“BART Guy” and “BART Girl” finds love on an empty Embarcadero platform

Photo of Gene Willis, right, and his wife Stefani on their wedding weekend in 2004. They met 3 years prior at Embarcadero Station.

It is Thanksgiving morning in 2001, and San Francisco is a ghost town. In the early morning at Embarcadero Station, the platforms are empty except two people who, at that time, did not know this would be the start of the most unlikely romance and a marriage that would last the next 20 years.

Gene Willis was waiting at Embarcadero Station to catch an early flight out of Oakland. His flight was already pushed back to Thanksgiving morning. As he waited for his train to take him to Coliseum Station, where he planned to connect with the Oakland Airport bus available at the time, he noticed the only other person on the platform, a young lady reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Compelled to make sure he’s getting on the correct directional train; he asked the woman what train he needed to get to Coliseum Station. Then they made small talk about their Thanksgiving plans to kill time. Gene was heading to Georgia to see his family; the woman – Stefani was her name – said she was heading to Berkeley via BART to see her cousin.

“It was an odd feeling because it was unlike the normal busy-ness you see at Embarcadero Station,” said Gene. “Mind you these are the days before the smartphone, so I just asked her for help because she was the only person there.”

After a few minutes’ chat on the empty platform, the Coliseum-bound BART train pulled up. Gene boarded his train. Then he did something which – to this day – he says he cannot really explain: he stepped off the train before the doors closed.

“It was a split-second decision,” said Gene. “I never thought, ‘oh, that’s my future wife’. It was more a thought of ‘I’ll never see her again, what a shame’. That compelled me to step off the train. I heard the doors hit closed and leave, and I could feel my face get red. I was so embarrassed, and I was asking myself ‘what have I done?’.”

Stefani thought it was awkward too when Gene stepped off the train and promptly asked for her name, according to the couple’s recollection after marriage. But the two talked for a few more minutes until a Berkeley-bound BART train pulled up to the platform. Stefani was going to get on her train soon, so Gene asked for her number. She gave him her work number before her train doors closed and headed into the Transbay Tube.

Thanksgiving came and went (Gene made his flight just in time), and Gene was back in San Francisco where he was living at the time. Despite concerns Stefani’s work number may be fake – he understood if she didn’t want to give a number to a stranger who stepped off a train just to speak to her a little longer – Gene gave the number a ring. Sure enough, it was Stefani. Gene recalls chatting with Stefani for half an hour.

“I asked if she would like to go grab a drink after work and she said ‘oooh, I should tell you, I’m seeing someone,’” said Gene. “I said we can still grab a drink, right?”

Now as friends, they both introduced each other to their respective friend circles as “BART guy” and “BART girl.” But friendship was not the final stop for BART guy and BART girl; soon they began dating and the romance only deepened from there.

Now, Gene and Stefani are married for 17 years with two kids, raising a family in the Peninsula.

Gene and Stefani never forgot their BART connection; in their house, a cousin who is an oil painter gifted them an interior of a BART train car, as a reminder of their serendipitous meeting at the Embarcadero Station.

Oil painting of an empty BART train car, gifted to Gene and Stefani for their serendipitious meeting at Embarcadero Station.

Even now, Gene has trouble explaining what propelled him to step off the train. And whenever he is in Downtown San Francisco near Embarcadero Station, his mind rewinds back to an empty Thanksgiving morning.

“I was never the sort of guy who would pursue a girl at a bar,” said Gene. “I think it’s hard for me to ever go back to Embarcadero Station without replaying that in my head. I became BART guy and she became BART girl.

“I’m also sort of a counterweight to when people sandbag BART. Listen, it may not be perfect, but I got a pretty great deal out of it.”