Work's been boring. I find myself fantasizing about taking another 6 weeks off, but now I'm feeling a lot stronger and I've come to terms with a lot of my new lifestyle bullshit so I think it'd be more prolific in the writing sense than it was just this last time. But alas, I'm out of vacation and they let us loose next for Thanksgiving. Then Xmas week.
I measure out my life in vacation days. I'm trying to stop doing that.
I've been spending time at Grandma's Tavern on Taraval lately. They serve me my 3 glasses of Merlot. I watched the World Series there and I check out Monday night football sometimes. They're a good bunch of people at Grandma's, dive dwellers, with the occasional Hipster herd that floats in for some pool and martinis. The bartenders are all nice (to me anyway). Dick owns the place and between him and some of the other old time Sunset crew who seem to live there, they know pretty much every bar in the Sunset back to when they were growing up out here in the land of the fog.
Grandmas was originally on Noreiga, where the Eagles Drift In is now, between 20th and 19th. Dick came over to Taraval when the Philipino owner's son came in one night when the bar was open and decided that they weren't charging enough rent since it was obvious to him that Grandmas was making money hand over fist. Dick is classic old school Sunset. He tells it like he sees it and you pretty much know where you're at with him. All the old timers make no amends for being entirely un-PC and letting you know what nationality it was who did what when and where. It's refreshing, but sometimes I find myself with my jaw dropping then laughing and thinking, did he *really* just say that.
The building that Grandma's is in was the Blue Crystal in the 1920s, when there were more bars out here. Taraval was in the center of the Parkside Subdivision that was named Parkside because most people thought of sand dunes and desolation. The Twin Peaks Tunnel that goes beneath the mountain at the Castro and comes out at West Portal was opened in 1918. That street car line opened up the commerce strip of West Portal and Taraval. The Parkside Theater is in the block above Grandmas and there's a Copy Central there that used to be called the Auld Saud and before that Panama Central and before that the Spinning Wheel.
Farther down Taraval is the Dragon Lounge where a lot of the cops from the Parkside station hangout. That bar used to be called Faheys, and had the slogan "Where the elite meet". I moved out here when it was still Faheys, now they serve a lot of frou frou drinks, but the vibe is still chill and they've got a nice pool table.
All the way down Taraval is the Rip Tide and they allow dogs in, so I took Sailor there when he was just a small boy a year ago. I need to get back there. It's around 47th and evidently it was owned by some brothers who were always getting into trouble back before its current incarnation when it was called the SandBar. Before that, it was called the OarHouse and that name goes way back. They countered Fahey's slogan "Where the elite meet" with "Where the debris meets the Sea". This may well be the western most bar in the City.
Between Faheys at like 25th and the Rip Tide all the way down at the ocean is the Four Deuces. It was called that when I moved out here, then it was taken over and renovated and renamed the Old Rouge for a while, but it's back to being called the Four Deuces again. That bar is at 34th and evidently the name, the Four Deuces comes from the fact that the owner's original bar was at 2222 Irving.
Those are my favorite Sunset dive bars. If you take the L all the way to the end of Taraval, past the Rip Tide, to where it turns to go to the Zoo, there is a large Synagogue there called B’nai Emunah. Evidently that building used to be a large bar called the Sand Dunes and they had go-go dancers in cages from the late 60s to about 1975 when the Synagogue moved in. I thought that was pretty funny.
Other bars of note out in the Sunset are Club Scirroco, and I'm not sure that's still around. I used to go there to eat the spaghetti in the crock pot and hang out with some cool people. It was on Judah and 20 something I think. There was an altercation one night where some Asian gangbangers came in, caused trouble and were told to leave. They returned later and shot up the place, killing one innocent person. I saw the fliers around the Sunset for a long time, offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of the killers. Damn shame.
There's Sam McQuires at Noriega and 45th, just up from the Safeway in that 3 or four blocks of little Chinatown. It is an Irish bar and has been for a long time evidently. I heard it was originally Antons, then Rodney's Fishbowl, then the owner wanted it to sound more Irish in the 70s so he named it O'Freethy's. Then it was McCarthys. When I moved out here it had been renamed Playland and there were photos of Laughing Sal in there. Its current incarnation is Sam McQuires.
And at the end of Judah, probably the westernmost Bar in the City (in a close race with the RipTide) is the Pittsburg Pub. This place was called the Reef before and evidently that end of Judah had a bunch of bars at one time, the Redmill, the Seagull, The Gables. And there was something called Slots at the Beach. And Playland wasn't too far from there...
I try to make it to all the bars in my neighborhood. Someone dropped off a book called "Dice Bars of San Francisco" at Grandmas and I was reading it the other day. None of this came from that, it came from the regulars at Grandmas, and I searched for that book and couldn't find it online. I'd recommend it if I could find it. I *can* recommend Lorrie Ungarretti's book San Francisco's Sunset District for some cool photos of this neighborhood.
We'll stick around until the landlord kicks us out. We never know when that'll be. Our rent is so cheap that we can deal with the "stuck in the 1950s" reality of the Sunset. We can deal with the frozen fog and the rain that comes in off the ocean. Its nice to be able to always hear the waves whenever you take the time to listen for them.
And if I ever get 86'd from a bar, there's always another one just up the street
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_District,_San_Francisco,_California
http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/s/streetNaming.html
http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/articles/c/chanSunsetDistr.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks_Tunnel
http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=32356625
http://www.yelp.com/biz/jRy3Zwbe4V1JqWVoQ_GIkw
http://www.amazon.com/Franciscos-Sunset-District-Images-America/dp/0738528625
*Ali Baba* Alexandra Davies
Mon, November 20, 2006 - 1:09 PM
Don't forget the Western Neighborhoods Project--they've got some cool old photos and info.
There was a nice pic in the Sunset Beacon a few weeks ago [?] with a pic of GGpark and surrounds from 100+ years ago, around world fair time. I kept it.
We were weary of the Four Deuces for awhile, since you can't see in from the outside--but it was chill when we checked it out. Mostly just stay home and drink with the roommates in comfort--much cheaper, and for us ladies, the security of knowing the bathroom won't be nasty is always nice. ;P
[not that I remember any particularly nasty Sunset toilets, but ya never know with dive bar type places] ;S
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