Tilted Brim’s best-selling item is a hoodie that, in big, arched capital text, reads “Tenderloin.”
It comes in four original colorways, all inspired by nearby universities — cardinal red and white for Stanford, green and white for University of San Francisco, navy and white for Cal, and black-and-white for City College — and also because black hoodies sell well, shop co-owner Justin Bautista explained. They were printed on Canadian fleece for a bit — the same blanks Supreme printed their hoodies on for a while, he points out in a bit of sartorial geekery — but are now printed on Champion hoodies to capture the full, collegiate experience.
The hoodie elicits many, many questions from folks who stop by Tilted Brim, the longtime boutique located smack-dab in the heart of the Tenderloin, Bautista said. Many are curious, even delighted by the contrast when they first see the hoodies in-store or in the wild. Others, he said, are confused and a bit unnerved.
“Immediately, it was polarizing people,” Bautista told Gazetteer SF. “Why the fuck would you put ‘Tenderloin’ on a sweatshirt that's so nice?”
That juxtaposition is the point. The hoodie is advertised on the Tilted Brim website as merch from the “school of hard knocks.” It also continues the very long history of subverting preppy and elite aesthetics into streetwear for the people: Think the Black Ivy movement of the ‘60s, or Ralph Lauren’s preppy gear getting popularized in historically Black and Brown neighborhoods in New York City in the ‘90s, or the almighty Dapper Dan flipping Gucci and Louis Vuitton logos into custom “knock-ups” (and his ongoing influence on modern “logomania”).
It’s part of the shop’s ethos; to wear the gear, you have to come to the TL. “It’s part of the experience,” Bautista quipped.
Plenty of Tilted Brim’s Tenderloin-themed items take spins on middlebrow, San Francisco yuppie gear: A tote bag with “Tenderloin” printed in the New Yorker font; hats with “The Tenderloin” embroidered in the vein of The North Face logo. He also jokes: “Well, you know, people have sweatshirts that say, I don't know, fucking Brooklyn. Fucking Paris. You've been there one time or maybe even never, and you're not afraid to rock that.”
Eight years later, the proposition of a Tenderloin hoodie has only gotten more polarizing. The neighborhood has become an emblem, for better or worse, of San Francisco, and also of entire political ideologies, entire public health debates, entire worldviews. Any mention of the TL carries a weight far beyond the scope of its city limits.
Bautista has been chugging along, and has dug his heels into the neighborhood as a resident and shop owner even as he’s lived through the real and imagined anxieties of the Tenderloin firsthand. Along the way, Tilted Brim has become a community fixture — and a glimpse into the Tenderloin’s recovery.
Tilted Brim first landed at the Tenderloin during a bit of a boom time.
Bautista and business partner Nate Torres opened Tilted Brim up on the corner of Ellis and Larkin Streets in late 2016, initially as a shop selling only hats, hence the name. The store was supposed to be by Market and Sixth Streets, where the Supreme shop is out now. But after some turmoil with the landlord, they found their spot smack-dab in the Tenderloin’s retail corridor, sharing space with new-ish boutiques and old-school legacy businesses. An added bonus: This storefront was also big enough that they could start selling wares beyond headgear; a move that would prove fortuitous for Tilted Brim.
“We came into this landscape where it was bustling, but not super retail-forward,” he explained as he unboxed wares, including an upcoming collaboration with Bay Area workwear brand Ben Davis. “Us coming on the scene, we were hoping that there would be more retail in the Tenderloin and on Larkin Street.”
And for a while, retailers did pop up. Shops like Tilted Brim and Vacation, operated by longtime Tenderloin store owner Kristin Klein and now at North Beach, brought young people to the area as store owners and as customers. The steady filling of retail vacancies infused new life into the area. The neighborhood, historically an enclave for artists and home to many Vietnamese, Cambodian and Hmong immigrant and refugee communities, was getting hip while still upholding its history and legacy.
But even then, he fielded more questions. “People would come in, look around in disbelief, like, ‘why is something so nice looking doing on this block or on this neighborhood?’”
From their time of opening to 2020, Bautista said, there was the feeling that things were looking up. Then, of course, the pandemic hit. Covid obliterated in-person shopping and dining, forcing many small businesses in the area to shut down. People lost their livelihoods and their homes. The community was hard-hit by the health and economic challenges, and compounded with newly-rampant synthetic opioids making their way into San Francisco.
That part of the Tenderloin’s story has been breathlessly, frantically covered by local and national news media at the expense of everything else. Bautista seemed visibly weary having to litigate it all over again. Whenever the Tenderloin comes up in conversations, concern about the neighborhood’s current reputation is inevitable. He gets it. There’s some truth to it. But it’s “the easy story to tell,” especially in the press.
“Just because it’s repeated over and over,” he says, pausing and stammering a bit, his words measured. “It’s not untrue, but there’s so much more to the Tenderloin than what is being reported in the, I don’t know, the New York Times or in the SF Chronicle. That kind of journalism where it's like, ‘Where are the drug users coming from?’ or ‘what do they like to eat?’ It’s sensational.”
You get the sense that Bautista is protective of the neighborhood where he lives and works, flaws and all. “It's not a homogeneous neighborhood,” Bautista explained, gesticulating like he’s giving a stump speech. “It's a neighborhood that is full of differences that we celebrate and all piece together like a fucking mosaic, rather than a neighborhood that is just one way. That's what I admire about the best American cities and that's what I admire about San Francisco and the Tenderloin.”
“I just can't imagine the Tenderloin without Justin or Tilted Brim,” said Kate Robinson, the executive director of the Tenderloin Community Benefit District. He's such an important part of this neighborhood and the community.”
He and I walk around the neighborhood one weekday, and it’s active: A mom pushing her child on a swing at the children’s playground, folks lined up at Saigon Sandwich, long-timers posted up by buildings and fencing. He lights up talking about the other businesses in the area, like Sweet Glory, the bakery across the street from Tilted Brim —“They do this twenty fuckin’ layer crepe cake, but they use pandan and mango filling. They’re dope.” — or the DIY creative space Moth Belly Gallery, or the recently-anointed Low Key Skate Shop. Bautista nods his head to at least five different people on a three-block walk to Jane Coffee; he’s a man about town.
“He holds it down,” Eric Ehler, chef-owner of Outta Sight Pizza a few blocks away, tells Gazetteer. “He’s on a block that needs so much love right now, but he always has a smile on his face. He always has neighborhood regulars or folks that have been around for a while hanging out inside and that's what we really need to see. A lot of times, when people have boutique shops like that, they’ll have a locked door and a doorbell to get in, but he’s just there.”
That openness is instrumental to the sustained success of Tilted Brim. He loves the Tenderloin, and it loves him back. At Outta Sight on that Saturday, a worker behind the counter was wearing one of their tees. Robinson, the benefit district executive director, sees Tilted Brim merch every day — both in the office and out and about the Tenderloin. “There’s a sense of pride in it,” she said.
Bautista’s efforts have taken on new shape in recent years. He’s held down a seat in the Tenderloin Community Benefit District’s board of directors for a few years now as a resident member. He works at the Trader Joe’s on Masonic to access healthcare benefits while running Tilted Brim, he explained. (“When I first started working there, I was writing the business plan for this place,” he joked)
But he shows no signs of slowing down. Tilted Brim recently struck a partnership with Cactus Club, a Japanese brand operating out of Nagoya, selling each other’s wares halfway across the globe. There’s also something in the works with Holy Stitch, the denim manufacturer-slash-school that just opened up its permanent location on Market Street.
“There's something here that is important and that people really like,” Bautista said. “I want to be a part of what makes the neighborhood great, what makes the city great — our kind of like-minded, young, creative, weird, funky independent businesses. I want to be part of the reason why there's cool shit going on in the city, and part of that is just by being stubborn and staying open and having our store here and not shutting it down."
