{"id":420781,"date":"2026-08-01T12:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/420781\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:52:17","slug":"sfs-oldest-tattoo-shop-is-in-the-richmond-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/420781\/","title":{"rendered":"SF’s oldest tattoo shop is in the Richmond District"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jason Storey started working at Picture Machine Tattoo in 2001, rumor had it that the business was haunted by its original owner, Pat \u201cPicture Machine\u201d Martynuik. <\/p>\n

According to legend, Martynuik had died in the Geary Boulevard shop in 1989, while in the middle of giving a tattoo of the Grim Reaper.<\/p>\n

Objects were known to fall mysteriously around the shop. Once, a man in jeans and a white T-shirt appeared at the front counter, but seemed to vanish before Storey could reach him.<\/p>\n

A few months later, Martynuik\u2019s son, Guy, moved Picture Machine west to 5124 Geary Blvd. near 15th Avenue, and the hauntings stopped.<\/p>\n

Storey worked there on and off for the next decade or so, and bought the place in 2013. His shop has since outlived its predecessors and assumed the undisputed title of oldest tattoo shop in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jason Storey, current owner of Picture Machine Tattoo in the Richmond District, on April 15, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"\"The original Picture Machine Tattoo Shop sign on display. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"AJen Wong at her tattoo station in front of one of their archival signs at the new Picture Machine Tattoo Shop in the Richmond District on April 15, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

For decades, another presence haunted Picture Machine: Martynuik\u2019s extensive archive of flash templates: Hundreds upon hundreds of hand-drawn black-and-white and colored-pencil icons dating back to the 1970s, in the American Traditional tattoo style.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018The Picture Machine\u2019 was his nickname because when he wasn\u2019t tattooing, he was producing all this flash,\u201d Storey said of Martynuik, pointing to the pictures covering the shop walls, with their folk imagery of daggers, hearts, flowers and tigers drawn in bold black lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Storey, the images evoke yet another specter: Martynuik\u2019s compulsive drive to never stop working.<\/p>\n

\"AAn archival picture displayed in the new Picture Machine Tattoo Shop in the Richmond District on April 15, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"AJen Wong inside Picture Machine Tattoo Shop in the Richmond District on April 15, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tattoo bumper stickers and old business cards on display in the Picture Machine Tattoo Shop in the Richmond District on April 15, 2026. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took the idea of trying to emulate Pat a little too seriously,\u201d Storey said of his years as a young tattoo artist. He became something of a picture machine himself, which snowballed into a substance-abuse problem until friends and family intervened.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, he\u2019s stayed clean and sober, even after his wife, who helped out with the business, died earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Picture Machine has been in business since 1976, when Martynuik moved from Canada to San Francisco to work with Lyle Tuttle<\/a>. But Tuttle, who\u2019s been called the \u201cfather of modern tattooing,\u201d would leave on extended trips, tattooing celebrities like Janis Joplin and getting featured in Rolling Stone Magazine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, at Tuttle\u2019s store in San Francisco, Martynuik worked in relative obscurity. Sometimes, Storey said, customers would assume that the quiet artist inking away inside Lyle Tuttle\u2019s Tattoo Shop was, indeed, Lyle Tuttle, none the wiser that it was, in fact, Pat Martynuik.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter a while, Pat got tired of doing the work and not getting the credit,\u201d Storey said. The pair parted ways.<\/p>\n

So Martynuik opened his own store and named it after himself. There, he mentored\u00a0 the next generation \u2014 his son Guy and Tuttle\u2019s son, Lyle Tuttle Jr. \u2014 in the craft.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an extended family tree among San Francisco tattooists. Guy opened his own shop in Reno, Nevada, called Body Graphics, which is now run by his son (and Pat\u2019s grandson), Jesse. After Pat Martynuik died, Guy ran Picture Machine from afar, and hired Storey to work there alongside the late Iggy Vans<\/a>, who got Storey the job.<\/p>\n

Shortly thereafter, Storey recalls, \u201cLyle Jr. came to visit his old friend\u2019s shop, and his friend was in Reno, and so he met me.\u201d Lyle Jr. bought Picture Machine from Guy, and Storey kept working there until he bought it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Jason Storey. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tattoo artist \u201cBig Moon\u201d at his work station. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

\"\"Tattoo artist Big Moon designed a Laughing Buddha flash template based on Pat \u201cPicture Machine\u201d Martynuik\u2019s drawing from the 1970s. Photo by Zoe Malen.<\/p>\n

Today, Pat Martynuik\u2019s work is the stuff of coffee table books<\/a> and tattooing is seen as an art form<\/a> in its own right. But Storey explained that Martynuik\u2019s style is rooted in efficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re tattooing, and you have a line of Navy guys out the door and they\u2019re all on leave, you want to tattoo as many of them as possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Storey, who came up in the Bay Area punk scene<\/a>, seems less vexed by the ghosts of history than he once was. Reflecting on the rough-and-tumble days of Martynuik and his ilk \u2014 the bar fights and the abuse of unwanted guests \u2014\u00a0Storey said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I would have liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThose guys were scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Customers still come in sometimes looking for Martynuik\u2019s work. Would-be drunken sailors and Harley riders can get a deal on the \u201cfounder\u2019s flash\u201d featured in the original drawings, and the shop sells T-shirts and catalogues featuring them.<\/p>\n

But Storey and two other artists work full-time at the shop now, and their styles go far beyond Martynuik\u2019s decades of iconic tattooing. <\/p>\n

Artist Jen Wong works in \u201cfine line\u201d designs, and \u201cBig Moon,\u201d who works the night shift, has a cartoonish, neo-traditional style. Storey has done\u00a0a wide range of designs, from the \u201cdystopian nightmare stuff<\/a>\u201d of punk album covers to American and Japanese tattoo styles.<\/p>\n

Today, Picture Machine and its customers form a community extending all the way back to the tattoo parlor\u2019s beginnings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now at the point,\u201d Storey said, \u201cwhere we\u2019re tattooing the grandchildren of some of our first clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

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