Bohemian San Francisco | Page 9

joyous expression were all significant of the time and place. It was Sunday night and the place was Steve Sanguinetti's, with roisterers in full swing and every table filled and dozens of patrons waiting along the walls ready to take each seat as it was emptied. Here were young men and women just returned from their various picnics across the Bay to their one great event of the week--a Sunday dinner at Sanguinetti's.
Over in one corner of the stifling room, on a raised platform, sat two oily and fat negroes, making the place hideous with their ribald songs and the twanging of a guitar and banjo. When, a familiar air was sounded the entire gathering joined in chorus, and when such tunes as "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" came, the place was pandemonium. Yet through it all perfect order was kept by the fat proprietor, his muscular "bouncer" and two policemen stationed at the doors. Noise was rather invited than frowned upon, and the only line drawn regarding conduct was the throwing of bread. Probably Steve did not want it wasted.
It was all free and easy and nobody took offense at anything said or done. In fact if one were squeamish about such things Sanguinetti's was no place for him or her. One found one's self talking and laughing with the people about as if they were old friends. It made no difference how you were dressed, nor how dignified you tried to be, it was all one with the crowd around the tables. If you wished to stay there in comfort you had to be one of them, and dignity had to be left outside or it would make you so uncomfortable that you would carry it out, to an accompaniment of laughter and jeers of the rest of the diners.
So far as eating was concerned that was not one of the considerations when discussing Sanguinetti's. It was a table d'hote dinner served with a bottle of "Dago red," for fifty cents. You gave the waiter a tip of fifteen cents or "two bits" as you felt liberal, and he was satisfied. If you were especially pleased you gave the darkeys ten cents, not because you enjoyed the music, but just "because."
The one merit of Sanguinetti's before the fire was the fact that all the regular customers were unaffected and natural. They came from the factories, canneries, shops, and drays, and after a week of heart-breaking work this was their one relaxation and they enjoyed it to the full. Many people from the residential part of the city, and many visitors at the hotels, went there as a part of slumming trips, but the real sentiment was expressed by the young girl when she sang out "Is everybody happy?"
Sanguinetti still has his restaurant, and there is still to be found the perspiring darkeys, playing and singing their impossible music, and a crowd still congregates there, but it is not the old crowd for this, like all things else in San Francisco, has changed, and instead of the old-time assemblage of young men and women whose lack of convention came from their natural environment, there is now a crowd of young and old people who patronize it because they have heard it is "so Bohemian."
Thrifty hotel guides take tourists there and tell them it is "the only real Bohemian restaurant in San Francisco," and when the outlanders see the antics of the people and listen to the ribald jests and bad music of the darkeys, they go back to their hotels and tell with bated breath of one of the most wonderful things they have ever seen, and it is one of the wonderful things of their limited experience.
Among the pre-fire restaurants of note were several Italian places which appealed to the Bohemian spirit through their good cooking and absence of conventionality, together with the inexpensiveness of the dinners. Among these were the Buon Gusto, the Fior d'Italia, La Estrella, Campi's and the Gianduja. Of these Campi's, in Clay street below Sansome, was the most noted, and the primitive style of serving combined with his excellent cooking brought him fame. All of these places, or at least restaurants with these names, are still in existence.
Jule's, the Fly Trap, the St. Germain and the Cosmos laid claim to distinction through their inexpensiveness, up to the time of the fire. All of these names are still to be seen over restaurants and they are still in that class, Jule's, possibly, being better than it was before the fire. A good dinner of seven or eight courses, well cooked and well served, could be had in these places for fifty cents. Lombardi's was of the same type but his price was but twenty-five cents for a course dinner