twitter.com/jasperslobrushe

Flavors include mustard cioppino kiwi and caramel mucus gazpacho.

​Yesterday, we marveled at Humphry Slocombe's Twitter feats, and today we've spotted a parody feed. Jasper Slobrushe professes to have "fuckin' edgy ice cream, bitches!" A recent tweet:

Try a Too Soon sundae: French vanilla ice cream w/ orca bacon & Chilean sea bass sauce. We'll be bumping Gang Starr and The Osmonds all day.

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Humphry Slocombe's Jake Godby (left) with chief tweeter Sean Vahey.

​Two San Francisco-based businesses, ice creamery Humphry Slocombe and messenger bag stalwart Timbuk2, are vying for the honor of "Best Small Business to Follow on Twitter" at the first Bizzies Awards, hosted by online small business community Bizmore.

We've long enjoyed Humphry Slocombe's tweets, and realize they've gotten a lot of attention from national press, but we were still astonished to learn that the shop has amassed over 300,000 followers ― a Twitterific feat for anyone in San Francisco (except maybe Gavin Newsom). To compare, the lines are often longer a mile away at Mitchell's, but they've only got 30 followers (and appear to have abandoned updating their Twitter stream).

So how did this awesomely punk parlor snatch up that many groupies? We posed the question to its chief tweeter, operations manager Sean Vahey.

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If there's one thing an undergraduate English degree from Cal gets you, it's a keen ear for poetry, even when it's disguised as a tweet. Last night, Tamale Lady ― Our Lady of Street Food ― laid down a pair worthy of the Fishouse:

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The Tamale shack it's filled with steam, steamers are blasting tameles
are almost ready.... San Francico are Hungry? :)

and:

#SF come get 'em Zeitgest now stream flows from those magical coolers. :) #Tamales

You following, Dave Eggers?

There's a certain kick we all get from discovering the next big thing before someone else does. In Silicon Valley, if you're launching a company, you offer potential users the opportunity to sneak a peak at a product or service in exchange for volunteer beta testing and general patronage. It's a potent psychology that's permeated through Twitter all the way to restaurants. Which is why, if you want to hear about a restaurant before it opens, you'll likely stumble on it via your Twitter and perhaps even Facebook feeds.

The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen/Facebook

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Take, for instance, The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen. While the restaurant isn't slated to open in South Park until sometime this winter, we chanced upon it via word of mouth on Twitter, which is how we found its Facebook page, where it's been generating buzz for months. How? By teasing followers and fans with photos of test dishes  and progress reports about  construction, allowing potential customers to get a glimpse of the process, and maybe even weigh in on the menu.
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Forget drinking the company Kool-Aid. Twitter employees will soon be drinking the company wine.

Dogpatch-based Crushpad -- a place that allows amateur vinophiles to make and sell their own wine, brand and label included -- has more than a little in common with Silicon Valley. The business philosophy behind both calls for investing in the product and customer experience, with revenue naturally following. Better yet, both believe in creating platforms that help businesses feed other businesses, including nonprofits. It's what's allowed Crushpad to raise over $9 million in funding from its customers, and the stuff S.F.-based über startup Twitter is made of. So it's not surprising that the two companies are collaborating on an interesting online/offline project: The Fledgling Initiative.

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​At a lunch at La Cocina last week, we spoke with director Caleb Zigas and a handful of the incubator kitchen's clients about the phenomenon of new-wave Mission street-food vendors, and what they might have in common with more traditional food vendors. Much of the conversation focused on the challenges all home-based food businesses face when they try to score the proper permits and business licenses to go legit, a process Zigas calls moving from the "informal" to the "formal" economy.

One enormous difference between old- and new-school vendors? Twitter. While businesses like Gobba Gobba Hey and Bike Basket Pies deftly use the social networking medium to draw customers -- even sell directly to them -- more traditional vendors rely pretty much solely on having a presence on the street, formally or, uh, informally. But with the first tweets last week of Mexico City-style food vendor El Huarache Loco, that may begin to change.

Huarache owner Veronica Salazar has only tweeted twice since launching her page, and she tweets in Spanish. But they represent huge potential for relationship-building, even with customers whose high-school Spanish has gotten a tad rusty. Check out El Huarache Loco's Twitter page -- you just might be witnessing the birth of a new local movement.

​Think city vendors have pretty much exhausted the foods that can be slung from a cart? Think again. On Monday, we caught this clipped, cryptic tweet from someone named Toasty Melts:
we are coming sanfrancisco watch out!

Today, Toasty Melts tweeted this:
could it be? a grilled cheese cart spotted on the streets of SF? stay tuned!

Seems to us Sexy Soup Lady might think about making a batch of tomato soup and parking nearby. Follow the brewing drama via Toasty's feed.

It's not just a source of information about the apricot variety the tweeter just snarfed, a marketing tool, or the source for the whereabouts of underground mini muffins. Twitter can be a diary of just how giving-birth-without-drugs painful it is to open a restaurant. Behold the latest tweets from Michele Wilson as she tries to open Gussie's Chicken and Waffles (1521 Eddy at Fillmore)

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Thank Goodness! The door i've been waiting on arrives tomorrow. This is the last major thing. Everything else is simple.

Let's hope all goes well tomorrow with my inspections. If so, we can open on Thursday!!!

Thanks to all those who are patiently awaiting our opening. We will do are [sic] best to make it right for you.

Chart Wilson's efforts on her Twitter page. And keep your fingers crossed about that end-of-week opening.