Since becoming San Francisco mayor last January, Daniel Lurie has been hustling like an influencer.
He makes wonton in the Sunset, slurps pho broth in the Financial District, and takes a bite of an empanada in SoMa, broadcasting each meal to tens of thousands of followers. He grabs his first, second, third, or fourth cup of coffee of the day.
This is, according to the mayor’s office, both a way to show that the mayor is out and about in the city — like Lurie’s mayoral icon, Dianne Feinstein — and part of a persistent effort to rebrand San Francisco as a nice place to live and visit, rather than a cesspool of vice and petty theft.
Lurie spent more money getting elected than any mayoral candidate in San Francisco history. His social media presence, though, has an unproduced, slightly awkward DIY aesthetic developed by Annie Gabillet, who ran social media for Lurie’s campaign before becoming his deputy director of communications.
It is Lurie at his most avuncular. It is, for the Gen Z crowd, Lurie as lovable unc.
While mayors have long visited small businesses, Lurie’s Instagram posts stand out for their sheer numbers. He unabashedly leans into an awkwardly serious boosterism.
Mission Local went through all 205 of Lurie’s Instagram posts on small businesses up until Feb. 18, 2026, mapped every visit, and then spoke to 14 small business owners across the city about the mayor’s sojourns.
Proximity to the mayor’s commute plays a significant role in who gets a drop-in. Of all the businesses featured, 47 are located Downtown, 19 in South of Market, 13 in the Financial District, 12 in Union Square, two at Fisherman’s Wharf, and one in Rincon Hill.
The Mission District is the second-most-featured neighborhood, with 20 shops posted. Next in line is the Richmond (14) and the Sunset (13).
Visits to these locations tend to be chosen by staffers, like the mayor’s secretary and former campaign field organizer, Fernando Villareal, to take advantage of proximity to other stops on the mayor’s schedule.
Sometimes, Lurie films himself and sends clips to his comms team to add subtitles and headings. Other times an assistant holds the camera.
Coffee shops make frequent appearances. Lurie has given Instagram shout-outs to 25 of them and counting, in addition to specifically gloating, in response to a claim that coffee helps with aging, that he was “right all along.”
Lurie has also kept up with the campaign tradition of the merchant walk.
In Noe Valley, he’s posted videos with District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and Board President Rafael Mandelman. He made the rounds in Chinatown with the U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, in Japantown with District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, along Balboa Street with District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, and many more.
The city’s small businesses, meanwhile, have their own reviews of the experience of being swept up in the mayor’s Instagram boosterism. Here’s what a few of them had to say.
Not even that annoying, by influencer standards
Out of the 14 businesses Mission Local spoke with, reviews of the experience ranged from effusive to indifferent.
Influencer destinations like the Tenderloin’s Tilted Brim or Outta Sight Pizza didn’t notice a boost in visitors after a shout-out from Lurie, but also appreciated that the mayor didn’t make a big production out of visiting.
Outta Sight’s close proximity to City Hall has made it a stop for politicos over the years, said owner Eric Ehler. But Lurie was the most “personable” one.
When Lurie shot a video of himself trying out the chiquitita sandwich at the Larkin Street restaurant — Lurie pronounced it “chickeata” — it just happened naturally.
“He was just making a video like an old white guy would,” Ehler said.
Frank Grizzly’s, a California-style Mexican restaurant at 5698 3rd St. in Bayview, already had a large and loyal local following. But Lurie’s shout-out on Instagram stories brought in new faces, said co-owners Kim Truong and Jorge Islas.
One of Lurie’s aides, a mutual friend, arranged the visit.
“He was like, ‘Wow, he hasn’t been here yet? We gotta get him in here!’” Truong remembers.
It was a quick thing; Truong said customers craned their necks to get a look as Lurie strolled in and ordered a breakfast burrito, before whipping out his phone for a video. A few minutes later, the mayor took the burrito and ran. But an aide followed up with a note saying that he loved it.
Nagham Aboufaraj, owner of Angel Cafe and Deli at 700 Geary St. in the Tenderloin, was also sure that getting a shout-out on Lurie’s Instagram was good for business, though he wasn’t sure how to quantify it.
Aboufaraj was thrilled when he got a call one morning that the mayor was coming by. Fifteen minutes later, a black car pulled up, blocking the bus lane. The Muni driver began honking, and the mayor, Aboufaraj said, was “really respectful” and directed his driver to park down the street.
Aboufaraj and Lurie talked about the state of the Tenderloin, and also the sandwich menu; Lurie ordered the chicken pesto and insisted on paying for it.
After eating the sandwich, Lurie left on foot to rendezvous with his black Rivian away from the Geary bus lines.
“He’s a good idol for people,” said Aboufaraj, who compared Lurie’s management style to his own. “I don’t give commands to people … I grab the broom. I show: ‘This is how we clean it. This is how we fix the sandwich, this is how we clean the windows.’”
A little nepotism doesn’t hurt
John Lindsey, who owns an Outer Sunset art gallery named the Great Highway and a soup joint called the Rusty Ladle next door, was not shocked to see Lurie show up; the exhibit included a sculpture by Ari Lurie, the mayor’s brother.
But he was more surprised when Lurie shot a video in Rusty Ladle’s kitchen, talking about clam chowder.
“This town rocks and rolls when we have conventions and tourism,” Lindsey said. “The little people benefit when we have a ton of tourists in town. I think he’s done a great job selling the city.”
Scheduled, with occasional surprises
When Anastacia Diaz, known affectionately as Ate Tess, got a voicemail that Lurie wanted to visit JT Restaurant at 953 Mission St. in SoMa, the Filipino restaurant she has run almost singlehandedly for 26 years, she thought it was a scam.
That’s despite the fact that Diaz is a neighborhood celebrity widely known for helping residents who have just arrived from the Philippines find housing, work and community.
The next morning, she got a follow-up text. The mayor was really coming. It didn’t sink in until Diaz saw a bodyguard emerge from a black van outside the restaurant.
It felt meaningful, Diaz said, when she served him her beef stew. She has seen an uptick in business ever since.
“Now, everybody who comes here, they tell me, ‘I saw you with the mayor! We’re so proud of you, Tita.’”
Florent Thomas and Simon Mounier, owners of Caché, a French bistro in the Inner Sunset, got no notice at all, they said.
“Definitely a big surprise,” Thomas recalled. “It was completely unplanned. The mayor was asking questions, and he was genuinely curious about what we were doing.”
Neither did Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, the Tenderloin’s last remaining gay bar at 133 Turk St. in the Tenderloin. The City Hall team was having a bar outing there, and one of the event organizers approached bar manager Joe Mattheisen to say that the mayor would be coming soon.
If they’d had a chance to talk policy, said Mattheisen, he would have brought up the fact that traffic from street parties — the people flocking to Downtown First Thursdays or to the Tenderloin’s First Thursday Art Walk — is losing him customers.
But the interaction lasted all of two minutes, with no discussion of city policy or “what’s going on in the Tenderloin.”
Anniversaries help, but are no guarantee
Chun Sheng Tang Herbs, which provides traditional Chinese medicine and herbs, as well as acupuncture, at 1189 Geneva Ave. in the Excelsior, got a visit from the mayor on its one-year anniversary, which the district’s Supervisor Chyanne Chen helped set up.
Wayne Yu, the shop’s 52-year-old owner, said that his appearance on Lurie’s Instagram did not bring in new customers. Most of his clientele are neighborhood regulars, and many don’t even use Instagram. Still, Yu was flattered, and saw the visit as a further sign that Lurie cares about the Chinese community.
Yu remembers the day vividly. Supervisor Chen interpreted and the mayor agreed to a pulse check (a considerably more involved process in traditional Chinese medicine than in the Western medicine). The checker, Dr. Xia, told the mayor that he was in great shape, and cleared him to keep working hard.
Before leaving, Lurie bought a bag of rock sugar Asian pear jasmine tea. “It will help his digestion,” Yu said. “Especially after eating greasy food.”
An anniversary is no guarantee, though. When Chelsea Hung reached out to Lurie’s team about the 40th anniversary celebration for her restaurant, R&G Lounge at 613 Kearny St., on March 8, 2025, she was told that his schedule was “really busy” that day and that he probably could not make it.
Hung’s presence on the Chinese Chamber of Commerce’s board of directors may have tipped the scales, because Lurie did eventually make an appearance for about 10 minutes, Hung recalled. In that time he managed to make a video, give R&G Lounge a certificate of honor, and personally congratulate Hung.
She was thrilled. “We know he is super busy,” she said.
Was Lurie truly the first?
Dontaye Ball, chef and owner of Gumbo Social in the Bayview, said another mayor is not appreciated for doing something similar: London Breed.
Breed frequently filmed herself out and about at local restaurants and other sites through the city, he said. “London Breed doesn’t get enough credit for doing exactly that.”
Still, he’s “impressed” with Lurie’s visits to small businesses, especially in Bayview, which, despite its vibrant food scene, gets comparatively little foot traffic compared to other San Francisco neighborhoods. Lurie has filmed himself much more often, and posts about many more businesses than Breed did.
“He’s not only talking the talk, but walking the walk,” Ball said.
Eleni Balakrishnan, Junyao Yang, Marina Newman, Sarah Hopkins and Oscar Palma contributed to reporting.
