part 1 (S7E4)
Storied: San Francisco
Allegra Madsen has a Polaroid photo of her birth. In this episode, meet and get to know Allegra. Today, she's the executive director of film fest, the biggest LGBTQIA+ movie event in the world. She might disagree, but Allegra is a big deal. (Quick side note: As we kicked off our recording, Allegra expertly solved a Rubik's Cube. No bigs.) We begin with the story of how her parents met. Allegra's dad is from Chicago originally. He taught transcendental meditation (TM) and moved all over the world. Eventually, he landed in Virginia, where he met Allegra's mom, who is from there...
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Jacob Rosenberg and the Bay Area Hip-Hop + Skateboarding Scenes of the Nineties (S7 bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Jacob Rosenberg had a front-row seat to some rad SF/Bay Area history. In this bonus episode, the filmmaker/storyteller shares some of that history, especially as it relates to his upcoming book, Right Before My Eyes. Jacob was born and raised in Palo Alto. He grew up in the Seventies and Eighties. His parents moved there from the East Coast and Midwest to raise kids in an environment that matched their liberal values more. He started skating in the Eighties and would visit Justin Herman Plaza/EMB in The City with his skateboard but also his camera. He was one of the first to capture the...
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Nicole Salaver, Part 2 (S7E3)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1, with Nicole's move to New York. She didn't necessarily have a plan for this cross-country relocation, but she dove in head-first nonetheless. Nicole of course turned to Craigslist to help her find a roommate. But she also hopped on FB Marketplace, which is where she eventually found someone. She moved in with an old friend from theater to an apartment in East Harlem on 125th Street. She considers her time in NYC "epic." She learned a lot, she grew up, she did laundry in the snow ... character-building, all of it. She...
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Nicole Salaver, Part 1 (S7E3)
Storied: San Francisco
Nicole Salaver is the kind of person I wish I had met long before that happened. In this episode, meet Nicole. She's the program manager at these days. But her San Francisco roots go way, way back. Her maternal grandfather came to the US in the 1920s. He was one of the first Filipinos to own a restaurant and pool hall in Manilatown (please see our episode on ). He was a manong who lived at the International Hotel. Stories that Nicole's mom has told her were that he was more or less a mobster, paying off cops to keep his place safe. Nicole's maternal grandmother came...
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D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 2 (S7E2)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Jackie considers it an honor to have worked for Lateefah Simon, who's running for Congress in the East Bay for the seat currently held by Barbara Lee. Jackie was tasked with writing memos, and she took that job and ran with it, digging deeply into the weeds of policy. What she found in the existing systems of that time piqued her curiosity around what it might mean if she herself were to enter the fray. Her life up to that point formed her world views, as these things tend to do. But the policies, she says, ticked her off. She...
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D9 Supervisor Candidate Jackie Fielder, Part 1 (S7E2)
Storied: San Francisco
is quick to credit her ancestors with her life and where she is now that she's 30. In this episode, meet Jackie, who's running to be the next District 9 supervisor. District 9 includes the Mission, Bernal Heights, and the Portola. She begins by sharing the life story of her maternal grandparents, who are from Monterey in Mexico. Her grandfather worked in orange groves in Southern California, while her grandmother was a home care worker. She also did stints at See's Candies seasonally. Sadly, both grandparents passed away when Jackie was young. But she learned more about them as she grew up....
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SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, Part 2 (S7E1)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. Aaron talks about volunteering at a nonprofit in The City called the Trust for Public Land, where he learned about land acquisition for parks and open spaces. Through that gig, he got a paid internship and eventually, a job. In fact, he met Nancy, the woman he would later marry, there. He eventually moved into Nancy's apartment in North Beach, his first apartment in SF. The move came shortly after the couple visited Nepal to climb in the Himalayas. It was October 1989, when the Loma Prieta earthquake happened. We fast-forward to 2000,...
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SFFILM's Doc Stories 2024 w/Jessie Fairbanks (S7 Bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Around this time last year, I covered my first film festival, SFFILM's Doc Stories. The screenings and other events all took place at The Vogue Theater, which is just a short walk from where I live. Long story short, I was hooked. Since then, I've covered SFFILM's International Film Festival, , and this year. And so I wasn't going to pass up a chance to speak again with Director of Programming at SFFILM Jessie Fairbanks. In this bonus episode, Jessie talks about this year's Doc Stories, the 10th such festival that SFFILM has put on to celebrate documentary...
info_outlineIn Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. After getting his credentials, Danny bounced around, teaching at a couple of San Francisco public schools before landing at Live Oak (a K–8 school in Potrero Hill). He stayed teaching kindergarten and first grade there for a total of 11 years.
We shift gears in the recording to talk about how Danny met his wife. Full disclosure: I've known Erin Feher since around 2004 when we were both in the Journalism program at SF State. Back in 2020, Erin reached out to me on behalf of her new orgranization—REPCO, or Represent Collaborative. Periodically, our podcasts run on REPCO and it's been an honor to collaborate with them. Check them out and donate if you're able.
Danny and Erin met around the time I lost touch with Erin (2005, when I graduated from State). He was DJing and the night Erin and some friends walked in, Danny broke one of his own rules by talking to a woman at a bar he was deejaying. Their first date involved riding bikes around SF.
Years later, they had their first kid. Erin had to go back to work before Danny did, so he was able to stay home and take care of their infant. But after a year, he was both itching to do something and needed to when his wife got laid off. And this is how Butterfly Joint was founded. It married his two passions—woodworking and teaching.
The first location was on Mission Street and lasted there for years. But when Danny and his wife moved their little family to the Outer Richmond and found a new-to-them community there, he decided to bring the shop with him.
Danny shares the story of opening the café and learning to make vegan donuts. These days, the café is open every day. Donuts are now his No. 1 seller. They focus on hyper-local goods and like to do pop-up events once a month.
Follow Butterfly Joint and Café on Instagram. Visit them at 4411 Cabrillo. For those with kids who are interested, go to their website.
Photography by Jeff Hunt