Downtown San Francisco: 2010

-Old Ship Saloon

The Old Ship Saloon was established in 1851 and located itself near downtown on Pacific and Battery.( Its located right next to an empty lot so parking is super easy.) The saloon came to be after a large storm capsized a ship named the Arkansas. An entrepreneur, Joe Anthony, brought the ship into Yerba Buena cove (that was eventually filled in) and quickly went to work rehabilitating the ship by cutting a hole in the hull and posting a sign out front reading "Gud, Bad, and indifferent spirits sold here! at 25 cents each." over the next few decades the ship would be reconstructed to allow housing above the saloon and operated as a "Shanghai den" where sailors would walk into the bar, get intoxicated and find themselves on far away from home on a voyage across the open see.
Today the saloon has a comfortable environment, modestly priced food and spirits. What I thought was really cool about this place was the old mortar used for the walls and the incredible photos from the early 1900's and artist renderings of the bar before.

Lefty O'douls

Lefty's is one of my favorite locations in San Francisco. It has a huge hall of lots of people, tons and tons of memorabilia from the last 60 years. Lefty's is open 7 days a week 7am til midnight. What really turned me on about this place was loud piano playing in the front. The troubadour was really nice and hilarious. He was call on people for mustaches, provocative looks and dress, and plain old fashion jokes. People gathered around him playing all night, yelling out songs they wanted to here while their partners got drinks and food from the self service line. It was a great place to relax and forget about the week.
Francis Joseph "Lefty" O'doul was a great baseball player who played on various East Coast teams like the Red Socks, Phillies, and Yankees. He came to San Francisco and played and managed the Seals, the Oakland Oaks, and San Diego Padres, coaching stars like Joe DiMaggio. He holds the highest batting average at .349 throughout his career that still holds today. O'Doul became the "Father of Baseball in Japan" as an instructor and goodwill Ambassador, helping develop professional baseball, eventually he landed in the Japanese Hall of Fame in 2002.

Pictures at Lefty O'douls

Top - me and the private corner I found next to the pianist
Next - troubadour entertaining the crowd
Bottom - (left to right) Babe Ruth, Ben Chapman, Ethan Allan, Lefty O'doul, Mayor Walker

Tarantino's and Aliotos

Tarantinos and Aliotos are two Italian seafood restaurants and are located adjacent to each other in what used to be know as little Italy in the early 1900's, although their stories are rather different.
The Tarantinos were a small Italian family that lived in little Italy and belonged to the former Crab Fisherman Protective Association. Two Irishmen ,Gene McAteen and Dan Sweeney, decided to purchase the property on the wharf and bought the Tarantino name to fit with the Italian family neighbors Aliotos, Casagnolas, and the DiMaggio's who were prominent land owning Italian families on the wharf.
Aliotos is a very nice and expensive restaurant next to Tarantino's on wharf 8. It is still family owned and operated to this day. The stairway that leads up to the banquet hall is lined with incredible photos from different generations of the family. Joey Giardello and Joey Lewis, professional boxers, have photos in the restaurant along side that Alioto family.
An interesting invention I found along my journey was the "Aliotos innovation", which was the conversion of wood burning outdoor burners to gas in 1932.

Pictures of Aliotos and Tarantino's

Me at the entrance to Aliotos; Sicilian Flag; Gloria Alioto squaring off with Joey Lewis along side Nunzio Alioto. (one of my favorite pictures ever); Frank Alioto: founder

The Buena Vista

While we were at Aliotos during closing hours we met a kind gentlemen, named Vincent Carningnia, sitting at the bar and asked him a few questions and told him what we were doing. He said that he happened to know the owner of the Buena Vista and they were school mates back in the day. He said that we had to go The Buena Vista before we went home to make our road trip complete. We had to oblige.
The Buena Vista is a quaint cafe on Beach and Hyde exactly two blocks up from wharf 8. Upon entering I knew exactly what to get from the aroma surrounding the building: World Famous Irish Coffee.
This place is very friendly and within 15 seconds of entering and giving the bartender the peace sign, there were two incredible looking, smelling, and tasting Irish Coffees. Probably the best I will ever get to taste and believe me they are everything you are imagining. If you ever make it down to the shop its really hard not to leave without a smile on your face.