Last October, I wrote the eulogy here on The Exhibitionist for Wicked Grounds, the kink-oriented coffee house that had, in just a little more than two years, become one of the most beloved gathering places for San Francisco's alt-sex community. When Wicked Grounds announced its closing via Twitter, there was an enormous and immediate outpouring of grief from Bay Area kinksters, made all the more intense by the hard work that they had put into rallying to save the place.

But like Mark Twain, it seems that reports of Wicked Grounds' demise have been exaggerated. Just as everyone had begun to come to terms with Wicked Grounds being dead and buried, the word went out in January that it was reopening.

Almost exactly one month after the café reopened, I found myself once again sitting across from owner Ryan Galiotto at a table in the middle of Wicked Grounds. When I interviewed him in October, his voice trembled with with grief and exhaustion. After working a busy four-hour shift, the exhaustion was still there, but braced by a sense of satisfaction and relief.

“It's like I've used two of my nine lives on this place,” he said. “I'm so grateful for the doors being open again.”