The Sunset Connection - Perspectives from SF's Sunset Neighborhood

Revitalizing the Sunset: Katy Tang on Leadership, Small Business, & Legacy

• Jessica J. Ho • Season 1 • Episode 3

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🍀 Happy Early St. Patrick's Day! 🍀

In this third episode of The Sunset Connection, we sit down with Katy Tang, former San Francisco District 4 Supervisor and current Executive Director of the Office of Small Business. As a lifelong Sunset resident, Katy reflects on her journey in public service, the challenges and triumphs of her time in office, and her ongoing work advocating for small businesses across San Francisco.

Come along as we dive into:

  • How growing up in the Sunset shaped her leadership style
  • The Discover Your District initiative and why community connections matter
  • The evolving small business landscape and how government can better support local entrepreneurs
  • Her work leading San Francisco’s Office of Small Business and her mission to simplify processes for business owners
  • What the future holds for the Sunset District’s economic growth and local businesses

Plus, we wrap things up with some fun St. Patrick’s Day trivia. For example, did you know how SF brewers smuggled malt syrup during Prohibition?

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

  • SF Office of Small Business: sfgov.org/smallbusiness – Your one-stop shop for permits, leasing support, and small business guidance.
  • Shop Dine SF Initiative: sfgov.org/shopdinesf – Support local businesses and explore curated guides for neighborhoods like the Sunset.
  • Business Registration Info: sftreasurer.org/business – Need to register a business in SF? Start here.
  • Follow the SF Office of Small Business on Instagram: @shopdinesf

📢 Want to hear more? Subscribe to The Sunset Connection, leave a review, and share your thoughts by emailing me at Jessica.Jasmine.Ho@gmail.com! Let me know what topics and guests you’d love to hear from next. 

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The Sunset Connection — exploring the stories and histories that connect us.

Jessica Ho:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Sunset Connection. A heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been continuing to support me and providing me with feedback. Your engagement keeps me inspired, so please continue sharing your thoughts with me. Just trying my best to navigate through this, I actually had a very weird situation where I was trying to record with a friend of mine, who will be on the podcast eventually, but unfortunately all my equipment broke down. So this is our first time recording with the entirely new setup, which I had to learn. So thanks to ChatGPT. I really do owe ChatGPT so much. Right now, it really helps me understand what was going on. All right, all right, all right. Thank you so much, Katy Tang, for joining us today.

Jessica Ho:

We have the pleasure of hosting Katy Tang. Katy is a true product of San Francisco, having grown up in the Sunset District and attended Lowell High School. She earned dual bachelor's degrees from the University of California Davis and a law degree from the University of San Francisco School of Law. Katy career in public service includes serving as a legislative aide for former Supervisor Carmen Chu, who is now the city administrator, and she later served at the District 4 Supervisor herself from 2013 to 2019.

Jessica Ho:

I had the pleasure of working for Katy in 2018 to 2019, so I guess I'm pretty biased on how awesome she is. Currently, she leads the Office of Small Business as its Executive Director, where she continues her advocacy for local entrepreneurs and community development. Joining us mostly for the trivia portion, although you may hear him chime in from time to time is Wesley Footracer, a dedicated community organizer, who began his journey in public service as an intern in Katy office during her tenure as supervisor. Great so, Katy, can you share some of your experiences growing up in the Sunset District and how they influenced your career path?

Katy Tang:

Well, first of all, good morning to Jessica and Wesley. I'm so excited to be here with you both and I would say that I loved growing up in the Sunset District. It was so nice to be able to play with my friends from school on the street, be able to safely walk around, go shopping with my mom, you know, on Irving Street and Noriega Street. I actually really enjoyed that. A lot of my friends lived around me, you know, and you know we could just again after school go and play. I could ride my bicycle on the sidewalks with my brother, go roller skating, go and play. I could ride my bicycle on the sidewalks with my brother or roller skating, and I had some family in the Sunset District.

Jessica Ho:

So it was just a very I would say a very homey experience. That's great. And when you say playing like were you playing in the sand dunes, Actually I did not play in any sand dunes.

Katy Tang:

I did go to Ocean Beach, but I don't know if I saw any sand dunes growing up. Okay, so they were gone by the time you were growing up they were gone. I do remember sliding down slides in Golden Gate Park with cardboard, but that's probably about it as rough as it got.

Jessica Ho:

So by the time that you were growing up in the sunset, did it look kind of like how it looks now growing up?

Katy Tang:

in the sunset it was, did it look? Kind of like how it looks now? Pretty much, maybe just a little bit more tired back then and not as many cool shops that we see today, but it pretty much looks the same. Well, actually one key difference I would say is a lot more of the driveways are paved over, so it was a lot more green back then, yeah, but for the most part the houses look pretty much the same the blocks, the setup, yeah, the layout.

Jessica Ho:

Cool, and so what brought you and your family to the Sunset District?

Katy Tang:

Well, my parents immigrated to the United States from Taiwan and they first actually went over to New York, so it's actually where I was born and then, when I was about one, my dad and his one of his sisters ended up flying over to San Francisco, and very specifically the Sunset District, I think, because his older sister was going there. And when I was growing up, especially in high school, you know how you always feel like New York is way cooler. I would ask my parents, like, why did you move us to San Francisco? You know, and they told me that actually one of their top answers was about schools and how they thought that the quality of the public school and education system was very good here and also just the quality of life.

Katy Tang:

I think in New York it's very dense, it's very busy, you don't have a lot of space, and so I think they were looking for more space for their children. So that's what brought us here. But I would say, growing up I was always like, oh, I wish I'd grown up in New York. Seems more bustling, more cool. So I enjoyed my vacations there. But yeah, that's, I think family brought us to the Sunset and schools. How old were you when you moved to?

Jessica Ho:

the Sunset District.

Katy Tang:

I was about one when we moved to the-.

Jessica Ho:

So you could remember. When you were one years old, I didn't remember. Okay, are you like? Don't remember. Like, how could you remember that New York was so cool, like you were one?

Katy Tang:

No, I didn't. It was just that you know, in high school you hear about New York, right, and then I would eventually go on family vacations over there and then I thought oh, why didn't we get to stay here and live here?

Jessica Ho:

You know, got it. So during your time as District 4 supervisor, you championed various initiatives, from housing to middle income families to environmental sustainability. What accomplishments are you most proud of?

Katy Tang:

You know, I have to say what I'm most proud of is actually not really legislative. It's really making government feel accessible to people. Whether English is your first language or not, or, you know, big problem or small problem, problem or small problem, I wanted to make sure that people felt like they had an advocate or if they had a question about something, they can come to us and ask us something and we would be able to respond to them very timely. So I am proud that you know we were able to do that, and I always think about my parents as immigrants. You know, if they were to contact a representative in government, how would they? How would I want some you know someone to treat my parents right, and it's very respectfully, being responsive and thoughtful in the approach. So I would say that's something I was very proud of.

Katy Tang:

Of course, we had a lot of great policy work that we engaged in. We launched an initiative that was then replicated at the state, for example, to really support new mothers, especially ones that were returning to the workforce and had to use lactation rooms. We wanted to make sure that they didn't have to provide milk for their babies in the bathroom, somewhere clean. So that was something, again, we're very proud of. Just to bring that issue to the forefront front Right, there was a mobile unit that Mamava, that deployed a couple of their mobile lactation stations throughout City Hall and through other places, even the airport. But we also pushed for rooms to be created in new construction as well, so that again mothers could really more easily transition back to the workplace. It's so hard already.

Katy Tang:

And, of course, I think something you both remember, we also did this program called Discover your District, which was we would travel around to different businesses and we would learn a new skill from that business owner. We'd learn about them, we'd learn about the business, and it was really a great way to connect the community and expose more people to businesses they might have never ever visited. So I think we did. I think we ended up doing about over 60 of those visits. It's amazing. We learned how to make dumplings together, we learned how to make cocktails, pottery, the card making. Card making yes, it was. Press printing, yes, it was like letterpress. So a lot of fun things and really it was mostly fun to connect people to each other and to the business owner. So that was really fun. I think we should bring it back, Katy.

Jessica Ho:

I think you should bring it back, jessica, so Discover your District. Bringing it back is something that we're putting on the table. You know, maybe we can kind of get together, because I still remember like all of the events that we did were super fun and I think it was great for the residents to be able to kind of explore what's in their neighborhood. I still remember when Mr Lee from Kingdom of Dumpling held we held like a dumpling making and eating contest. We held like a dumpling making and eating contest and everyone thought my husband, christian, would be the winner of eating them, not making them, because he's a six foot three tall person, and so we would think that that would be the case, but instead it was a 16 year old girl from Lowell High School. That's right.

Wesley Footracer:

Yes, that was awesome and I think really one of the cool things about the Discover your District program was the diversity of the businesses that we actually visit, Right, I think when you kind of think about the sunset it's really easy to just think about those mom and pop shops for food and just like those quick grab and go kind of stuff, and so really seeing behind the scenes as well as the little you know places you really want to think about that are right next door to you, I think was really cool.

Katy Tang:

Yeah, les came to a good amount of those. Did you have a favorite?

Wesley Footracer:

Honestly, it was the ballroom dancing. I think I was the star of that one, if I remember right. I think everyone was trying to get a little dance with me at some point.

Katy Tang:

That's right. How could I forget that, Wes?

Jessica Ho:

That's hilarious. Well, I'm going to have to pick your brain, Katy, about how we're going to do that.

Katy Tang:

I would love to join.

Jessica Ho:

Discovery District again Awesome. So this is a great jumping off point because my next question has to do with your current role as executive director of the Office of Small Business, and I know you've always championed small businesses. What do you think you can do now for businesses that you couldn't in your role in the legislative side of government?

Katy Tang:

I think when you're in that legislative role or as a supervisor, you're just thrown in so many different directions, like you have to spend time on public safety issues, transportation issues, open space issues, art you name it Right and then, of course, businesses.

Katy Tang:

Now, in my role in this office of small business, I could just focus on one issue area and really dig into it. So we are really a resource center for people, so we offer services like if you need help, just brainstorming, we're planning out how you want to start your new business, how you need to do your local, state or federal filings, you need leasing help, you need permitting support. So as we're going through the journey of helping people through these, you know these questions that they have and these milestones. I learned so much so I think that I'm better at figuring out what the problems are and how we can fix those from a systemic level versus when I was in the supervisor's office. Again, we can only touch or scratch the surface of an issue, and so I actually think I'd probably be a better legislator now on these issues than when I was back then, because I'm just so deeply entrenched in it with the business owners.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah, so maybe for our listeners you can provide an example. It doesn't have to be you know we can retract all the personal information but like what's an example of how you help the business in your role today?

Katy Tang:

Yeah. So today it might be that someone wants to do a renovation in a space that they're taking over so maybe let's just say it's a restaurant and they think, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm just doing some little things, it's really nothing major, but we help them navigate. Like, actually, the Department of Public Health or Department of Building Inspection might have some requirements that you have to meet, and we know it's challenging, but to ensure safety and so forth, they have to have you do these things, and so we'll help them through the permitting process. We'll help connect them to some resources if they need funding and if there's something available at that time, we'll help them with that and really serve as the interpreter between what government is saying, because sometimes, even though we might be all speaking English, it's not very understandable for people who don't go through this every day. So we just we help understand, like, what is the city asking for and why? I think most importantly, and then, of course, helping them understand where, where they are in the process, the status update, because sometimes people might not understand.

Katy Tang:

So that's just one example touching on permitting. But there are a million questions people have about like, oh, I think I did this filing wrong, like I wrote something down wrong and I need to correct it. How do I do that? Or I just have a question about a new law that was passed by the city or the state. How do we enforce that? Or how do we respond to that as employers, you know, as small business employers? So yeah, there's a whole range of issues and challenges and questions that people come to us with, and then I learned something from them every time.

Jessica Ho:

Are you like the genius bar of City Hall?

Katy Tang:

We, you know, we never thought of that, but I guess we are in a way, we're like we call it the one stop shop, so there's no wrong door, but I like that. Yeah, we're the, I guess, the genius bar of small businesses.

Jessica Ho:

So for those of us who don't know what that means, it's, the genius bar is what's in an Apple store. If you go into an Apple store, you're able to kind of talk to these specialists who know San Francisco. Because the city and county of San Francisco, the legislative branch they pass laws, the executive branch implements the laws. The laws are sometimes difficult to understand, especially if you don't speak English as a first language. Even when you do speak English, it can be difficult. That's right. And so you know people can call you and be like hey, like what's, what's this mean and how does it affect me? Of course, not calling you directly, but your office. And how do people find you? Like, how do people access your resources?

Katy Tang:

you have to go to City Hall and register or you can do it online, but it's essentially through the treasurer and tax collector's office and so sometimes even that first step it's quite daunting and you're not sure if you're filling it out correctly. So you might come over next door to our office at City Hall on the first floor and we can assist you through that. And while we have you there, we'll talk about all the other resources and services that are available to you. We'll talk about all the other resources and services that are available to you Also. I mean, I think you know we try to go out and do merchant walks. We try to include information in business registration mailing so that people know about our services and to know that it's free for them, so that they don't have to, you know, pay someone else to go and answer these for them. We can really assist through those processes.

Jessica Ho:

Are there any strategies or initiatives that you're implementing?

Katy Tang:

Yeah. So I know it's been really challenging the last few years with the pandemic and then the global shifts with online retail. You know we've all changed our behaviors right over time, pandemic or not, but I think pandemic certainly sped it up, and so we do a lot more ordering online. There's a lot more, you know, direct to consumer type companies out there Even with dining right, there's a lot more delivery, and so we're just noticing that as consumers, our behaviors have changed and so we try to encourage businesses to think about how do you adapt and pivot your business to meet those needs.

Katy Tang:

And it's hard because some people have been in business for 20 years or longer and they're very used to the way that they have done things. But I think for us as government, we are trying to get out of the way. We want to encourage creativity and flexibility as much as possible so that you can adapt and capture the customers where you know maybe you didn to accompany your clothing store, whereas before it was not a big deal. You could just expect that customers would come and shop in person, right, and try on clothing. So I think for us it's getting out of the way, allowing the creativity and flexibility and, yeah, just supporting people wherever they need help. So maybe it's navigating all the different regulations or the codes that might be confusing, and I think that business owners are often way more creative than government is, and so they might come up with an idea where the laws have not caught up to yet, and so we pay attention to that and see where again we can fix things so that businesses can continue to be as creative as possible.

Jessica Ho:

So do you advise the board on ways that they can kind of update the laws?

Katy Tang:

We do a fair amount of advising on what can be changed, whether it's legislative or process wise, because we see so much of it from the, whether it's the applicant perspective, the, or what we call like the customer experience. We see that as we're helping businesses and entrepreneurs through the journey of navigating the city. So because of that, I think our recommendations come with a lot more insight and hopefully can be more effective.

Jessica Ho:

This reminds me of your flex use legislation. Is that something that's currently in play, and do you work with your own legislation, and what are your thoughts about it now that you are actually in the role of administering it?

Katy Tang:

Actually we are trying to go even beyond flexible retail. I think we're just trying to principally permit things that really shouldn't be objected to or allow, like one neighbor to object to, like a restaurant, Like where we saw that those might have required, say, a conditional use authorization from the planning commission. We're saying, why is that still needed? Or there's a cap on the number of restaurants and bars in a particular commercial corridor? Why Right? So I think we're going even beyond that and we took a huge look at the planning code and all the zoning tables to see what could be changed and really get that bureaucratic process out of the way for the business owner.

Katy Tang:

I mean, that seems like a very daunting task, but we did it, we did it, and Mayor Bree did introduce legislation that made over 100 changes to the planning code. As a result of that analysis, we have more to do. It's not just about zoning. It's also about other things, other requirements that people are faced with, and so it's an ongoing iterative process, and it really excites me to be able to continue doing this. That's great, thank you, Katy.

Wesley Footracer:

And then I have a quick question Does your office do work when it comes to more than just like the bones of, like you know, permitting and coding, or do you all actually help them out with like the marketing and getting them really out there at like citywide events and getting them a little bit more exposure?

Katy Tang:

That's a great question. A couple years ago, we rebranded the city's kind of quote unquote marketing campaign, which is called ShopDineSF, and so people can go to ShopDineSF on Instagram and there's also a website. So it's sfgov slash ShopDineSF, and we tried to work with the community to curate lists of like.

Katy Tang:

Here's a perfect day in Noriega for example, and to encourage people to go and check out these corridors that might not otherwise be advertised by other agencies or institutions. And so there's that. And then the social media piece is anytime there might be a new opening of a business or whatnot, we'll try to share that out through the Shop9SF Instagram so that people can just be aware of what's going on some new openings or maybe a special event happening. Existing business.

Wesley Footracer:

Gotcha.

Jessica Ho:

Love to hear them. Great Well, thank you, Katy, so much for sharing what you do and the work that you do for small businesses in the city and county of San Francisco. Let's move on to the future, and I'm curious given all of your expertise and experience, how do you envision the future of the Sunset District in terms of economic growth and community engagement?

Katy Tang:

Sure Well, I've been very encouraged in the last couple of years actually with the sunset. I remember earlier on, you know, in the earlier 2000s, it was actually quite difficult to recruit businesses. Whole lot of foot traffic out here. Little by little we saw businesses locating out here, like Andytown Coffee right. We saw Underdogs open all the way down on Terreville by the Ocean Beach, devil's Teeth Bakery.

Katy Tang:

You know a lot of businesses Hookfish, hookfish, palms City, you name it Gosh, I mean Great Highway Gallery and now Rusty Ladle Right. So I think over time we've seen more and more people being interested in locating in the sunset and I think that's been really important to the vibrancy of this, of this neighborhood, which typically has been a little bit more sleepy. So I think that that will probably continue and I see it just growing and expanding in the sunset because, yeah, people I mean we all, we all like grew up in the sunset and so I think you know that it's like you can go downtown for a busy day of work and then at you know, at night you probably want to come home to a little bit more of that peace and quiet and so it does attract kind of a different crowd here in the Sunset, which I love.

Jessica Ho:

Well, I certainly did not grow up here, but I definitely feel what you're saying.

Jessica Ho:

But, now you are. Now you are. I chose Sunset District and I yep, exactly Like I love the kind of respite that the Sunset District gives, but the access that it has to other places, and I'm really excited to see that there's more activity happening in my own backyard with all of these really cool new restaurants and shops that are coming up, and I'm seeing a lot of families with their bicycles driving their kids around and it's just. It's been really encouraging to see the growth of the sunset.

Katy Tang:

Yeah, actually we had this little joke and with Ashley in our office before, like we don't want the sunset to get too hip because it's going to drive all the home prices up and the rent prices. But you know it's, it's a good thing, it's a good problem to have.

Jessica Ho:

Yes, and as a real estate agent, yes, that is something that I have seen as well, so that certainly is something that I'm taking into consideration when I'm working on my own business stuff.

Katy Tang:

What initiatives are in place to ensure that small businesses continue to thrive? What's going on not just in San Francisco but also globally, in terms of what businesses need to support? So, as we discussed a little earlier, really how can government get out of the way and incentivize that creativity and flexibility for businesses to do what they need to do to adapt to the changing landscape? I think that's really important and just. I think our office being here, you know, as a resource for everyone, and we've evolved our services as well. So, for example, two years ago, we started providing leasing support right, so business owners might be really good at their craft and, you know, creative, but perhaps reading a lease agreement is not their expertise, and so we now have two people in our office who can help business owners understand how to negotiate a lease agreement, to understand what's actually in their lease, and hopefully that will keep them actually more sustained in their space, because if you don't understand what's in your lease, you can get into a lot of problems. And so we will continue to observe what the needs are and evolve our services based on what those, what we see the greatest need for.

Jessica Ho:

That's really great. Thanks, Katy, for our listeners if they want to reach out to the Office of Small Business and I'll link this to the show notes as well but can you give a little bit of information about how people can reach you?

Katy Tang:

Yes, people can reach us in a variety of different ways. You can either come in person, and we have two offices one at City Hall, on the first floor, near the Treasurer and Tax Collector's Office, and also at the Permit Center, which is 49 South Venice on the second floor. We are very responsive via email, so that's sfosb at sfgovorg and then also by phone, 415-554-6134. And a lot of resources are available on our website, which is sfgov slash OSB, and we have social media as well, where we always try to share news you can use great, okay.

Jessica Ho:

So now we're going to transition into a little game of trivia, since we are releasing this on a monday before saint patrick's day, which is a big deal in the sunset. Why is it a big deal in the sunset? Why is it a big deal in the sunset? Okay, we have such a great Irish community here, that's right, and you know, since we are going to celebrate it this year, we might as well answer some questions about it. So let's dig into that. During Prohibition, sf brewers smuggled malt syrup in grocery items which was actually used A Whiskey barrels labeled Irish Spring Water. B Cans of blue ribbon malt syrup disguised as baking supplies. C Shamrock-shaped cookie ponces for St Patrick's Day.

Katy Tang:

C sounds really cute, but I might go with A.

Wesley Footracer:

I think I'm going to go with C. I like the cute idea. Nobody's gonna want to mess with it. Nobody's gonna want to ruin it.

Jessica Ho:

The answer is B Cans of blue ribbon balled syrup. That's how they snuck it in during prohibition. Yes, but it's okay. It's okay, we still have two more. If you weren't alive then you don't know. The Little Shamrock, which is, is on 9th and Irving is the oldest continuously operating Irish bar in the Sunset District demo, although not technically in D4, but still in the Sunset, inner Sunset. What year did it open? A 1893, b 1906, after the Great Earthquake, or C 1926, when SS Patrick's Day Parade began? I'm going to go with C.

Wesley Footracer:

What was A one more time for me? 1893. I'm going to go with 1893.

Jessica Ho:

All right, once you win, it's 1893. They've been going, yeah, they've gone through some stuff. I thought, yeah, they survived the earthquake. So this one is a little bit of an homage to Ankerstein because you know it no longer exists but it, you know, was a great institution at San Francisco for a while. Inker Bruin's iconic steam beer got its name from a natural feature of San Francisco's climate. Was it inspired by A the brewery's steam-powered 18th century machinery? B foggy air cooling, rooftop fermentation, fermentation tanks. C A St Patrick's Day tradition of steaming beer with clovers?

Wesley Footracer:

I'm going to go with B because you said natural and that was the only answer that was natural.

Katy Tang:

I'm going with B as well.

Jessica Ho:

You're both correct.

Wesley Footracer:

Easy money.

Jessica Ho:

Carl, the fog wins again. No kidding, yeah, so Foggy. Air Cooling, looftop Fermentation Tanks was what inspired Inkerstein, which is unfortunately not continuing, but maybe another legacy beer will take its place to represent San Francisco. All right, thank you so much for playing. I don't know who won that round, but let's say we're both winners.

Wesley Footracer:

We'll call it a tie.

Jessica Ho:

Yeah, we'll call it a tie. Sounds good. Katy, it's been enlightening to hear about your journey and the impactful work you're doing To our listeners. Thank you for joining us too, and if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, reach out with your thoughts and please let other people know about this. I'd love to get your ideas on how, what you want to hear and who you want to see interviewed on this podcast. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other, because if you won't, who will? Okay, that's all folks.

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