"I don't think anyone is bummed there's a comic shop here at all." Emilio Garcia, an employee, said that to Mission Local about Mission: Comics–Excelsior at 5196 Mission Street, at Niagara. Faded red "Optometrist" letters still hang over the front door from the last tenant. The shop opened August 31, a month later than planned because renovations ran long. It holds its grand-opening party Saturday, October 10, from noon to 5 p.m., with a ribbon cutting, a DJ, free pizza and free comics.
The comic shop is one of three Excelsior businesses that got a 2026 Storefront Opportunity Grant this year. The city's Office of Economic and Workforce Development runs the program, and it pays small business owners to open in commercial spaces that have been sitting empty. The three grant shops have opened on staggered dates between August and October. Their October celebrations line up with the corridor's biggest street events and with a Mission Street that construction crews only finished this spring.
Three Vacant Spaces, Three Bets
Owner Leef Smith, who also runs Mission: Comics & Art in the Mission District, got $50,000 from the program and spent it on small renovations to the Excelsior space. His father grew up on Naples Street. Inside are vintage and children's comics, new releases, and shelves of $1 and free books that Garcia says he loves to hand out to kids.
The other two grant shops are a quilt studio on Geneva and an arcade on Mission.
| Storefront | Address | Status as of early October 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| City Made Quilts | 1021 Geneva Ave., between Paris and Lisbon | Grand opening held in early August |
| Mission: Comics–Excelsior | 5196 Mission St., at Niagara | Open since Aug. 31; party Oct. 10 |
| Small Change Arcade | 4740 Mission St., at Leo | Grand opening announced for Oct. 16 |
Small Change Arcade's windows were still boarded on September 24, though the yellow and red "Small Change" decal letters had gone up. Owner Matthew Sengbusch has set the grand opening for Friday, October 16. A flyer on the shop's Instagram lists 15 pinball machines, classic arcade games and 3-foot-tall mini cabinets, which are Sengbusch's specialty. He takes full-size, 6-foot vintage machines apart and rebuilds them at a smaller scale so they fit in a San Francisco apartment.
Openings without grant money kept arriving through the summer too. El Quetzal Grill Restaurant opened July 1 at 4441 Mission, near Avalon Avenue, in the space Fili-Taste left earlier in the year. La Guatemalteca Express opened a second shop at 4490 Mission, near Santa Rosa Avenue, on July 6. It sells snacks and personal-care goods and offers international shipping. Namit, an ice cream shop at 4452 Mission near Francis Street, was still being built out at the end of July. We have not found confirmation that it has opened, so check before you walk over.
The Street Under Them Is New
These shops are opening onto blocks that have just come out of a long construction project. San Francisco Public Works now lists the Mission/Geneva project as complete. The work ran along Geneva from Prague to Mission and along Mission from Geneva to Trumbull. The Mission Street segment from Russia to Theresa ran from January 2025 to late May 2026, the segment from Theresa to Trumbull is also marked complete, and the project as a whole wrapped in spring 2026.
The list of work covers what a customer walking up to the comic shop or the arcade now stands on and crosses:
- roughly 40 sidewalk bulb-outs at corners
- upgraded traffic signals at 20 locations
- sewer mains replaced at 10 locations
- street-base work and fresh repaving along the corridor
SFMTA's page for the same corridor still says the project is under construction and gives an early-2026 completion estimate. The Public Works project page is the more specific and more recent account, and it marks the job done. So this fall is the first season since early 2025 that Mission Street's commercial blocks have had no active construction zone in front of them.
October Puts the Rebuilt Corridor to Work
The first big test of the finished street comes two days after the arcade opens. Sunday Streets is ending its 2026 season in the Excelsior on Sunday, October 18. Mission Street will be car-free from Geneva Avenue to Theresa Street, nearly a mile, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The comic shop at Niagara and the arcade at Leo both sit inside that closure.
Here is the month in order:
- Saturday, Oct. 10, noon to 5 p.m. Mission: Comics–Excelsior grand opening at 5196 Mission.
- Wednesday, Oct. 14, through Sunday, Oct. 18. Salvadoran Soul Encuentro. The organizer's flyer lists storytelling on Wednesday, poetry and vinyl on Friday, a Los Siete bike tour on Saturday, and Salvi Soul Sunday to close. Sources disagree on the bike tour's start time. The flyer says 2 p.m. and an Oct. 1 Funcheap listing says noon, so confirm with the organizer.
- Friday, Oct. 16. Small Change Arcade grand opening at 4740 Mission.
- Sunday, Oct. 18, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday Streets Excelsior. The Excelsior 5K Walktober starts at 9:30 a.m. at Cayuga Playground. Along the route are the Persia Triangle Family Hub, an Excelsior Coffee parklet party, a Community Well clothing swap, a Salvi Soul Encuentro zone at Mission and Excelsior Avenue, and a Lucha Libre showcase at Mission and France Avenue, with a 2 p.m. mattress raffle sponsored by El Corazon Furniture Gallery.
- Friday, Oct. 23, 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. From the E: Fall Festival Night Market at Ocean Avenue and Mission Street.
Sunday Streets is still finalizing its exhibitor and vendor list, so more names may be added before the 18th.
If you live near the route, the logistics matter more than the lineup. Towing on the event footprint starts at 6 a.m. After 10 a.m., cars can't drive onto the route except for local access guided by Sunday Streets staff or volunteers. The 14 Mission will run on Alemany Boulevard between Geneva and Silver avenues for the day. The organizers list the M, 8, 14, 49 and 52 as the lines serving the route, plus BART at Balboa Park, and they suggest checking SFMTA alerts the week before.
The Open Space Question Still on the Table
The storefronts are moving on firm dates. The neighborhood's park is not. The proposal to rebuild the ballfields at Crocker Amazon Park would take a $28 million grant from the San Francisco Giants and put in synthetic turf, batting cages, dog play areas, and new walkways and irrigation. Rec & Park says the full project would cost about $50 million. The proposal also calls for removing about 128 mature trees. That has drawn objections from residents and environmental groups.
The Recreation and Park Commission voted unanimously in April to recommend the project to the Board of Supervisors. As of Mission Local's September 25 report, the Board had not scheduled a vote, and the city had added a round of community review before any final approval. Rec & Park says groundbreaking could come in 2027 or 2028. The posted agendas for the Board's Budget and Finance Committee on September 30 and October 7, and for its Land Use and Transportation Committee on October 5, don't include the item.
The public can still weigh in. Keep Crocker Real, the group opposing the current design, has scheduled three events:
- a photo exhibit and discussion with Poder Youth today, Sunday, October 4, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Visitacion Valley Branch Library, 201 Leland Avenue
- a Zoom town hall on Wednesday, October 7, at 7 p.m.
- a 9:15 a.m. gathering on the City Hall steps on Thursday, October 15, followed by public comment at that day's Recreation and Park Commission meeting
Rec & Park keeps its own project updates on the design. Its May update said the department would revise the concept based on April feedback and bring it back for approval later in 2026.
McLaren Park has a firmer schedule. Rec & Park expects construction later in 2026 on the Visitación Avenue pedestrian and bike-safety project, pending contract approval. It adds sidewalks, bikeways, lighting and signs along the half mile between Mansell and Hahn. The Louis Sutter upper playground is set to close for about three months starting in January 2027, with reopening targeted for April. Big Art Loop is aiming for December 2026 to install "The Pushers," a sculpture at a McLaren Park overlook, though international shipping could affect that date.
If the new shops on Mission and Geneva have you thinking about how your own block is changing, the team at Jessica Foote knows the corridor street by street and is glad to talk it through, whenever the timing suits you. Schedule a Consultation.
