Eats and Beers

Rite Spot Cafe Backhandedly Makes NY Times' 10 Favorite SF Bars List

In an obvious attempt to gin up their alt cred, the New York Times recently swung through the Mission during an otherwise “old news” San Francisco bar crawl. (Unless you haven't heard of Vesuvio and Tosca, in which case it is most definitely new news.)  The result?  Rite Spot, a beloved but thankfully sparsely trafficked bar, made their favorites list.  And their enthusiasm jumped off the page:

Rite Spot Cafe looks like a white tablecloth Italian restaurant about to breathe its last.

Normally I'd criticize them for this sorry observation, but if anyone knows anything about having one foot in the grave, it's The Times.

Does this mean fancy, borderline-discerning Times readers will start flocking to an our favorite Italian restaurant that serves $4 whiskey shots?  Is Rite Spot over? (Also, did I really just link to a clip from Portlandia? Can someone start a Change.org petition to have me banned from life?)  We can only hope not.

[via Grub Street | Photo by Ariel Dovas]

Alcohol Claims Lives of 50% of Curry Up's Windows

Curry Up Now has been blinding Valencia passersby with their ample lighting for three weeks now, and they've already endured two instances of “drunk fools” making a deconstructed knuckle/glass fusion plate with their front window.  The chain restaurant seems satisfied with blaming boozed up hooligans with the destruction, but we can't help but think if they've served one to many vegetarians meat.

[Thanks for the tip, JM!]

Mission Beach Cafe Not Paying Their Employees?

Days after the neighborhood was rocked by news that Mission Beach Cafe's compostable forks have tendency to break, we couldn't help but notice reports that they had shut down “until further notice.”  Oddly, their pastry case was full and presumably safe for affluent human consumption, and it seems really unlikely that anyone would close a restaurant on account of defective greenwave.

So what was really behind the closure?  They told Eater that it was because of a “gas leak”, which strikes us as made up, given the lack of Twitter freak-out and the fact they couldn't pin down a reopening date.  And there are two neighbors claiming on Twitter that the staff “walked out” because “they didn't get paid.”

It's curious that a popular restaurant with near-constant lines out the door and $15 huevos rancheros on the menu would be struggling to pay their kitchen staff (or, worse, deliberately not doing so).  Then again, it's all a rumor.

For now, they're back open—their gas leak is 'fixed'.  We'll update if we hear more.

[Photo by dvtdl?]

Gestalt Debuts Arsenal of Pinball Machines

When I was up in Seattle for a long weekend recently, I inadvertently squandered far too many hours in a flawlessly shitty dive by the name of Shorty's.  For those of you that are unfamiliar, Shorty's has seemed to amass a Zeitgeist-like popularity up there, and for good reason: its walls are lined with arcade games and amusement park oddities, and they have an entire back room dedicated to pinball (15 machines in all). Plus, drinks are priced the way drinks should be priced (cheap) and they serve above gas station-quality hot dogs.  You know, the stuff good bars are made of.

So when I say I “squandered” too many hours there, that's not to say that Shorty's wasn't worth the time, because it most certainly was and is.  But it was my first time ever in Seattle and I had planned on seeing as much as I could, not blowing the better part of a Friday night feeding quarters to decades-old machines in the mixed company of yuppies and drug addicts.  So when I went to cash my second ten dollar bill in for quarters, I couldn't help but feel my attraction to this place was less about what Shorty's does well, but more about what San Francisco doesn't do at all.

For all the things we get right, our bars have become awfully dull and monotonous.  The industry spends so much time differentiating between cocktail menus and light fixtures that bar owners seemed to forget how to make their places fun.  Besides ordering sillypants drinks like a “gently bound”, we're lucky if a bar has anything besides a single pool table/pinball machine, (internet) jukebox, and an occasionally functional ATM.  Darts?  Hardly.  Events? Rarely. Mini-golf course?  Forget it.

So as that Friday night in Shorty's grew old and my index fingers tired, I got the most serendipitously perfect text from my friend Erika: the above photo with the message, “Gestalt debuted an arsenal of pinball machines. 5 total.”

Fuck. Yes.

Now, obviously, Gestalt isn't Shorty's.  At least not yet.  But, they sell cheap beer and sausages, which is basically an upscale take on the hot dog, and are making a legitimate attempt to open a mini-arcade in a bar.  Plus, all their equipment actually works, which is more rare than you'd think in this town.

As the bartender told me on my third visit in two weeks, “We're hoping Gestalt becomes a place people come to play games.”  Then he got someone to cover the bar so he could indulge in a round on Funhouse.

So far, the response to the shift has been so strong that they're already looking for more games to fill the place with.  And let's hope it keeps that way, if only so the next time I'm in Seattle I can stand in line for 2 hours at the first ever Starbucks or something.

The History of SF Bars Through Vintage Matchbooks

We're big fans of aging bar memorabilia here at Uptown Almanac.  And while we've explored many digital ways to look back, there are still a few resources that have slipped past us.  One of those is this thorough and well-preserved archive of 500+ matchbooks from years past.  Tuffy, Pop's bar manager, fills us in on the find:

Pop's 10 year anniversary is coming up and I was trying to find some old pics and I came across a Flickr set of old SF matchbooks. Pretty cool to go through. I don't know the exact dates of most of these, but they probably range from the 40's-60's.  Here are some other interesting ones I found:

  • I found a matchbook for 2830 24th for a bar called “Dante's Inferno” — that was most recently the World Pioneer Video.
  • There used to be a bar at 2830 24th between Bryant and Florida called the Green Lantern -  26oz beer $0.10!

  • A little further up in Noe on 24th—The Dubliner used to be the Valley Cavern (Sidenote: the Google Map for that address is pretty good!)

Tuffy's finds sure are choice.  Here are a few more:

A matchbook for the long-defunct San Francisco Baseball Club outside of Seals' Stadium and another for the almost equally long-defunct La Rondalla.

Art & Charlie's previously occupied what is now Latin American Club, and Blue Bird Cafe was either at the site of El Trebol or in the row of buildings that burned down in the 60's, making the US Bank Building's parking lot.

You should already be plenty aware of these two bars…

Bernal Club at the foot of Bernal's south slope advised patrons to “have fun while you're still in the pink” and a waffle house in SOMA would turn you into a starved horse, apparently.


Finally, a bunch of fancy (fancy!) places sprung to have art printed right on the matches themselves.

Anyway, take a look at the entire collection yourself.  And should you want to celebrate Pop's 10 year anniversary, swing by 24th and York on March 23rd for “free beer and stuff” (including, we're sure, Pop's newest matchbooks).

(Thanks, Tuffy!) [All Scans by ussiwojima]

New Neighborhood Grocer Will Be Just Like Bi-Rite, Only, Like, Convenient and Stuff

Taking this whole “slow food” thing a bit too literally, the folks behind Local Mission Market are half a year past their originally-planned opening date—and their forthcoming 22nd and Harrison market is still enshrouded in plywood.  But they're nevertheless working hard on opening, and knowing better than to let a fresh plate of foodie buzz go cold, they laid out exactly how the future of Mission District markets will look to the critical eye of The Weekly:

How will the store be laid out?

It's going to be a full-service grocery store. There will be a produce section, a butcher, a fishmonger, and cheesemonger, all from the same sources we use at Local Mission Eatery and Local's Corner. A bulk section, wine and beer (if we get the permits), candies, brittles, dried fruits and local nuts. Everything you would expect to find at a European grocery store, we'll have here. Tomato sauce, apple sauce, ketchup, mustard, pasta, crackers, breads — all house-made from scratch, just like we do at the restaurants.

What is going to differentiate you from the other stores and markets around town?

From the initial concept, it was clear that we needed to make this convenient. Bi-Rite is one of the great grocers in the country, but it's hard to shop at Bi-Rite. We're not going to have more parking, so how can we make it easier to buy the food that we want to get to people? We are going to have an online web store that will make it easier for people to buy what they need. It will reflect what is in stock, and we'll have a pickup area to make it more convenient.

Oh man, just the other day I was in Bi-Rite dropping a small fortune on clementines and I was all, “Damn, this would be so much easier if I could order these with my phone in Dolores Park and pick 'em up at will call so I could ensure they don't sell out before I walk half a block.”  Great minds!

[SF Weekly | Photo by Nat]

Lights On At La Rondalla

La Rondalla has been saying they're going to reopen “any day now” for the past million years, so I don't know if this is a sign that they're actually going to open.  But electricity is flowing!  Perhaps pitcher-sized shitshows aren't far behind?

Mexican Fernet: A New Way to Melt Your Face

Fernet is San Francisco's ultimate meme.  Most move here having never heard of it, only to have a newfound friend order them a shot and watch their face curdle upon impact. And yet, miraculously, most snarl “I like it!” after swallowing their revulsion and go on to order it again and again.

It's a beautifully foul tradition, really.

But like most memes, it has to keep developing or risk losing the interest of its most flighty fans.  So, following on the imported success of Mexican Coke, some San Franciscans are now importing Mexican Fernet for those of you bored of the commonalty of Fernet-Branca.

CHOW's John Birdsall has the marketing material-ready backstory on Fernet-Vallet, discovered in some edgy Guadalajara taverna “where tourists rarely go” and conveniently imported to the safe confines of your favorite mixologist hang-out:

Epic saga short, [Jake Lustig of Haas Brothers importers] eventually persuaded the Vallet family to allow him to import Fernet-Vallet, along with their angostura bitters. The Vallets have distilled Fernet since the 1860s, when Napoleon III was trying to make Mexico a protectorate of France’s colonial empire. Fernet-Vallet arrived here last summer, and it’s started to percolate up through cocktail bars in New York. It’s caught the attention of a subset of LA mixologists, guys, Lustig says, “interested in developing Latin cocktails beyond the margarita and the daiquiri.” I noticed Mexican Fernet a couple weeks ago on the menu of little Nido in Oakland, California, where it’s set up as a shot with a beer.

Of course, it's more than mixologist droolings.  As Birdsall notes, “Vallet is smoother than Branca, lacks the latter’s blast of peppermint oil and breathes baking spice, though it's just as antiseptically bitter.”  And we're sure that smoothness will be welcome relief to the many left reeling in shock by the taste of Branca, although this blogger has always found the accompanying jolt of consciousness that Fernet provides after a hard night of alcohol guzzling to be a pleasing side-effect.

Anyway, if Mexican Fernet is found in the Mission (or elsewhere in San Francisco, I guess), do let us know.  We're eager to shove some in our faces.

[CHOW, via Grub Street]

Polk Gulch's Playland Takes Over Jack's, Our Beloved Karaoke Shithole

Jack's Club, the once beloved karaoke dive has been on the decline for some time now.  After instituting a rather sketchy cover “donation” and raising drink prices, DJ Purple, the bar's spirit animal, left for better lubricated pastures.  The bar hired some scabs, but the karaoke experience was never quite the same and the crowds rightfully trickled off.

And that's when they stopped selling mini-pitchers of Busch.

So it came to little surprise to hear over the fall that Jack's—and the entire building along with it—was sold and subsequently closed on the New Year.  Many had hoped the new owners would breathe some life into the place without changing its fucked flavor, but those hopes are looking particularly grim as UA reader Jackoff tips us off that the new owners are none other than Polk Gulch's Playland.

Playland, of course, is a bar that neither you—the dear reader—nor I have ever stepped foot in, so perhaps it's unfair to preemptively write-off whatever is to come.  But considering Playland is a nightclub and “whimsical cocktail bar” that caters to the rotten Polk Gulch crowd, the future is suspect.

That said, Playland offers $200 Jameson bottle service, so I'm sure they'll fit right in.

Thing That Valencia Street Totally Does Not Need Is Now Coming To Valencia Street!

This sign has been up for a while so it isn't exactly new “news,” but another Indian restaurant on Valencia, are you fucking kidding me? We already have Udupi Palace, Aslam's Roti, Dosa, Gajalee and Amber Dhara all within a 6 block stretch on Valencia. Not to mention Pakwan on 16th, Alhamra on 16th, and probably a whole lot more in other parts of the Mission that we're forgetting. 

To be fair, all these Indian restaurants boast a slightly different angle despite basically serving the same cuisine. Udupi is vegetarian. Dosa is a little higher end and Amber Dhara looks like some type of 1980's coke club so who knows whats up with that. Pakwan is actually Pakistani. From the looks of it, this new spot will be serving up Indian street food which is probably a bit different. But still, thats a lot of Indian joints in a fairly small area, right? Is the Mission turning in to Little Dehli? Or better yet, is the Mission turning into the Tenderloin?!

… and dont even get us started on the number of taquerias around here. 

[PS: For lols, check out Curry Up Now's sexy, naughty menu of food that will definitely give you explosive diahrrea]

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