Eating San Francisco 50's - 60's-70's

05/07/10 - posted by Chris Toomey

Some very familiar things here, food and restaurants, I'm sure...

Joe's Special: Ground beef,fresh spinach,eggs,onions,garlic all scrambled together and sprinkled liberally with parmesan.
First had it at West Portal Joe's where it was reputed to be created by one of the cooks when some big shot came in right at closing and he made due with what was on hand. My Dad often cooked it on Friday nights when he was Chef for the evening. When I served in the USCG in Kodiak I ran into one of the docs on the base who heard we were going to the yard in Seattle. He was from S. F. and when he found out I was he asked that I bring back a big bunch of fresh spinach from Seattle so he could make "real" Joe's Special.

Shrimp Louie and Crab Louie with iceberg lettuce hard boiled egg and sometimes a tomato. We made the simple Louie dressing at home with Mayo, Catsup, lemon and a shot of Worshteshire. Ordered some at a SoCal restaurant recently got fancy greens and Thousand Island... sent it straight back. Silly me...

The seafood, God the seafood! When a cable car ride with my granny was the most practical way to go shopping for fresh fish down at the warf when it was as a working fish market that drew tourists rather than a tourist site that had a few fish markets. Live crab and the shellfish and sea bass and ahh the abalone. We were good Catholics so it was fish every Friday night.

Dry Salami sandwiches on sourdough "hard rolls". Bought ours at a little deli/grocery on 48th and Taraval and they were made with piles of thin cut salami and mayo.

Wine, always wine which my dad would buy from the cask at an Italian family winery down outside Livermore. He used the same wine jugs and just wash them out before going for a refill.

I know I'm leaving stuff out here... help!

Restaurants/eateries:
Johnson's Tamales
Jumbo's on Sloat right across from the Zoo.
A chinese restaurant one flight up on Stockton where we learned to use chopsticks at an early age. Sam Woo's? I dunno... don't remember any hostess razzing us ;~>
Then there was Alioto's...I remember the high-walled mahogany booths with coatracks on the end and pale yellow walls.
A wonderful Fish and Chips place where my grandmother took us on Geary where a person could actually choose from different kinds of fish.

Freed Teller and Freed... the 2nd oldest independent coffee roaster in the U.S. (the first being in NYC) My grandfather on my mother's side was a coffee bean taster for Hills Bros. on the Embarcadero, however, he bought his coffee at Freed Teller and Freed and the tradition got handed down. They were pushed out of there shop on the Polstrasse in the 90s and went to South City.

Rancho Nicasio in Northern Marin serving two dishes: Abalone in lemon butter and Abalone in Garlic
butter

Later on...in the 70's during the sexual revolution I remember:
Pan Pan's in the Tenderloin
An all night donut shop in Cow Hollow where after a dateless night in the "meatracks" like Slats you could console yourself with a fresh hot glazed at 2:00am
A small Russian Restaurant on the north side of Clement across from a more elaborate Russian eaterie.
Sears on Powell
Far East Bakery...Melon Cakes!
Italian bakery right on Columbus near the Washbag: cannoli!!

Luigi's on the west side of Columbus right up from Broadway (now the oh too chi chi Mona Lisa I think)... now, the loss of Luigi's was one of those really tough moments for me, a watershed point in the long wobbling fall of North Beach as a place where roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty working people actually lived... fishermen, longshoremen etc. The beats were fine,the artists and occasional gallery owner or architect, hell even the topless joints or the punk Mabuhay but... the opening of a McDonalds and closing of Luigi's sad... too sad- oop's sorry...
What a great restaurant this was!!!
The long counter to the left and small booths opposite and then the larger booths to the back. At the counter, working stiffs bellied up for big steak sandwiches on sourdough or fresh home-made soups and above the stove hung round- bottomed polished copper pots for the making of fresh rum laced Zabillone or as our favorite red-jacketed waiter called it with a wink "Honeymoon Juice" . This same waiter always remembered our names and treated us like we were family... we always brought in a bottle of wine and he would expect a taste (most of a glass!)reminding us that if he didn't like it he'd have to charge us corkage.

And this now reminds me of Joe Carccione, The Green Grocer!!

Just Deserts and holy cow, the now gone Hong Kong Cafe both on Church near Market! Combination WarWonTon soup!From the very early 70s into the late 80's early 90's our family with two kids in tow visited the Hong Kong a couple of times a month for 20 years. It was one big room with table along the walls and in the windows and one long gang table on the left.
The same waiters for all that time who seemed not to age a day and who brought the kids drawing stuff and saw them become adults with families of their own.

The Patio Cafe on Castro... great spot for breakfast, Orphan Andies, Castro and Market, burgers 24/7 and one of my favorites, still in business Cafe Mediteranean just off Market near where Finella's Finnish Baths used to be!

I don't think there was any place in the world where on a cop's salary a family with 5 kids and a stay at home mom could have lived as well as we did. All the way up until the 80s S.F. was a true economic democracy where it's citizens enjoyed a life of abundance and educational/cultural/economic fluidity unrivaled anywhere.
Okay, well, thank you, thank you, thank you I quess that's what I mean to say.