Blocks used to commuters and office workers had the energy of a major pop concert or a even a rave April 3 as they bustled with people celebrating the first Downtown First Thursdays of the springtime. The event, which started last year, is seen as a key component to revitalizing both the city’s nightlife and beleaguered downtown.
Nightlife entertainers and civic leaders celebrated a year since joining forces to create what’s probably San Francisco’s most popular regular street event, as largely young people flooded Second Street to eat at food trucks and brick-and-mortar restaurants, drink, and, at least on April 3, danced to “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Bob the Drag Queen’s chosen selections. (Bob the Drag Queen was not available for comment.)
Even Mayor Daniel Lurie showed up to promote his counternarrative of a city on the rise after years of headlines about the decline of downtown and nightlife as young people leave the city.
“There’s already thousands of people here,” Lurie said at around 5:45 p.m. as the party was getting started. “This is what’s going to bring back downtown San Francisco. … The vibes are good.”
Downtown First Thursdays is the brainchild of two LGBTQ community members – Manny Yekutiel, a gay man who is executive director of the Civic Joy Fund and owner of an eponymous cafe in the Mission district, and Katy Birnbaum, a queer woman who founded Into the Streets.
They said that during the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in San Francisco they were dispirited at how empty downtown was and decided to do something about it.
“We drove around during APEC and thought, ‘Let’s find a place to do this event,’ and settled on Second Street,” Birnbaum said. She’d already had experience with the Bhangra and Beats Night Market downtown earlier that year, and after getting community stakeholder support, the two started Downtown First Thursdays, which is between Market and Howard Streets, in April 2024.
Downtown has not fully recovered from the COVID pandemic lockdowns. The streets, which had largely been bereft of office workers, as they worked from home long beyond stay-at-home orders, highlighted open-air drug use and sales in the eyes of the public and the media. Combined with issues concerning car break-ins, and organized retail theft, businesses began an exodus.
In recent months, however, there have been signs of improvement, including a report in the San Francisco Chronicle that car break-ins have reached a 22-year low.
According to a report from the Institute of Governmental Studies released in 2023, downtown San Francisco ranked last among 62 North American cities in recovering from the pandemic. A more recent report from the institute found San Francisco was No. 11 in its improvement on the number of visits from May 2023 to May 2024 after that number rose by 15%.
The city Controller's office reported in January that for the first time since 2020 the office vacancy rate dropped, albeit "slightly." The job market grew 1.4% from October to December 2024 and regular visits by employees rose – but the formation of new businesses and "occasional visits" trended downward.
However the monthly street gathering brought to Second Street – foot traffic, business, and entertainment – just what people felt had been missing.
Gabriel Freiberg, a straight man who is a partner in Yerba Buena bar at 141 Second Street, is a strong supporter.
“It’s been wonderful for us,” he told the B.A.R.
“We definitely have felt an impact from before the pandemic to now and Downtown First Thursdays has tripled, quadrupled our business on those days,” he explained. “I love feeling the energy, and people returning to the neighborhood. This gives people sort of, like, a bonus of coming back to work, of coming to the city. There’s other things to do here than just work.”
And it’s brought queer entertainers to that audience, as well. Before Bob the Drag Queen’s DJ set, queer singer Rebecca Black had headlined in December.
“I feel like that part of San Francisco’s DNA is to have all-of-the-above including my community, the queer community,” Yekutiel said. “So it is a very queer event and we’re going to keep it going in that direction, for sure.”
Grace Towers is a local queer entertainer who’s a Downtown First Thursdays fixture. Towers is a programmer for the discoteca on Minna Alley, and performed on the main stage April 3 as well.
“On first Thursdays, I step on to the streets and watch magic unfold before my eyes,” Towers stated. “Downtown First Thursdays has turned our city into a stage where joy, artistry and community come together in the most electric way.”
Asked about setting up an entertainment zone like what has been proposed for the Castro neighborhood, which would allow alcoholic beverages outdoors, Yekutiel clarified, “You can drink and walk around in the footprint [of Downtown First Thursdays]. We have a license that allows you to do that. You just can’t bring it into the discoteca.”
Event to expand starting next month
Yekutiel said that the Downtown First Thursdays had been a one-year pilot slated to end in April but was able to announce that it will be extended through the end of this year. Major financial backers include Levi Strauss & Co., JPMorgan Chase, Bob and Randi Fisher, Crankstart, and Silicon Valley angel investor Chris Larsen.
The event will cost $2-$3 million more to continue through 2025. Asked about where people can donate, Yekutiel said there will be a donation option on the Civic Joy Fund’s website in two to three weeks, “because we’re going to need everyone’s help,” Yekutiel said.
Downtown First Thursdays estimates it has, in the past year, brought in 160,000 visitors, spurred $11.9 million in spending, and has invested $325,000 in music and cultural programming, according to a news release.
About 100 people are involved in the set-up of the event, and the production team per se consists of about eight, Birnbaum said.
Going forward the event will be expanding – first on May 1 with a Downtown Hoedown, a country-western music event on Front Street featuring what Yekutiel touted may be the city’s only “disco bison.”
The second addition starting June 5 in Salesforce Park, at 425 Mission Street, will be a play on the ancient Greek symposium, he said.
“They’re going to start with poetry and a lyre player,” Yekutiel said. “It’ll be six months of an open-air, outdoor, civic programming, large scale speaker series on the subject of the future of the city. … We’ll bring famous actors and athletes, politicians, writers, to come discuss the theme. It’ll be in the amphitheater.”
Yekutiel couldn’t reveal any names of guests yet.
Civic Joy Fund is also responsible for a number of smaller, similar gatherings, such as the Castro Night Market.