MJ Watson is a massage therapist who started a hobby making handmade jewelry with natural crystals and gemstones. The jewelry was a hit on Sundays when she set up a booth at the Outer Sunset Farmers Market. Customers often asked if she had a shop they could visit the rest of the week.

Sunset Mercantile, the organizers of the farmers market, make it their mission to foster the dreams of people who have an art, craft, food, or talent they want to bring to the world. The goal is to start with a booth at the farmers market and eventually open a storefront in the community.

The success at the farmers market made MJ think a small studio would be nice to showcase her jewelry and other healing tools, such as herbs and essential oils. It could also offer a tranquil setting for her massage practice.

MJ’s husband Shane Jordan encouraged his wife to take the leap and open her own business. They found an empty shop at 2505 Taraval at 35th Avenue that was the perfect size and location and The Hidden Gem was born.

Now, MJ can combine all her passions and talents in one place beyond the farmers market booth. MJ turned The Hidden Gem into a wellness and healing facility offering skin care, inner healing guidance, and massage therapy for women. She welcomed 50 people to her grand opening event in July. 

MJ’s  journey to The Hidden Gem was circuitous and not without obstacles. She had to find her purpose and her way to the Sunset. 

MJ studied psychology in college, but clinical practice wasn’t for her.

“I knew I wanted to help people heal,” she says, so she decided to pursue therapy of a different sort, through massage.

She found providing massage treatment to hospice patients in Marin and San Francisco tremendously satisfying because of the great comfort it brought to her clients. But when COVID happened, she could no longer get access to hospice facilities.

To keep her practice going, Watson joined a bodywork studio in the Tenderloin. But it soon closed. MJ and her husband considered buying the business so she could open her own studio, yet the deal fell through. Another obstacle. 

Around the same time, the family was outgrowing their home of 11 years in the Richmond. Then life presented a new option: an affordable home on Ulloa Street in the Sunset. 

“At first, the Sunset seemed so far from everything, so quiet,” MJ recalls. “Now I love it! I love my neighborhood. I feel safe. I’m not worried about my two kids. They are having a real childhood in the Sunset. They are playing outside!”

MJ’s husband Shane says he sees a lot of potential in the Sunset.

“I envision so much more happening here,” Shane says. “Being able to add to that is very rewarding.” 

For MJ, there is no doubt her journey has taken her to the place she needs to be.

“Everything is right here,” she says. “The community keeps giving to us.”

Learn more about The Hidden Gem here.

Reported and written by volunteer community journalist Jan Cook. We encourage residents with journalism experience, retired journalists, and student journalists in high school and college to volunteer as writers for Supervisor Engardio’s newsletter. Interested? Apply here. Do you know a story you would like to see featured in the newsletter? Tell us about it here.