Eating Out in San Francisco

Writing about Jim Cosgrave reminded me of a social activity that we participated in during the time I was working in San Francisco. At the time I was transferred from southern California in 1946, two other Shell engineers were transferred at the same time. We were together in the training program that the engineering department put all new engineers through on their arrival. Jim Cosgrave was working also in San Francisco, only a few blocks from the Shell building where we were, at the local office of McGraw-Hill. Somehow or other the four of us adopted the practice of getting together on Friday evenings after work, selecting one of the noted San Francisco restaurants as a place for dinner together and then taking in a movie afterward if one appealed to us.

I suppose the year or two that this went on that we sampled all the well-known restaurants of the period. I cam remember only a few names now — the Blue Fox, the Shadows (Nob Hill), Cairo’s — but there were many more. Once we visited Lupo’s Pizzeria, whose specialty was of course pizza (but it was at a time when pizza was just a name on an Italian menu, not a name in every town or city in the country). At one of the restaurants we had banana fritters for dessert; it was the first time I had had them. Later after I was married to Jean I found out that she grew up with them — her mother often served them for breakfast. All during our married life Jean has them for breakfast occasionally (when she has a supply of over-ripe bananas on hand; she says that over-ripe fruit are needed).

As to the theaters we visited I only recall the Fox theater in San Francisco, a magnificent and grand structure that was regrettably torn down as decade or more ago. Its ornate interior was as far a cry from present-day theaters as the Taj Mahal is form the Webster County courthouse.

While I am on the subject of San Francisco restaurants I must not fail to mention Adolph Wilke’s Business Men’s Lunch. This establishment was located just across Bush Street from the Shell building, in the same block. The service was cafeteria style and the single line of patrons often stretched well out onto the sidewalk during the busy noontime period. This was no deterrent to a potential experienced eater however, who was well aware that the line was the fastest moving line ever in existence, bar none. A person at the tag end of the long line outside the restaurant could well anticipate that he would in five minutes be through the cafeteria line and paying his check to Adolph Wilke, the proprietor in person. Wilke was the fastest cashier I have ever seen, though “messy.” The floor around the cash register was always littered with small coins that his flying hands had let go of. Stacked next to the register were appropriate collections of bills for making change for the 5, 10, or 20 dollar checks that the patrons tendered Mr. Wilke. He was open only for lunch (perhaps breakfast, I don’t know) but I never at there then.

The Business Men’s Lunch is no more. Not long after my work at Shell took me to Emeryville. The building in which the restaurant was located was torn down for a more imposing and modern edifice. A colorless replacement for a notable institution. I think Wilke called it a day and went out of business.