Poodle Dog Restaurants

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Poodle Dog Restaurants
Poodle Dog, 151 Mason Street.png
Image of Poodle Dog (c. 1915) Mason Street at Eddy Street, San Francisco
Restaurant information
Establishedcirca. 1849 (1849)
Closedcirca. mid–1960 (1960)'s
Other locationsSan Francisco, California, United States

The Poodle Dog Restaurants were a series of French Restaurants in San Francisco, California, spanning from at least 1849 to the mid-1960s. The successive restaurants were mostly unrelated, but each built on the former's success and reputation. [1] [2] During its heyday, the Poodle Dog was the epitome of wealth and opulence in San Francisco, catering to important statesmen, financial leaders, and business tycoons. [3] [4] It also developed a racy reputation for catering to those men's need for a discreet place to meet with their mistresses and ladies of the night. [3] [2] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] More than anything, it was well known for having impressive foods, being labeled as "the best French restaurant in the city," [6] if not the "best dollar dinner on Earth". [4]

Contents

History

Prospectors and early San Francisco

The Poodle Dog Restaurants trace their origin to San Francisco's earliest days as a city. The first iteration of the Poodle Dog appears to have been a California Gold Rush era restaurant that provided inexpensive French cuisine to those seeking their fortune. [3] [10] Historians do not agree on the origin story of the Poodle Dog's name. Indeed, it has been suggested that the name came from the first proprietor's family dog, [1] [10] [11] or that it was named "Poulet D'Or or Poule D'Or which was unpronounceable to the average American", [3] [10] or that a stray poodle known for begging there became the unofficial mascot and the proprietors "named the restaurant after it for good luck". [10] In any event, historians do agree that there was a Poodle Dog restaurant from San Francisco's earliest days. [12]

Poodle Dog at Mason and Eddy, after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Poodle Dog at Mason and Eddy after 1906.png
Poodle Dog at Mason and Eddy, after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
Old Poodle Dog (c. 1908) at 824-826 Eddy Street at Van Ness Old Poodle Dog at 824-826 Eddy Street.png
Old Poodle Dog (c. 1908) at 824–826 Eddy Street at Van Ness

The Poodle Dog quickly became a popular restaurant beloved by San Franciscans. By 1868, it had transitioned away from simple French cooking to fine dining with more extravagant food. [3] The clientele shifted accordingly: "Instead of the raw miner, its patron was the stiff collared banker, the frock-coated judge, the spade-beard lawyer - the Argonaut with a little more culture and greyer hair". [13] The Poodle Dog maintained this level of sophisticated diner until its closing, some 100 years later.

Gilded Age: 1890s through prohibition

The Poodle Dog shifted again from mere fine dining to all-out opulence and luxury by the 1890s. Some say this era saw its "greatest popularity as a rendezvous and a restaurant". [13] Diners could expect 23 courses and an even larger wine selection by the end of the century. [14] The menu reflected this: it had swelled to 17 pages. [7] As for the cooking facilities, the Poodle Dog boasted a "vast wine cellar and vegetable rooms, bottling rooms . . . refrigerators . . . a laundry". [7] Cooks there also enjoyed one of a kind dishwashers and stoves, making it notable not to diners but to chefs as well. [7]

During this era, the Poodle Dog earned its reputation as a "five-storied dome of pleasure". [3] During the lunch hour, it was a "who's who" of famous and powerful businessmen, such as "poets, journalists, physicians, politicians, and luminaries of law". [15] It is said that "the destinies of many important business undertakings was settled at these noon dinners." [16]

The Poodle Dog also had a decidedly more racy reputation in the evenings. It was well known for "its private upstairs dining chambers and love nooks [lending] a sort of Parisian air to the city's nightlife". [17] This reputation was well-documented, and came with an expected level of scandal involving the city's elite, including the mayor of San Francisco. [9]

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake "put an unhappy end" to the gilded days of the Poodle Dog. [15] [18] The restaurant maintained its reputation - both in the dining room and upstairs - during this era, but it was never the same as the gilded era. Finally, Prohibition dealt it the "finishing blow," and the PD closed its doors on April 15, 1922. [15] [8] The proprietors felt that a French restaurant without wine was not worth keeping open.

Later days

The Poodle Dog remained closed until 1933, when Calixte LaLanne, a former proprietor, reopened it. This iteration was called the "Ritz French Restaurant," until his son changed it back to Poodle Dog after Calixte's death in 1943. [18] The restaurant remained open, although not in the same splendor, until it closed for good in the mid-1960s.

Notable restaurateurs

Known locations

Legacy

Crab Louie

Many restaurants, past and present, claim to have invented Crab Louis. [31] Historians agree that Bergez-Frank's Old Poodle Dog has one of the strongest of those claims. [31] Bergez-Frank's originally had a special menu item titled "Crab Leg a la Louis," named for famed restaurateur and co-owner of the Poodle Dog after his death in 1908. [31]

California State Library Foundation Bulletin

The Poodle Dog was recognized with a cover story in the California State Library Foundation's Bulletin in 2006. [32]

References

  1. 1 2 Throop Purdy, Helen (1912). San Francisco: As It Was, As It Is, and How To See It. p. 146.
  2. 1 2 Irwin, Will (1908). The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco. p. 32.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Muscatine, Doris (1963). A Cook's Tour of San Francisco: The Best Restaurants and Their Recipes. p. 62.
  4. 1 2 Irwin, Will (1908). The City That Was: A Requiem of Old San Francisco. p. 33.
  5. ↑ O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. pp. 99, 108.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Peters, Erica J. (2013). San Francisco: A Food Biography. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 115 – via Google Books.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Peters, Erica J. (2013). San Francisco: A Food Biography. p. 116.
  8. 1 2 Woon, Basil (1935). San Francisco and The Golden Empire. p. 96.
  9. 1 2 Guerrero, Susana (2021). "One of San Francisco's Most Famous French Restaurants Ran a Brothel For the City's Elite". SF Gate. Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. p. 107.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Peters, Erica J. (2013). San Francisco: A Food Biography. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 114 – via Google Books.
  12. ↑ Muscatine, Doris (1963). A Cook's Tour of San Francisco: The Best Restaurants and Their Recipes. p. 61.
  13. 1 2 3 O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. p. 108.
  14. ↑ Muscatine, Doris (1963). A Cook's Tour of San Francisco: The Best Restaurants and Their Recipes. p. 63.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. p. 109.
  16. 1 2 Millard, Bailey (1924). A History of The San Francisco Bay Region: History and Biography, Volume 2.
  17. ↑ O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. pp. 99, 107–109.
  18. 1 2 3 Peters, Erica J. (2013). San Francisco: A Food Biography. p. 118.
  19. ↑ Smith, James R. (2005). San Francisco's Lost Landmarks. Quill Driver Books. pp. 176–177. ISBN   978-1-884995-44-6.
  20. 1 2 3 Shields, David S. (October 26, 2017). The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining. University of Chicago Press. pp. 120, 530–531. ISBN   978-0-226-40692-3 – via Google Books.
  21. ↑ "Buys out both Partners". San Francisco Chronicle . October 15, 1879. p. 1. Retrieved September 23, 2024– via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ Smith, James R. (2005). San Francisco's Lost Landmarks. Quill Driver Books. p. 181. ISBN   978-1-884995-44-6 – via Google Books.
  23. 1 2 Chalmers, Claudine (2007). French San Francisco. Arcadia Publishing. p. 19. ISBN   978-0-7385-5584-3.
  24. ↑ Brigouleix, Bernard; Gayral, Michèle (2008). Ces Français qui ont fait l'Amérique (in French). Rocher. p. 320. ISBN   978-2-268-06591-5 – via Google Books.
  25. ↑ O'Connell, Daniel (1891). The Inner Man: Good Things to Eat and Where to Get Them. p. 25.
  26. ↑ Men of the Pacific Coast: Containing Portraits and Biographies of the Professional, Financial and Business Men of California, Oregon and Washington. 1902–1903. Pacific Art Company. 1903. p. 280 – via Google Books.
  27. 1 2 O'Brien, Robert (1948). This Is San Francisco. p. 109.
  28. ↑ Thompson, Ruth; Hanges, Louis (1937). Eating Around San Francisco. p. 45.
  29. ↑ Woon, Basil (1935). San Francisco and The Golden Empire. p. 97.
  30. ↑ "Obituary information for Louis Calixte Lalanne". Daniels Chapel of the Roses Funeral Home and Crematory. September 2018. Retrieved September 23, 2024.
  31. 1 2 3 Borrman, Laura Smith (2018). Iconic San Francisco: Dishes, Drinks, and Desserts. p. 111.
  32. ↑ Morris, M. Patricia (2006). The Old Poodle Dog: State Library Acquires a Manuscript Collection for Famed San Francisco Restaurant, California State Library Foundation Bulletin. pp. 9–11.
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