Tosca would be loaded with these gorgeous ballerinas. When the first defectors came from Russia or when the dancers would come to San Francisco, the girls would stay at Jeannette’s house. They both had a sense of welcoming people and taking them in. The one about her being involved in weapons smuggling during the war…īoz Scaggs (musician): Jeannette and her mother were both refugees, and I think that life was precious to them. _Laurence Fishburn_e (actor): I loved the stories Jeannette would tell about her mom. She said, “You have to buy that bar.” So, my mother’s responsible. Jeanette Etheredge (former owner): My mother said the Tosca was the first bar she came to when she came to America in the early ’50s. So pull up a stool and listen to the famous patrons and no-nonsense Etheredge share some of their Tosca tales. (“Because it is a bar,” emphasizes Friedman.) But what of Etheredge? Though she has “owner emeritus” status, September marks a changing of the guard.
After a three-month renovation, the Tosca reopens this month, serving small and large plates of Italian food by Bloomfield that are meant to go with booze-rather than the other way around.
Friedman, a fan himself, was on a plane the next day. Longtime supporter Sean Penn reached out to restaurateur Ken Friedman and chef April Bloomfield, the team behind New York’s The Spotted Pig, imploring them to save the place. A Hail Mary came from an unlikely source. With such a following, what could go wrong? Well, last year, the landlord issued an eviction notice, claiming that the bar owed more than $100,000 in back rent. She was the real San Francisco treat, taking the likes of Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lauren Hutton under her wing. Thompson to former mayor Willie Brown feel at home. If every great party needs a great host, “the Tosca” had Jeannette Etheredge, a true dame, who bought the bar in 1980 and made everyone from Bono to Hunter S. Nobody hounded you to pay your tab on time. That was Tosca Cafe, a North Beach staple that has been a dimly lit home to everyone from the Beats to Rudolph Nureyev to…Kid Rock? There was no velvet rope, no bottle service-just some ripped-up red vinyl booths and a jukebox playing opera and a vintage espresso machine that barely heated water anymore. Or where the owner would leave the keys with the drummer from Metallica-and tell him to lock up when he’s finished. Imagine a bar where the mayor of San Francisco would chat up Sean Penn and Christopher Hitchens until four in the morning.
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