Para Llevar Issue 5: Flour+Water // Penny Roma

ISSUE 5: In our first flip cover issue we hang out at the Mission District icon Flour + Water, and its sister restaurant down the 20th St. corridor, Penny Roma. They offer an annual artist grant to one employee each year to complete a creative project, as well as multiple education grants to further staff development in everything from language and wine to floral design. It shows in the service.

About Para Llevar:

WE AIM TO GIVE A VOICE TO STORIES AND EXPERIENCES FROM THE HARDWORKING AND PASSIONATE INDIVIDUALS IN THE TRENCHES OF THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY, WHILE ALSO PROVIDING INSIGHTS AND TIPS TO HELP BRING A SPOTLIGHT TO THEIR HABITUAL SIDE-HUSTLES. THROUGH OUR PUBLICATION, WE STRIVE TO CELEBRATE THE DEDICATION AND CREATIVITY OF THOSE WHO BRING FLAVOR AND HUMANITY TO THE TABLE EVERY DAY.

As with most things, life makes much more sense when seen from multiple perspectives; not only our eyes, but the ones that they meet everyday. It’s easy to get stuck in our own little world and see people as playing singular roles in them. Someone gives us our coffee everyday, or brings us our lunch, or slides us our beers, and that’s who they are to us. But that’s living with the blinders on, and then we’re just horses on the path. The reality is that our baristas are not just baristas, our servers aren’t just servers, and our bartenders do so much more than tend the bar.

For many in the service industry, this work is a stepping stone to something more, which is to say that most of us are still striving to find our niche, or create something of our own. We all have our projects in life, and although the work isn’t easy, we have the opportunity to engage with a broad spectrum of individuals.  Many of the regulars we see multiple times a week, and many times those regulars are the people we aspire to be. They’re living out their ambitions. They know how it’s done.

Our hope is to bridge the divide that is often in place between patrons and service professionals by giving a voice to share their story, exhibit their work, and to find like-minded individuals running the same hustle.

There’s always something more to take away from our interactions with the people we see everyday. This is a platform of authenticity for those musicians, those writers, those artists, those adventurers, and everyone in between; we all have our dreams.