A show of hands, please: Who remembers where all the old local taverns/bars/dives were? Better yet, who actually patronized them? Anyone?

Possibly the most infamous was the Oak Grove, which one night became an ungodly flaming cocktail and is now a grassy lot under an oak tree. But there was also 2-Me’s on Hilltop (run by a man named Twomey) where a ( Read more... )

It was during the 1970s and early 1980s when a predilection took hold for restaurants to be named after a fictional person, names with little or no association to the actual owners and operators: Ruby Tuesday’s, Tia’s Tex-Mex,  R.J. Monkeyshines,  Applebee’s, and so forth. These sorts of restaurants usually sported a certain sameness -  bar with ( Read more... )

The first time Femme de Joie dined at Brick's, back when it was on Placer Street (in the tiny building now occupied by the wildly popular Wilda's), she was underwhelmed. She and Amico del Signore ordered sandwiches (the exact contents now forgotten) which arrived slathered in a sweet red barbecue sauce that completely obliterated any smoke or grill ( Read more... )

Entrepreneur Jeff Garrett started small: at a tender age he invested his money in the In-Dog-Nito on Hartnell (now Rita's). From there he learned what local folks want: a clean, well-lighted space in which to enjoy well-prepared, classic American dishes with a country and/or western flair. To that end, he's the man responsible for the success of ( Read more... )

America is connected by coffee shops. Yeah, you get to them via freeways and highways, but that’s just a means to an end. They’re everywhere and we use them as markers - “Can you hold it until we get to the Raccoon Spit exit? There’s probably a coffee shop there.” In lonely-night-driving songs, illicit rendezvous are held at all-night coffee shops ( Read more... )

Long ago, when Femme de Joie was a young and innocent child at Shasta College, an older-but-wiser man said to her, “Man, the burgers at Damburger are just like the burgers they had back in the ’30s. They’re salty and greasy and crispy.” There was a certain lascivious tone to his words salty and greasy and crispy.. He paused for reflection, then ( Read more... )

Femme de Joie and Amico del Signore have been enthusiastic fans of KPIG radio for several years after reading about it from a column by Jim Dyar in The Newspaper Of Which We Dare Not Speak Its Name. It was through the PIG that we first got wind of a BBQ joint in San Francisco called Memphis Minnie’s Barbecue Joint and Smokehouse. Being in The City ( Read more... )

Some places have been around forever, so long that you don't even notice them any more. They're just part of the landscape of daily life, like the stop sign, the broken sidewalk, your Uncle Fred. That's probably why it took M. de Joie so long to remember the very existence of Snack Shack. Back in the 1970s, Pere de Joie worked near it and ( Read more... )

Femme de Joie has found people tend to either love Gene's with a passion or despise it with the hatred usually reserved for memories of high-school-cafeteria tuna-on-a-shingle. She recalls one person who described the onion rings as "made from turnips." Personally, M. de Joie enjoys a burger from Gene's now and again and has yet to find a turnip on ( Read more... )

Recently Femme de Joie paid a visit to Bonney's Burgers, and to spare innocent eyes we will put some of the details behind a cut: ( Beware of falling F-bombs ahead. )