— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
Andrew Dalton over at Curbed put together a pretty solid guide to the Western Addition:
Q: Local Customs of note:
A: People live in cafes here. Which is great because the beer tends to be cheaper, so we drink a lot of it and everyone is immediately more social and neighborly. Bean Bag Cafe started a $2 happy hour some four years ago (with actual beer! that tastes good!) and it set off price war that's been raging ever since. If you're paying more than two bucks a pint and it's before 8pm, then you're at Nopa and that is way too early to be at Nopa.
Also worth noting is Nemo's comment:
I lived in a great flat on Broderick and Hayes for seven years in the 80s. A block away from what is now NOPA (the restaurant). The NOPA building was actually my laundromat at the time. The best ribs were at DO City Ribs right across the street. They had bullet proof windows inside and would drop your order down into a tray (like old banks).
We used to call the hood Do Valley and Divisadero was the Rue de Do. Unfortunately after I left the name faded. It never caught on. Much better than NOPA though.
Perhaps more exciting than getting food from behind bulletproof glass was their slogan, “eat your ass off.” The legend has it that they had a mural out front that “literally” depicted the slogan. I can only imagine the beautiful monstrosity that building must have been. Anyone have a picture of the place?
Comments (4)
Bean Bag just raised the prices to $3. Insert anti-NOPA/gentrification sentiment here.
I have something important to tell you:
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I like Nemo’s walk down memory lane. I took the 24-Divis through there every day to go to middle school up in Pac Heights (91-93, wow was that really that long ago?) and it was definitely a different world. Popeye’s was by far the high end of the dining spectrum, although I used to try to huff the amazing smells coming out of Brother’s BBQ. Most stores had bars on the windows and loiterers outside. I somehow miss the hubcap shop were Ziryab is now; they had a very interesting display of merchandise on that permastone arch).
Living below Alamo Square in the 80’s…
Jack who ran the little bodega at the corner. He had turrets. When you completed your purchase he would thank you, then burst out with “pussy - PUSSY - P U S S Y!!!!”
The black church that had little old ladies who migrated here from Louisiana in the 40’s who would make epic cakes for the bake sales.
The black farmer who would drive in from god knows where and sell watermelons for a buck out of the back of his pickup.
The old guys who were retired black panthers. Man, did they have stories.
The Fried Chicken place on Haight that served superb product prepared by a 300 lb, black tranny in the kitchen.
And on and on…
But I was thrilled to get out and get away from the roaches and the homies.