It’s a clear Sunday afternoon in Dolores Park, but Matt, 26, is on alert. He just sold a cold drink to a picnicker, something mixed and alcoholic, in a tall plastic cup. To pay him, she scans a QR code on the laminated sheet of paper.
Now, while she lies back and enjoys her first sips, Matt cranes his neck and peers over the hill. A park ranger is making the rounds. If she catches him, he could be asked to leave the park. Without peeling his eyes away from the hill, he makes a phone call. “Is she coming in my direction?” he asks.
For Matt, this game of cat and mouse is an ordinary part of a day’s work at Dolores Park.
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“The park rangers, they like to harass us,” he tells me, as he drags his wagon over the hill. “We’re just trying to make a living out here in SF.”
Alberto Sanchez pushes his ice cream cart through San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
A food and drink vendor makes a sale in San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
Kool Cat, AKA Bolston Jones, poses for a portrait next to a community art project in San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
‘We’re a really tight-knit community out here’
The stress is worth it. Selling drinks in public is Matt’s full-time job, and Dolores Park is one of his steadiest streams of income. While he declines to talk numbers, he says he makes “enough to live off of. It’s solid.”
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Golden Gate Park, in its sprawl, may get more foot traffic, and Lands End may be more beautiful. But on a sunny weekend day, Dolores Park is San Francisco’s unofficial town square. By 1 p.m., the lawns overlooking the downtown skyscrapers are packed.
Amid the clusters of picnic blankets, you’ll find a cast of regular characters: Men who sit between the trees, crushing cases of Modelos. Speedo-clad sunbathers at the park’s unofficial “gay beach.” A ponytailed man near the benches, smoking a cigarette with one hand and twirling a staff with the other. Near the playground, the bucket hat-wearing owner of a giant, sticker-covered speaker, nodding contentedly to his loud house music. (He respectfully declined an interview.) Women juggling a soccer ball, men throwing a football, a child flying a kite. Couples lounging, reading, drinking, talking, blowing bubbles, kissing. Fixed-speed bikes lying in the grass.
A psychedelic mushroom vendor showcases their offerings.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
One vendor offers “Dolosnax”-branded mushroom chocolate bars.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
This everyday buzz attracts a second, smaller group: vendors like Matt. Despite the park rangers’ best efforts, Dolores Park is where enterprising locals go to sell things. A magician walks the fields, collecting donations for card tricks, and men toting drink carts exchange Micheladas for Venmo payments. So ingrained is Dolores Park’s informal economy that one mushroom vendor sells psilocybin-infused chocolate bars called “Dolosnax,” with an illustration of the park on the label.
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“We’re a really tight-knit community out here,” says Nes, 33, who has been selling magic mushrooms for five years.
On this particular Sunday, Nes is one of a handful of mushroom vendors. One of their chocolate bars costs $50. (Nes and Matt were granted anonymity in accordance with Hearst’s ethics policy.) They don’t think of the other mushroom vendors as competition, they explain.
“I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about mushrooms, is that it helps you release the idea of competition,” Nes says.
Nes, who vends on the weekends only, considers these sales to serve a greater purpose than moneymaking. In our brief conversation, they refer to mushrooms as “medicine” and name-drop María Sabina, an Indigenous Oaxacan healer who used psilocybin mushrooms in ceremonies.
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“We have to continue to use these medicines in the most decolonized way possible,” they explain. “And the best ways to use them are to use them for introspection, to use them for reflection, use them for meditation.”
Alberto Sanchez makes change after a sale in San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
For others, selling in Dolores Park is a necessity. One of those vendors is 80-year-old Alberto Sanchez, who trudges across the park’s lower lawn with his ice cream cart. Among his offerings is a mango ice pop, which he sells for three dollars. For 20 years, he’s made his living selling ice cream in Dolores Park and on Mission Street. Winters are especially rough for business, he says.
“I’m an old man,” he tells me. “Nobody gives me a job.”
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After a short interview, a child approaches Sanchez with a few bills and buys an ice pop.
Mewtwo, Michael Jordan and massage therapy
In Dolores Park, a bottle of water costs $3, and a Dolosnax-branded chocolate bar with three grams of mushrooms costs $40. A holographic trading card of the Pokemon Mewtwo, meanwhile, costs $10,000.
“In mint condition, it’s worth 20 grand,” says 9-year-old Arlo Harney.
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Alongside the professional class of vendors, Dolores Park attracts a second, more casual group. These vendors do not make sales for a living. They vend because it’s fun, or for some extra cash on the side. Or because the weather’s nice.
Arlo’s backpack sports a cardboard sign advertising “pokemon, football, baseball, and basketball cards.”
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
A table of assorted playing and collectible cards being sold by Arlo Harney, age 9, at San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
Arlo is one of these vendors. He and his father, Brendan, stopped by Dolores Park to sell off his collection of rare trading cards. Arlo priced the cards himself: A card featuring the Pokemon Regigigas goes for $10, and a vintage Michael Jordan card costs $40,000. They’re laid out in a neat grid on a black folding table, housed in plastic protective sleeves. The holographic cards glint in the sun. The family dog, Montez, lazes on the grass underneath.
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“I don’t really look at these or use these anymore, so I figured I’d just sell them,” Arlo explains.
The day before, the father-son duo tried walking around Cole Valley and making sales out of Arlo’s backpack, Brendan says. That didn’t work, so they headed to Dolores Park. On this particular Sunday, Arlo makes no big deals. After around an hour, he and Brendan peel off to play soccer.
Asked about the practice of illegal vending in Dolores Park, San Francisco Recreation and Park Department spokesperson Daniel Montes told SFGATE that park rangers typically issue citations only if there is a safety issue or if a vendor “refuses compliance.”
“We’ve put a lot into keeping the park safe and clean,” Montes wrote in an email to SFGATE. “Our rangers and Love Dolores community ambassadors do a lot of outreach and education, including talking to illegal vendors.”
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Entrepreneurs like Arlo “wouldn’t be priorities” for rangers, Montes added.
As Arlo and Brendan pack up their picnic table, Michaela Donovan, 38, sets up shop in the corner of the park. She offers 15-minute massages for $30, with a table set up in the shade of a frame canopy.
“Now that the weather is turning more sunny, more people are out,” Donovan says. “So I’m trying to just get seen by more people, so I can promote my business.”
Left to right: Massage therapist Michaela Donovan poses for a portrait; SFGATE reporter Timothy Karoff as seen through Michaela Donovan’s massage table.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
This is Donovan’s second weekend afternoon in the park.The first time, she made “a couple hundred bucks.” Offering massages helps her boost her business, Massage by Michaela, which she runs out of an office on Van Ness Aveue. Alongside massages, Donovan offers free tarot and horoscope readings.
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“I love being outside and connecting with people on this level,” she says, shuffling her deck of oracle cards. “I’m not the best at small talk, but I love doing stuff like this.”
About an hour after we speak, I spot a park ranger speaking with Donovan. When the ranger leaves, Donovan folds up her shade structure, which is large enough to require a permit. Her massage table stays.
Matt, meanwhile, manages to dodge any trouble, even as he around lugs a wagon loaded with alcohol, soda and water. As he crests over the hill, a man comes running after him. He’s slightly out of breath, wearing running shorts and Birkenstocks.
Matt, a drink and snack vendor, pulls his cart through San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
The drink cart of a vendor in San Francisco’s Dolores Park on May 31, 2026.
Theo LaBrusciano-Carris/For SFGATE
“I’m so happy to see you, bro,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you for like 10 minutes.”
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This particular customer needs a bottle of water, so Matt goes through the familiar routine. He hands the man the bottle and then holds up his laminated QR code sheet. The man scans it obligingly.
Then, Matt keeps moving. He has four more hours of daylight and a cart full of cold drinks to sell.