Chat Room Season 2 goes analog
Amazingly, earlier this month, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that this Friday, October 17, 2025, is Broke-Ass Stuart Day. For decades, Stuart Schuffman has been a rakish, endearing presence around the city. A nightlife and culture writer, mayoral candidate, and proprietor of an eponymous website, Schuffman is an essential reminder that, even in one of the most expensive cities in the world, you can have a lot of fun even if your ass is sometimes broke.
The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart, a new anthology of Schuffman’s collected writing, includes everything from his tear-free reaction to Trump’s re-election to his love letter to the Mission District’s Kilowatt Bar, which just happens to be hosting his book release party starting at 7 p.m. on Broke-Ass Stuart Day.
I’ve known Schuffman, 44, for years, but then again, so has probably anybody who’s ever gone out to a bar in San Francisco. I recently called him to ask about his book, his life in San Francisco in 2025, and what it means to have his own day.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Your new collection includes handwritten notes with each featured entry. It feels reminiscent of the zines where you got your start. Do zines still feel like a core piece of the mindset you bring to your coverage and other work?
I actually got the inspiration to do the handwritten thing from a copy of Kitchen Confidential. It was a twentieth anniversary edition that included notes written by Bourdain. I thought that was a great idea, so once again, I took inspiration from Anthony Bourdain. It’s funny how often that’s come up in my life.
Yes, I still have the DIY ethos. It’s deeply embedded in everything I do, for better and for worse. At this point, after doing DIY PR for the past month and a half, I’m exhausted from it, but with these types of things, if I don’t do it myself, no one's going to do it for me. It’s the same with the website. The site doesn’t have the support of billionaires. It’s funded by local advertisers and by readers, so please support our Patreon if you can.
For all the hardships being DIY brings, does it also feel like an essential formula for the work you do?
The freedom I have is great and having my own platform makes it all that much easier. I've also been very lucky with most of the publications I’ve worked with. When I was with the Examiner, they let me do what I wanted. At 7x7, most of the time I could do what I wanted, because they trusted me and my voice. That was foolish on their part, but if you look back, a lot of my favorite writers — Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe — belong to what's called New Journalism. It’s the idea of trying to stay somewhat objective while inserting yourself and your subjectivity into the story. I've been inspired by that idea for most of my career.
I can’t even imagine how many bylines you have at this point. How did you decide what to keep and what to toss?
The first benchmark I used for choosing what went into the book was picking stuff that didn't make me cringe. But it was a problem trying to choose from like 1,000 pieces. I had trouble whittling it down, because they're all my little babies — albeit my really ugly babies. The framing is the story of my time in San Francisco. At the beginning of the book, I'm in love. It’s like the limerence phase. Then things started to dip and by 2014, I’m like, ‘Who are all these fucking shitty people taking over my city?’ I get disillusioned and angry and sad. And then things come back around. There are other writings in there but that's what the San Francisco section is about. It was about choosing whatever felt good and sounded good and was good writing.
Did the experience of choosing what to include find you reading a bunch of stuff you’d forgotten you once wrote?
So much rediscovery, man. Luckily, because I’m a creature of habit, I still write everything on Microsoft Word, so I basically have everything I’ve ever written in my docs folder. It took forever but there was stuff I found that I didn't remember writing. There was this piece that I wrote for 7x7 about Mr. Bing’s back when it was still a Chinese bar. It’s a really good piece about this seedy place where the bartender would take a shot anytime anyone else did. He was the kind of guy where like, if he stops drinking, he’ll probably die. There was this young kid next to me flashing a wad of cash, bragging about how he's dating strippers and stuff. I was like, ‘Dude, this kid's going to get robbed.’ It was about the seedy underbelly of this wonderful city and I’m so glad I found it again. It’s in the book.
How does one come to be honored with their own day by the SF Board of Supervisors?
I’ve been friends with many people on the Board of Supervisors over the years. These days, I’m quite friendly with [District 7 Supervisor] Myrna Melgar. She’s quite lovely. Once we had the book release date and the party at Kilowatt set, I reached out to Supervisor Melgar to ask if she’d consider proposing a Broke Ass Stuart Day. She was totally tickled by it. She was like, ‘We have to do this. This is fantastic.’ And she made it happen. I’m very thankful for that.
I’d never attempt to get you to list your favorite places in SF but are there a few spots that feel essential to the story of Broke Ass Stuart? Given you got married at El Rio and it's the setting for several of the pieces in this collection, I assume that would make the cut?
El Rio is definitely one of them. It’s such a special place, and we're so lucky that it’s not in danger of going away anytime soon, because the building is zoned by the MEDA (Mission Economic Development Agency). It will be here forever, which is wonderful. I always tell people that part of the perfect San Francisco day includes buying a book at City Lights, then going next door to Vesuvio, sitting by one of the windows, and reading your book with a drink as you watch the world go by. That’s quintessentially San Francisco. There are so many wonderful places that add to the richness and fabric of the city, and I’m glad I get to cheer them on in my work.
What makes Kilowatt the perfect venue for a Broke Ass Stuart book launch party?
So many reasons. It was such a big part of my life, especially in my 20s. It was Kilowatt, Delirium, and Casanova in that one little stretch and they’re all still there today, which is cool. Kilowatt was a major part of my 20s and I love that the people who took it over are bartenders who got their money together and bought this great legacy bar in San Francisco. They’re doing great work. They brought live music back to the space and the location is perfect for friends from East Bay and South Bay since you can take BART and get there really easily.
I feel like it’s going to be such an amazing scene to have so many from various facets of your life all under one roof.
I hope so. I've got a buddy I went to college with who said something funny one time. I can’t remember if he was talking about my birthday or what, but he told me he imagines my birthdays being like the last scene in that movie Big Fish where all these incredible people from my stories who you thought were bullshit show up and prove they’re real.
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