It’s always a pleasure to write about friends, and that’s what I’m doing in this column — friends like John Coppola, Bernard Quintana and Fook Fook. I’m a... Read More
This is the first — and probably the last — “Best of North Beach” list I will write. I say probably the last, since my esteemed editor has better judgment than to l... Read More
This North Beach Sketches column is becoming too beefy for my taste. Too many snippets about guys and guy things with only a sidelong glance at North Beach gals, past and present. ... Read More
When a restaurant has been operating for more than 40 years, it must be doing something right. Longevity alone is important in a city like San Francisco, where restaurants open alm... Read More
North Beach has always been a funny place — a haven for comedy and comics. In San Francisco’s early days (and where we now call North Beach was San Francisco), there wa... Read More
Brassy and theatrical Capo’s is a newcomer to the North Beach restaurant scene. And let’s just say up front, it’s not pushing the outer limits of gastronomic exce... Read More
As I scribble this column, I sift through memories, North Beach memories of course. Let’s consider the majesty of the written word. The old neighborhood has seen both flood a... Read More
SFJazz will open the first freestanding building in this country completely devoted to “the sound of surprise.”... Read More
Last month in the first North Beach “Sketches” column, I called the old neighborhood “la dolce vita with an attitude.” Yes, Columbus Avenue — resembles Rome... Read More
North Beach is an enclave of Mediterranean ambience overlaid with energetic and adventurous seekers of the good life. In the North Beach rakish bohemian culture there’s alway... Read More
Lest readers think this series on the bordellos of San Francisco is never-ending, let me assure them that I am running out of madams and this will be the end of it. Unless, by popu... Read More
Our history of the bordellos of San Francisco continues with a few profiles of some of the most fascinating, outrageous, vexing — and do I dare use the word “endearing�... Read More
Those who aren’t aware of essayist, novelist and poet Calvin Trillin and his canonical work on food and the eating thereof are destined to live out their lives in a gastronom... Read More
Capp’s Corner is the North Beach neighborhood’s throwback to a simpler, more salubrious time — a time when devotees chuckled over Herb Caen or Charles McCabe anec... Read More
Today what we call the North Beach Festival began in 1954 as the Upper Grant Avenue Street Fair. It was the progenitor of all the street fairs, festivals and streetscape events tha... Read More