As the proprietor, namesake and bard of Pissed Off Pete's tavern, Pete Whitcomb is, uh, perturbed that the fruits of San Francisco's tech boom have bypassed the Excelsior district - the neighborhood where he was born and raised, as advertised by the tattoo on his right forearm.

"It just sort of hopped right over us," said Whitcomb. "We're the Siberia of San Francisco. People think we're Daly City."

While residents in many San Francisco neighborhoods fret that an influx of wealthy tech workers will price them out or change the feel of their communities, Whitcomb is among a growing number of Excelsior residents and merchants trying to lure young people to set up shop - or at least stop by for a beer - a little farther down Mission Street.

Less than 3 miles away in the heart of the Mission District, new condos sell for $2 million. In the Excelsior, the average home price is $580,000, or 32 percent lower than the San Francisco average, according to Trulia.com. Excelsior boosters have even launched a campaign to lure new blood with the slogan: "Alternatives to Oakland."

The neighborhood's relative remoteness - and its attendant lower housing prices - have long been part of the Excelsior's charm. But the neighborhood's retail offerings have lagged behind. The Excelsior's portion of Mission Street is pockmarked with 25 empty storefronts, and even though the community's 8 percent retail vacancy rate is half of what it was five years ago, it remains higher than the city's average.

More unemployment

And while tech companies account for 22 percent of all occupied office space in San Francisco, some merchants moan that Excelsior's big coup from the boom is the three medical marijuana clubs that have opened over the past two years. While the city's overall unemployment rate is 5 percent, it's 8 percent in the Excelsior.

The biggest economic news out of the neighborhood recently was what was kicked out in December - an Internet cafe that catered to people who were illegally gambling online. Neighbors allege there are two more illegal gambling operations still operating nearby.

That's not the type of Internet business the neighborhood was hoping to attract.

"It's not that we're trying to be what 19th and Valencia has become," said Sean Ingram, referring to the part of the Mission District where new wealth has transformed the neighborhood and ousted longtime residents.

Ingram, who opened the Dark Horse tavern in the neighborhood with his partner Andrea Ferrucci four years ago, would prefer the Excelsior to become "more like 24th Street" in the Mission, with a mix of longtime businesses and residents and new ones, he said.

He took a chance opening his bar just off Mission Street. Yes, he admits, a big part of the reason he settled there was because the rent was a third of the price of a similar-size spot in the Mission District. But Ingram also saw the potential of the neighborhood. He and Whitcomb are part of a new merchants group called the Excelsior Outer Mission Merchants Association.

However, soon after he opened, he saw that one of the things holding back the neighborhood is a reluctance to change.

"There's a lot of people here who start everything, with 'I was born and raised here.' Or, 'Do you remember back in 1970 when this or that happened?' " Ingram said.

"Hey, that's stuff's great, and I love those guys. But there are a lot of other people here who want to see their property values rise, who want to see things get better," Ingram said.

More shops

Recently, the Excelsior Action Group neighborhood association asked residents what type of businesses they would like to see in the neighborhood. The top four responses were an Indian restaurant, a bike shop, a pet supply store and a hardware store.

Several respondents worried that an influx of new money would force them out of town.

"People didn't say they wanted tech and they said they didn't want chain stores," said Gwynn MacKellen, the safety coordinator of the Excelsior Action Group. "They wanted to keep it mom-and-pop and keep it local.

"What they want is some help from downtown to improve things here," she said.

Tom Murphy, an Excelsior native who runs the annual Jerry Garcia Day to honor the late Grateful Dead guitarist and one of the neighborhood's favorite sons, understands the competing pulls in the neighborhood.

"Yeah, I get the element here that doesn't want things to change," said Murphy, who now lives in Oakland (but the rest of his family remains in the neighborhood). "But with all those empty storefronts, I'd find it hard to believe that rents would drive up real fast."

Murphy grew up in the Excelsior when the neighborhood was still dominated by Irish and Italian Americans. Remnants of that era remain, from the Italian American Social Club to the faded "Italian pizza" sign above Ingram's bar, a nod to a former occupant.

But the neighborhood has changed. In a city of diverse communities, the Excelsior may be the most diverse, with 55 percent of its residents born in another country. Now 47 percent of the neighborhood is Chinese, 37 percent is white and 31 percent Latino. Within two blocks are a pasteleria, a Filipino community center, and Thai and Italian restaurants.

Slowly, attitudes are changing in the Excelsior. Even from Pissed Off Pete.

More than a decade ago, when the dot-com boom passed over the neighborhood, Whitcomb said he was one of the people who opposed the opening of a Starbucks in the community. The company sniffed around, but ultimately didn't open a location there.

"Yeah, maybe 10 years ago I would have said, 'Screw that. I don't want Starbucks here,' " Whitcomb said. "But maybe I've grown up. Let's do this. Let's make this place nice."