Danielle Thoe, Sara Yergovich, and Rikki’s, Part 1 (S8E11)
Release Date: 02/03/2026
Top Chefs, Part 2 (S8E23)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, Aft joins us to chat about the band—Top Chefs. We start with the story of how TJ met Aft. A mutual friend of his and Loveberry’s, Lucas Hanson, put on a show at DNA Lounge called “Liam Berry and Friends.” TJ was just getting out of high school at the time. They asked him to join them on stage, something he’d never really done before. TJ had been playing smaller sets in restaurants, but joining a band at a bona fide venue was new for him. Loveberry (Liam) had met Aft at something called a “sound gig” for a set they would play as part of the effort to keep People’s...
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TJ, Loveberry and The Top Chefs Band, Part 1 (S8E23)
Storied: San Francisco
There’s a band in San Francisco comprising musicians from The City and whom I discovered on social media playing shows on a stoop here in SF. I can’t quite be sure when I discovered them, or whether it was me or my wife, but either way, right from the start, we knew we’d stumbled upon something special. Something truly unique. Something joyful, beautiful, free … something for the people. People could gather around with neighbors, some they know, some they might be meeting for the first time. Community is something of a buzz word lately, especially in light of things like...
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Todd Kurnat, aka Ink Letterman, aka DJ Circuit 73, Part 2 (S8E22)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we begin with Todd and me rapping about how much digital technology has changed just in our lifetimes. Even when he was in school in Colorado, San Francisco had been a goal for Todd, a destination. He got his impression of The City from skateboarding magazines and TV shows. But before moving here, Todd went to Europe, as he puts it, “chasing a girl.” He even tried living overseas. When that didn’t work out, he moved back to Grand Rapids to save money. In 2001, he made the big move west. When Todd arrived, he had a job already lined up for him. He just needed to find a place...
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Todd Kurnat, aka Ink Letterman, aka DJ Circuit 73, Part 1 (S8E22)
Storied: San Francisco
Todd Kurnat is everywhere. In this episode, meet and get to know Todd. These days, he’s also known as for his art and DJ Circuit 73 for his musical stylings. We begin in Michigan. Both sets of Todd’s grandparents grew up in Greenville, Michigan, about an hour outside Grand Rapids. His parents met in high school in that small town. They eventually moved to Grand Rapids, the big city in that part of the world. His dad worked at a transportation company and his mom was a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. It was the early Seventies—around 1972 or so. Todd was born in 1973. His mom had done...
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The Golden Gate Park Band (S8 Bonus)
Storied: San Francisco
Listen in as I chat with German Gonzalez, musical conductor and principal director of the , now in its 144th year. We recorded this podcast in Golden Gate Park in June 2026.
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The San Francisco Mime Troupe, Part 3 (S8E21)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 3, we hear from Keiko and Michael about the history of the . In the late-1950s, a San Franciscan named R.G. Davis taught a class in movement—mime, dance, physical interpretation of stories … that sort of thing. A performing troupe sprang out of that class, and it was known as the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe. It was the era of the early Civil Rights and Anti-War movements, and the troupe became more and more political, basing much of their work around social issues of the day. The group started off doing silent mime work, but shifted later. Michael offers us the definition of mime at...
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Michael Gene Sullivan of the San Francisco Mime Troupe (8E21)
Storied: San Francisco
Both sides of Michael Gene Sullivan’s family are from Detroit. In Part 2, we get to know Keiko’s fellow member. Michael was born in Livonia, Michigan, a small town outside of Detroit. His parents met at a summer camp, but we need to rewind a bit before we get to that. When his dad was a boy, he was kidnapped. Yes, really. He and his brothers, all Black boys, were taken from Detroit to work on a plantation in Louisiana. One day, three years later, a car pulled up to the plantation. Some people got out of the car, grabbed Michael’s dad and uncles, and threw them into the car (not minding...
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Keiko Shimosato Carreiro of the San Francisco Mime Troupe (S8E21)
Storied: San Francisco
Keiko Shimosato Carreiro was born in the Bay Area … the Boston Bay Area. In Part 1 of this episode, meet Keiko. Today, she’s a longtime member of the collective. But her story goes back to her parents’ migration to the US from Japan after World War II. Keiko’s dad got a Fulbright scholarship to come to this country. He studied medicine. Her mom came to visit the US for one year, but in that time, met Keiko’s dad at a Japan Society picnic in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two weeks after they met, her dad proposed, and roughly a year later, they had their first child—Keiko, named thusly...
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Theo Ellington, Part 2 (S8E20)
Storied: San Francisco
In Part 2, we pick up where we left off in Part 1. While in college at Marymount, Theo ran the Boys and Girls Club program with Phillip Redd. He liked the connections and impact he had made in SoCal, and wondered whether he could do the same at home. This was back when Barack Obama was first running for president, and there was a prevailing sense of hope and possibility pervading life for a lot of folks. And so Theo moved back home. He transferred to Notre Dame de Namur in Belmont after his sophomore year, and got a degree there three years later. Upon his arrival in The City and...
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Theo Ellington, Part 1 (S8E20)
Storied: San Francisco
Today, Theo Ellington is the secretary at the Ruth Williams Opera House. This born-and-raised San Franciscan is also running to be the next D10 supervisor. In Part 1 of this episode, meet Theo. His maternal grandfather, Clifton Weeks, came to SF because his sister, Marie Weeks (Theo's great-aunt), had come here. Clifton and his sister had grown up in rural Natchez, Mississippi, but they came out West during the Great Migration. Their first landing spot was The Fillmore. Clifton found work as a laborer, where he helped build roads and bridges. He also did a little work at the shipyard back...
info_outlineSan Francisco has a women’s sports bar!
In this episode, meet Danielle Thoe and Sara Yergovich. Together, they own and operate Rikki’s, a women’s sports bar on Market in the Castro. We’ll hear from Danielle and Sara about their early lives and how they made their way to San Francisco and became friends. We’ll also hear the story of why and how they opened The City’s first women’s sports bar, as well as the incredible woman they named it for. Most importantly, both Sara and Danielle (and me, Jeff) are Libras 😉.
We start with Danielle. She grew up in Plymouth, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Born in 1990, her earliest memories are mid-Nineties, and she was around 10 when Y2K happened. Soccer was huge in Danielle’s life, starting around age 6. She sites the US Women’s Team winning the World Cup in 1999 as a profound influence in her life. It was the first time she’d seen women’s sports generate that level of excitement, and she was hooked.
She continued playing into her high school years, and says that it was around this time that she started noticing how good some of the other players in her soccer club had gotten. Because Danielle’s high school was so large (6,000 or so students), she set her sights on a “big” university. It was between Michigan and Indiana universities, and she choose Indiana, whose state college is in Bloomington.
In her college years, Danielle didn’t really play soccer. Instead, dorm life because a central focus. She landed in the Collins Living-Learning Center, which she describes as “a weird, niche, hippie place,” and she loved it. There was space for many different kinds of people and activities, including pottery and bicycle racing, something Danielle took up in her time at college. I’ve never lived in a college dorm, and probably never will. But this place sounds rad.
The dorm also allowed young Danielle a certain freedom she hadn’t yet experienced. I’d call it freedom of expression today. Back then, it was the ability to be as weird as she wanted. There would always be someone nearby a little more “out there,” no matter what.
After Indiana, Danielle returned to her home state and went to grad school at the University of Michigan. While Ann Arbor, and through friends, she met and started dating someone from San Francisco. After Danielle got laid off from a job in Michigan, she decided to join her long-distance partner and move to The Bay.
It was 2015. June 25 to be exact. We know this because the very next day was when the United States Supreme Court issued its Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, legalizing same-sex marriage throughout the country.
We turn to Danielle’s business partner, Sara, to hear her life story and how she got to San Francisco. Sara grew up in Benicia, across The Bay. Her parents met at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. After college, her dad joined the Navy and got stationed in Vallejo, where the young couple moved. Some years later, they settled in nearby Benicia and had five kids. Sara is their youngest.
She’s also her parents’ only daughter. All her older siblings are boys. She owes getting into “all of the sports” to that fact. Her mom signed Sara up for soccer when she was three. Through some kind of odd accident, her mom also inadvertently became the coach. Sara also played volleyball, basketball, baseball, tennis, golf … she was a jack of all trades, master of none,” as she puts it.
But Sara’s mom always put her on boys’ teams to make her more competitive, or so the thinking went. When her mom tried to put young Sara on a football team, though, she drew a line.
In her high school years, being the only girl on a team came with specific sexist challenges. But for all the jerks who gave her shit, she was able to find boys who were cool, who had her back. She also eventually got a taste of revenge. The coach’s son was particularly nasty, but his dad was cool and paired Sara up with the kid for catch before a game. Sara wound up and threw the baseball so hard, the kid cried. We Libras strive for balance.
Sara came to San Francisco regularly as a kid, especially when out of town family visited. Eventually, her oldest brother (16 years older) moved to The City and she came to see him a lot. Another brother moved in with him and they lived in several apartments all over town. Sara shares her earliest memory of visiting SF. She remembers a high-rise penthouse and going to Chinatown.
We end Part 1 with the time Sara left The Bay—to go to college, first in Santa Barbara, then for her last semester in Kent in England.
Check back Thursday for Part 2 with Sara and Danielle.
We recorded this episode at Rikki’s in The Castro in January 2026.
Photography by Marcella Sanchez