It seems like, every week, San Francisco is graced with a shiny new restaurant opening — well, of a certain kind, anyway. Rarely is it a place for a broke couple or a family or four to eat on a budget. Mostly, it’s a string of ambitious, immaculately decorated eateries.
I think of Tadaima, a lovely little Japanese cafe in the Mission that asks $14 for a petite egg salad sandwich. At buzzy Elena’s Mexican Restaurant in West Portal, big crowds seek the privilege of a $26 plate of beef enchiladas. I recently groaned while strolling past Fisch & Flore, a transformation of Castro’s legendary Cafe Flore that has booted affordable brunches in favor of pricey small plates, including a $23 tomato salad.
I understand the pressure of living wages, rent, and (absurd) city fees, all for a business with some of the lowest profit margins in the hospitality sector. But what happens when diners crave a culinary counterculture?
I think of one place: Tommy’s Joynt.
The restaurant at 1101 Geary Blvd. makes an impression before you even step inside, with an exterior lacquered in shades of blue and a hand-painted mural in vintage script. Head in under the neon sign and through the door, and you’re suddenly ensconced in ephemera and treasures — signs, flyers, taxidermy, stained-glass lamps, worldly tchotchkes, and every form of beer memorabilia you can think of.
The ambiance is pure maximalism, with a tinge of Western exotica. It stands in stark contrast to the almost cafeteria-style food: simple, hearty fare for the masses. Diners sidle up to the carving station and pick one of their slow-roasted meats, either in sandwich or dinner-plate form. The most popular is beef brisket, cooked until it falls apart like pot roast, but Tommy’s also offers pastrami, corned beef, ham, turkey, and “round of beef” (aka roast beef.)
This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an aesthetic meal. The plate comes with your pick of two sides. I usually opt for mashed potatoes and gravy and steamed vegetables that look and taste exactly like what I got in a public school cafeteria. The sweet and smoky baked beans or simple side salad may be a better pick for most, but to me, those overcooked green beans represent something special about Tommy’s: It taps into my childlike nostalgia for simplicity over refinement, a messy plate of meat and potatoes scarfed down in a space that has more history than most San Francisco restaurants combined.
Tommy’s was founded by its namesake, Tommy Harris, a radio man and future city parks commissioner who decided to build a spot for late-night eats and 100 different kinds of beer, inspired in part by the humble carveries in “Skid Row” — a stretch of Howard Street in SoMa that was once home to a swath of the city’s down-and-out.
“Skid Row was where you used to have to go for a sandwich that was carved in front of you. Just brought it uptown and gave it showmanship and it started to mushroom into the hofbrau idea,” Harris said in a 1971 interview.
The frenetic decor came from a “crazy old decorator with a beard” who would show up at 2 in the morning, Harris said. And Tommy’s now-famous buffalo stew was always kind of a gimmick, too: Travelers to the West had a fascination with the American bison, and Harris had a friend in Wyoming who offered bison meat.
The restaurant is today owned by Chris Henry, a local restaurateur with two spots in Sausalito and Santa Barbara. He’s pledged to not make any changes, and appears to have kept his word so far. That buffalo stew is still on the menu, served over white rice to pick up the rich, brick-hued sauce.
I learned about Tommy’s years before I moved to the city, thanks to skateboarder Andy Roy. In a much-viewed Vice video, Roy guides the viewer through the city, showing off his colorful neighbors in a Tenderloin SRO, spooking yuppies by yelling at them from a car, and splurging on a hefty plate of sliced brisket and mashed potatoes at Tommy’s.
“I got no teeth, I barely got any teeth, and this one’s ready to come out,” he says, grinning wide while wobbling a molar with his fingers. “This meat’s so soft and good that it melts right in my mouth.”
Nearly a decade later, the brisket is now my personal favorite — although the carved turkey, available year-round, makes for a heck of a Thanksgiving meal. I’m a little less enthusiastic about the round of beef, a notoriously tough cut that can’t quite shed its chewiness, despite a slow roast. If you do choose the beef, it’s worth being discerning when the carving knife comes out — ask for the rosy interior, not the well-done outer ring that comes with a mandatory jaw workout. A ladle of jus, laced with the tang of Worcestershire sauce, does wonders for the flavor (though I would personally request a scoop of Tommy’s gravy, instead).
The magic here is the generosity: A full plate with 8 ounces of meat is $18, though I swear they give far more than that. A more reasonable play is the “slim” portion of 5 ounces, just $13.50. The sandwiches come in a variety of sizes, although the classic, for $10, is more than enough. Come at lunch if you want to snag one of the daily specials, including the stellar braised oxtails over noodles or the huge turkey wings served with rice. And then there’s the house special spaghetti and meatballs — a fat portion you can split into multiple meals for just $15.
There is no pretension at Tommy’s, and it’s a huge reason why the hofbrau attracts one of the most diverse crowds of any San Francisco dining room. Across multiple visits, I saw white-collar workers in $300 Arcteryx jackets lining up next to folks from the Tenderloin and Bay Area oldheads decked out in Niners gear.
In a comically anachronistic turn of events, I even saw a guy wander in and ask the bartender to call a cab for him. Based on her unfazed response, this seemed like a regular thing. Is Tommy’s quietly a taxi dispatch hub? Or just frozen in amber, blessed to be timeless forever?
You won’t find 100 beers being served anymore, but that’s about all that’s changed since this place opened. I’ve heard people say that Tommy’s is a love-it-or-hate-it joint. I prefer to think of it as a living museum — one that’s remained afloat in an increasingly unaffordable city, beloved precisely because of its earnest, priced-right mediocrity.
Tommy’s Joynt will never serve the best food in San Francisco. That’s exactly why it needs to stay.
