Oh my, how could I forget - HIPPO BURGER!
Courtesy of a Facebook page set up in remembrance:
https://www.facebook.com/LostSanFrancisco/posts/523137121077928
There was even a cookbook. Nobody seems to have ever photographed the giant smiling Happy Hippo that was painted on the side of the building next door, however. You could see it when driving south on Van Ness - a giant ad that needed no words. Everybody knew this iconic image.
The Shadows restaurant was fading, like Bardelli’s, by the late '70’s/early '80’s. Sited at the top of Montgomery St. on Telegraph Hill, next to the Filbert Steps, it had a terrific view towards the Bay Bridge to recommend it, but very little else. The cuisine was German, but it was a more formal upscale place than the Rathskeller.
Ernie’s and Vanessi’s, of course, were great restaurants in their day. Sadly, I never got to go to either so can’t speak to their many merits.
China Moon, opened in the '80’s by food writer Barbara Tropp, had many fans. I never went, my mother found her cooking on the greasy side and disdained it. But Ms. Tropp did much to popularize Chinese cooking, especially for those who had no “in” to eat at those Chinatown restaurants where regulars got favored food over tourists.
Vesuvio’s, hangout for the beatniks, known for its bar. Food was unimportant in those days, to the serious_ drinkers!
For lovers of Middle Eastern food, there was only one place to go in the entire Bay Area: Haig & Haig Grocers, in the Richmond district/SF. They had everything, most of which none of us knew what to do with. But it was fascinating to just go in and look.
Freed Teller & Freed Coffee, on Polk St./SF. Predates Peet’s. Where I first learned what good coffee really was, after a childhood of Maxwell House in a metal percolator. My purchases could still be rung up on their classic old brass cash register. The register didn’t have enough numbers to ring up a pound of coffee that cost more than $9.99, and everybody would joke with the staff about when that day would finally come, and the register would have to be retired!
In the mid-'80’s the St. Francis Hotel reopened its Compass Rose bar after it had been boarded up for decades. In perfect condition were the original, magnificent double-height ceiling and walls, completely paneled in old-growth dark-stained wood. A new club-style decor was installed, all quiet carpeting, luxuriously comfortable club chairs circling around tables where you chose your preferred Russian caviar, toppings, and real buckwheat blini from a cart that circled the room. Only champagne and cocktails were served. It was SF’s first champagne and caviar bar, and far ahead of its time. It would probably be a runaway hit now; in those days I don’t ever remember seeing more five or six tables occupied, mostly all two-tops like ours.
My aunt came to visit us and we stopped in at the Compass Rose for a pre-dinner glass of champagne and some caviar (both her favorites). We ended up canceling our dinner reservation at The Caravansary (another lost gem of great, moderately priced Middle Eastern food), and stayed at the Rose until we closed it down. An entire evening of Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc washing down Russian Sevruga - woohoo!
Incidentally, I have never and WILL NEVER forgive Michael Mina for whitewashing all the wood in the Compass Rose when he took the space over. It was a sin then and a worse sin now. Go into Maxfield’s at the Sheraton and look at that paneling - it was even more beautiful in the Compass Rose, with its Corinthian half-pillars carved from the same wood. It would cost a staggering amount to replicate such old-growth paneling today.
And so ends my Part 2!
