Saint John: Breakfast by the Bay
Robert St. John says the places he likes to eat breakfast are often “where old people sit around a table every morning talking about sports and politics.”
Whenever I am in a new city, I always go to the hotel reception and ask: “Where is the best independent breakfast?” I tell them: “I want to go to the place where old people sit around a table every morning to talk about sports and politics.” I never miss an opportunity, it is the place where I go to learn more about a city or a village. It is also where I usually have the most authentic local breakfast.
For the past twenty years, every time I’ve been to San Francisco, I’ve had at least one breakfast at Sears Fine Food. Sears has been around for nearly 90 years, and while it now caters mostly to tourists, I can sit in that dining room and imagine what it looked like in its heyday and appreciate a restaurant business, tourist or not, that’s been around for nearly a century.
Another local restaurant that I always frequent when I’m in town is the R&G Lounge. It’s a great Chinese restaurant right on the edge of Chinatown and I’ve never had a bad meal there. I flew out late last night and checked into the hotel at midnight, so dinner was out. In a few minutes I’ll be heading north to the redwoods on the banks of the Russian River for the next few days, but hopefully when I get back I’ll be able to have lunch at the R&G.
Sears is known for its little Swedish pancakes. I’ve enjoyed them in the past, but I especially enjoy the energy in this place. This morning I arrived early and the dining room was half full with 100% tourists (your columnist in mind) and it was different than my previous visits. This was my first time in town post-Covid and everything feels different. The whole town feels different. I wondered if people visiting my hometown in Mississippi felt the same way about Hattiesburg.
Has Hattiesburg changed since the COVID-19 crisis? For me, we’ve gotten back into the swing of things, and while we’ve lost a lot of independent restaurants in the last three years (including some of my own), I feel like we’ve bounced back like champions. While I may not see the forest because of the pine trees, I hope that’s not the case.
That’s certainly not the feeling I get here in San Francisco. It seems like a veil is falling over the city. Things have changed.
Despite the pandemic’s detrimental effects on the restaurant industry, our restaurant group has emerged stronger, leaner, more organized, and more professional. I had this conversation with someone a few days ago. In times of stress, you have two options: fight or flee. We fought. We continue to fight. Not in the traditional sense. We fought to get a little better every day. We started communicating our core values: “Hospitality, Quality, Consistency, Cleanliness, and Community.” And we do our best to live our mission: “To provide exceptional guest experiences through fanatical hospitality from start to finish,” every moment.
I had a set of core values and a mission for 30 years before the pandemic, but I was a terrible leader and failed to consistently communicate those values to our team and leadership. So I guess when I reflect on it, the pandemic, as terrible as it was, was also a wake-up call for me. It re-energized me and rekindled my passion for the restaurant business. We’re running at full speed these days. We still have problems and challenges, but we’re using our mission and values as a guidepost and doing our best to live in the solution.
Back to the first meal of the day. There’s something about eating breakfast that compels me to eat breakfast. It’s been that way forever. Seriously, forever. I can probably count on two hands the number of times I’ve missed breakfast in the last 50 years. Even though the misses are so rare, I only have one hand. I never really miss breakfast.
Even after the late flight last night, I had this compulsive urge to eat breakfast early this morning and I got up and ate a meal before heading back to the hotel to go back to bed.
The bill for breakfast for one at Sears was $50 ($60 with tip). Things have definitely changed in this city. This isn’t a Four Seasons breakfast, this is a community cafe in the heart of downtown San Francisco. To be clear, this isn’t big-city price shock for the boy from south Mississippi. In the past month, I’ve had breakfasts in Dallas, Chicago, Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Orleans. Nothing came close to that price. Four people could have breakfast at our Hattiesburg community cafe, The Midtowner, for that price.
Was a Sears breakfast worth $60? No. Would I go back? Probably. It’s the curse of a restaurateur. I love this job. I’m a student of catering. I eat, sleep, and breathe this job. But now I’m ready to head north to the redwoods for a few days to recharge my batteries.
I hope I’m wrong about how I view San Francisco. It’s always been one of the great restaurant cities in America. Maybe they’ll start living in the solution.
Ahead.
#####
Recipe of the Week: RSJ’s Cheesy Garlic Oatmeal
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp bacon fat or oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups of milk
2 cups chicken broth
1 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon Creole seasoning
1 teaspoon hot sauce
8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
4 oz cream cheese
INSTRUCTIONS
Melt bacon fat in a 1 1/2-quart saucepan over low heat. Add garlic and salt and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, being careful not to brown the garlic. Add milk and broth and increase heat to high. Bring to a boil and slowly pour in grits. Reduce heat and cook grits for 15 minutes, stirring often.
Add remaining ingredients and stir until cheeses are melted. Serve immediately.
Yield: eight servings
— Article credit to Robert St. John, for the Magnolia Tribune —
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