The Mission District will be getting its very own night market in six weeks’ time, transforming a three-block stretch of Valencia Street into a sprawling community block party complete with revelry, boozing, and entertainment after hours.
Starting at 5 p.m. on May 8, and running until 10 p.m., Valencia will be shut down to car traffic between 16th and 19th streets. Visitors will be able to roam the street, beer in hand, and visit stages lining either side featuring performances by Mission artists.
Each block will house a stage produced by Mission businesses and local groups. The cocktail bar Blondie’s will organize live music on its stage, another stage will host performances dedicated to Carnaval, and a parking lot will host an indigenous artisans’ market.
Restaurants will set up tents with extra seating to serve food to passers-by, who can grab a bite and browse offerings from local artists, games and lots of music.
It’s the latest of nearly a dozen night markets opened in San Francisco over the past year, but also a local effort: Valencia badly needs revitalization, said Manny Yekutiel, the owner of his namesake cafe Manny’s and the president of the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association.
“Foot traffic has drastically reduced in recent years,” he said. “We need to come up with a way to bring people back.”
The night market, dubbed “Valencia LIVE,” will be funded by donations to the Civic Joy Fund, a group co-founded by Yekutiel and Mayor Daniel Lurie that has backed night markets throughout the city, namely in Chinatown, the Richmond, and the Sunset.
The Sunset market last summer drew an estimated 20,000 people to the streets, swarming booths and food vendors. During the height of the pandemic, Valencia was regularly closed off to cars during the weekends, and became a street fair that drew thousands to drink, shop and dine.
Today’s Valencia street closure is a pilot program: It will take place on the second Thursday of every month, from May until October. Organizers hope that, if successful, the market will continue for at least two years.
The push for these markets is part of an ongoing effort to revitalize San Francisco’s dwindling nightlife scene, including by Lurie, who celebrated his inauguration day with a visit to a Chinatown night market in his honor complete with an electronic music performance, fireworks, and dancing.
The Valencia Night Market will be just one of three “entertainment zones” in San Francisco, which were made possible after a state law from Sen. Scott Wiener went into effect last year allowing for businesses under a music venue license to apply to be an entertainment zone.
That license lets businesses sell beer, wine and liquor to pedestrians during certain hours, as long as they don’t walk away with those beverages outside of the mandated zone.
The other two entertainment zones are “Thrive City,” outside the Chase Center arena, and Front Street between California and Sacramento streets.
Merchants in neighborhoods across the city have expressed interest in creating more entertainment zones, but argue that high fees and a harrowing permitting process have made securing a license harder than it needs to be.
Lurie, for his part, introduced legislation in February to create 20 new liquor licenses for a downtown “hospitality zone.” Liquor licenses are notoriously difficult to procure.
The Valencia market will be put on by the Civic Joy Fund, the Valencia Corridor Merchants Association, the Mission Merchants Association, and Into the Streets, a business founded by Katy Birnbaum in 2023 and dedicated to organizing events in downtown San Francisco. The mayor’s office is also helping.
Shaelyn Dalziel, who works at Valencia Street Vintage, said closing down the streets to vehicles has worked “wonders” for her business before, pointing to the once-a-year Sunday Streets, which also shuts down Valencia to traffic and brings out gobs of shoppers. Her store, alongside the rest of the neighborhood, has reaped the benefits from the event, she said.
Valencia Street appears to have fared better than other parts of the Mission, however, at least according to data from the San Francisco’s Controller’s office. That’s despite complaints by business owners of the negative impact of the center bike lane and its subsequent removal.
By May 8, construction crews moving the center bike lane to the curbside should be finished with their task, clearing the way for a continuous closure from 16th to 19th streets, and for pedestrians to pack the corridor.
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