City Wars

John Birdsall just returned from Feast Portland, and he's curious as to whether SF's dining scene can hold a candle to the Rose City's. "A healthy craft food scene is all about the scrappy and the affordable, the geeky single-subject passion driving certain people to polish things that are tiny and unremarkable...In order to be risk takers as food entrepreneurs—guys like Andy Ricker, who started Pok Pok from a shack on his driveway—you need to be in a place with cheap rents. There is no Kickstarter big enough that can insulate you from five-figure rents." [SFoodie]