To mark the occasion, the studio is throwing an open house this weekend — May 16th and 17th — with free classes for anyone who walks through the door. No catch, no hard sell, just a couple days of complimentary downward dogs from a neighborhood institution that has somehow outlasted dot-com busts, a pandemic, and whatever the Board of Supervisors has been doing to small businesses for the last two and a half decades.

Let's put 25 years in perspective. When Mission Yoga opened its doors in 2000, the Mission District was still gritty, taquerias outnumbered tech offices, and you could actually afford to live within walking distance of your yoga studio. The fact that any independently owned business in San Francisco can survive a quarter century — through escalating rents, rising permit costs, and the city's labyrinthine regulatory environment — is genuinely impressive.

This is the kind of story that doesn't make front pages but matters deeply to the fabric of a neighborhood. Every time a small business shutters on Valencia or Mission Street, we lose a piece of what makes San Francisco something more than a bedroom community for remote workers. Mission Yoga sticking around is a small act of defiance against the economic forces squeezing the life out of local enterprise.

So if you're in the neighborhood this weekend, consider dropping in. Support a business that has earned its place in the Mission. And if you've never tried yoga, free is about the most fiscally responsible price point you'll find in this city.

Happy 25th, Mission Yoga. Here's to 25 more — assuming the city doesn't find a new fee to charge you first.