Meet Broke-Ass Stuart, SF’s Favorite Chronicler of the Underground Scene
On October 17, 2026, San Francisco will celebrate the second annual “Broke-Ass Stuart Day.” A little over two decades ago, Broke-Ass Stuart was just Stuart Schuffman, a kid from UC Santa Cruz who scored an unpaid summer internship with Bill Graham Presents. He shared a doorless room in the Haight with a friend, just big enough for two air mattresses. That summer, he explored the city on a shoestring budget and fell in love with its weird and quirky people, places and creative scene.
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San Francisco has always attracted entrepreneurs, writers, musicians, artists and other self starters and creative types. The city’s history is filled with unique characters who arrived from all over the globe to make their dreams a reality. Stuart Schuffman is one of San Francisco’s noteworthy characters of the 21st century. After graduation, he came back to the city, where he slept on an air mattress, rode bus lines to explore on an unpaid intern’s budget and occasionally treated himself to $1.50 beers at Murio’s Trophy Room, one of the few places he could afford to drink. Throughout the first quarter of the century, he explored the city, had conversations with people and chronicled his adventures, discoveries and encounters in zines, blogs, books, travel shows and local publications. His journey from unknown, unpaid intern to well known local personality is one of those true SF stories: unique, quirky and reassuring to the rest of us who embrace this wild, wacky town. It’s a reminder that anyone with determination and a dream can make an impact on the city and build a life here, no matter how expensive or challenging any given moment becomes.
When Stuart arrived in SF after graduation, he moved into a shared artist living space at 1907 Golden Gate, in the rough and tumble Western Addition neighborhood. The neighborhood was not yet referred to as “NOPA,” which Stuart reminds us is “a restaurant, not a neighborhood” in his 2025 book, The Worst of Broke-Ass Stuart: 20 Years of Love, Death and Dive Bars. The neighborhood had prostitutes operating out of a building with an actual red light, open air drug markets (crack was the drug du jour at the time) and boarded up storefronts along Divisadero, a far cry from the quaint cafés of 2026. He found a retail job in North Beach at the candy store Z. Cioccolato. These typical decisions, made by a young, broke college grad who needed cheap housing and a job to pay the bills, would become the foundation on which Broke Ass Stuart was built.
1907 Golden Gate was not just cheap housing for artsy types looking for below market rent. It was the unofficial clubhouse of the Cacophony Society, the group of artists and creatives who founded Burning Man. P. Segal, a local writer and founding member of the Cacophony Society and Burning Man, was a longtime resident at 1907 Golden Gate and often held Cacophony Society gatherings and meetings there. The living room was where the decision was officially made to move Burning Man from Baker Beach to the Black Rock Desert. The house connected Stuart with some of the most influential and interesting creative types of the post tech boom, pre AI era.
While working at the chocolate shop, Stuart was handed a business card that would spark his career ambitions. A guy he knew from back home in San Diego, where he grew up, stopped by the shop. The guy’s then girlfriend and future wife was a travel writer, and she handed Stuart her card as they were leaving. He knew immediately that travel writing was what he wanted to do. That small act would inspire him to write a zine within a year, one small step toward City Hall’s eventual declaration of Broke-Ass Stuart Day in 2025.
In 2004, the last creatives living at 1907 Golden Gate were evicted due to an owner move in exception to the rent control laws. This was also the year Broke-Ass Stuart’s zine was first published. Soon, Stuart Schuffman would become known as “Broke-Ass Stuart,” chronicling great stories about SF’s dive bars, restaurants, nightlife and all the people and things that made San Francisco a weird and wonderful place to live. In 2005, the second Broke-Ass Stuart zine received the Best Local Zine Award from the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 2008, the Broke-Ass Stuart website launched. To this day, it brings readers the latest updates on all the cool and weird things that make San Francisco unique, not to mention the obvious: free and cheap things to do in the city.
Broke-Ass Stuart went on to write for publications such as the SF Examiner, SFGATE, SF Weekly, 7×7 and more, with columns on dive bars and city nightlife. In 2007, he wrote Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco. He then spent a year in New York researching Broke-Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in New York. In 2025, alongside the city supervisors’ declaration of October 17 as “Broke-Ass Stuart Day,” he released his latest book, looking back on more than 2 decades of living in SF as a creative.
I asked Stuart which era was his personal favorite during his years in San Francisco. He said 2008 through 2013, a time he described as the end of an era when creatives could come here and easily find affordable housing and a job to pay the bills while pursuing their art. That said, Stuart is fully committed to San Francisco. He recently bought a small home via SF’s affordable housing program in the Mission District and has no plans to leave. He feels the bump in the road that was 2020 cleaned house, in a sense, leaving the people who truly love SF and want to be here, while saying goodbye to those who were only here for a job. But now he’s worried that all the AI wealth will displace even more people.
When I asked Stuart if he had any advice for younger generations, he told me he doesn’t believe it’s impossible for a young creative to make it in SF if they really want to be here. His advice: “Don’t quit your night job” and “Say yes as much as possible.” For years, the restaurant and bar industries have provided creative types with income to pay the bills while pursuing their passions. Even Stuart, with a successful website, several published books and columns in some of the city’s most popular publications, has relied on pouring cocktails and serving food over the years to stay financially afloat in this expensive city. Finding a decent restaurant gig is not as easy breezy as it once was. If you find a stable source of income, don’t quit. When opportunities present themselves, say yes when possible. You never know who you’ll meet or what opportunities you’ll find. Sometimes the most random moments can impact our lives in the most unexpected ways. Broke-Ass Stuart is living proof.
I also asked Stuart about his future plans. He mentioned a screenplay may be in the works. Keep informed at brokeassstuart.com. I highly recommend picking up a copy of his book. It’s filled with fantastic stories of his adventures over the last 20 years. His writing is raw and in your face, offering a vivid snapshot of different moments in San Francisco’s modern history. You can also stay up to date by signing up for his bi-weekly mailing list HERE.
If you want to see the man and legend who is Broke-Ass Stuart, head to Clement Street on October 17 to hear him speak and mingle with San Francisco’s creative community while enjoying the second annual Broke-Ass Stuart Day in all its glory. Clement Street will be closed between 6th and 8th avenues for the event, organized by the Clement Street Merchants Association in collaboration with Workshop SF. There will be live music, food, artists, art activations and more. Stop by Fleetwood to pick up a copy of Broke-Ass Stuart’s book.
