A jazz cat, a street cat and other North Beach notables

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

North Beach Journal

The Ernestos: First (and last) annual ‘Best of North Beach’ awards

By Ernest Beyl

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

North Beach Journal

Formidable neighborhood women to remember

By Ernest Beyl

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

Hungry Palate

North Beach Restaurant remains at top of its form

43 years of quality

By Ernest Beyl

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 Journal

Laughing it up

By Ernest Beyl

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

Hungry Palate

Capo’s: A gangster theme restaurant for North Beach

Making pizza you can’t refuse

By Ernest Beyl

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

North Beach Journal

In Banksy’s words: Writing the life of a neighborhood

By Ernest Beyl

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

A & E, Profiles

SFJazz founder and executive artistic director Randall Kline and the transcendent moment

By Ernest Beyl

SFJazz will open the first freestanding building in this country completely devoted to “the sound of surprise.”... Read More

North Beach Journal

Sketches from a North Beach Journal

By Ernest Beyl

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 Journal

Sketches from a North Beach Journal

By Ernest Beyl

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

Back Story

A short history of bordellos in San Francisco, part 3

By Ernest Beyl

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

Back Story

A short history of bordellos in San Francisco, part 2

The madams behind the whole sordid business

By Ernest Beyl

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

Features

Calvin Trillin: Another unlikely hero in the gastronomic trenches

By Ernest Beyl

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

Hungry Palate

Capp’s Corner: A saloonist’s saloon

A local classic with Italian family fare

By Ernest Beyl

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

Back Story

The 58th annual North Beach Festival

By Ernest Beyl

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

Ernest Beyl