On Sunday afternoon, I lugged a Tupperware of beans up a steep hill to Alamo Square Park. It was a little windy and overcast, but nothing was going to keep me from my mission: joining hundreds of San Francisco bean lovers in front of the Painted Ladies for a “Bean-Up.”

It wasn’t hard to spot the bean potluck, with attendees gathered around white sheets weighed down with bean salads, bean stews, bean dips and even bean desserts. I carefully set down my own chili bean salad (thank you Hetty Lui McKinnon for my favorite bean recipe) and began filling the bowl I’d brought from home with Greek chickpea salad, a mini bean and cheese burrito, and some butter bean pie. 

The largely Gen Z crowd huddled together on picnic blankets, munching and mingling. One attendee was dressed festively in a fava bean crown; another brought bean-based dog treats and a dog named Lentil. At the center of it all, I spotted Madeline Schapiro, ebullient in a bean bikini top. (She’d made it herself, of course, out of real beans.)

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Bean-Up organizer Madeline Schapiro, known online as bean.supporter, wears her handmade “Beankini” during the gathering at Alamo Square Park in San Francisco on Sept. 27, 2026. Schapiro made the cashmere-and-wool bikini and decorated it with beans she sourced from Mexico City.

Attendees gather around a spread of bean-based dishes during the Bean-Up at Alamo Square Park in San Francisco on Sept. 27, 2026.

Sean Roelofs carries a Spanish-inspired farinata made with chickpeas during the Bean-Up at Alamo Square Park in San Francisco on Sept. 27, 2026.

A Berkeley influencer known as Bean Supporter, Schapiro has now made a career out of beans. She hosts monthly Bean-Ups and develops and shares bean-centric recipes like beanana bread and beantella. As a beanfluencer, she’s amassed more than 100,000 followers on TikTok, plus thousands more on Instagram and Substack. Recently, she quit her corporate job to go all in on beanfluencing. 

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Schapiro’s lifelong affinity for beans began at the age of 7, when she declared herself a vegetarian. But it wasn’t until 2017 that her relationship with beans blossomed into a full blown love affair. During college, Schapiro was experiencing some mysterious health problems. When doctors couldn’t seem to help her feel better, beans did.

“I ate a ton of beans, and I got my life back,” she said. “I am ever so grateful for the humble legume.”

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