Photo of the Day: Flood Waters Pummel 18th Street's Gourmet Ghetto

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18th and Dolores Streets, photo by Jeff Felder via @Tablehopper

Call it a Pineapple Express, El Niño or whatever you like, but the weekend's deluge of rain hit the Mission's 18th Street's Gourmet Ghetto pretty hard, as evidenced by this shot and many others posted and retweeted online, that shows the corner of 18th and Dolores Streets outside of Namu Gaji (where a line for Bi-Rite Creamery should be) with water levels that rose almost up to the tops of the fire hydrants.

Other 18th Street merchants such as Tartine Bakery, Bi-Rite Market and Delfina posted photos of the damage which destroyed lots of inventory and knocked out a water heater at the latter, preventing them from opening for dinner service on Sunday night. Our favorite tweet during the storm comes from Delfina owner Craig Stoll who quipped, "Good thing our chef Brian is from New Orleans. Didn't have to call National Guard." Thankfully, all the affected business are back up and running again.