27 - Sunday, July 3, 1988 - North Shore News

San Francisco: city with style

SAN FRANCISCO — Everybody’s favorite city, but that
doesn’t tell you much, so I’! tell you why I like San Fran-

cisco — because it has style.

Its architecture is Spanish old
and Manhattan new and it works;
the cable cars are fun; the bars are
a riot; the people look weil dressed
in a clean-cut Yankee way and,
heck, even the homeless are polite
when they panhandle.

And of course it has elegant
hotels: the Mark Hopkins, the
Fairmont, the St. Francis, and
now, our all-Canadian contender,
the very spiffy Four Seasons Clift,
which delivers the same sort of
dazzling quality served up at our
own Four. Seasons in Vancouver,
although the Clift might see more
women in big, floppy.hats.

If you’re big on Canadian con-.

tent, San Francisco is the place to
go. Canadian Airlines -Interna-

tional (our very own ‘‘Canadian’’) .

takes you there in style and with
free drinks, unlike the U.S. com-
petition, which hits you for
everything — drinks, wine and
headsets for the movies on longer
‘flights.

Up front in the roomy business
class they’re serving French cham-
pagne, while American airlines in-

travel
talk
David Wishart

’ variably dish out California bub-
bly, even in first class.
_ On the ground, the places to
‘drink ‘these. days are Mexican —
Chevys, the Corona Bar and Grill
- and the Cadillac. Bar — ‘although
after a few shooters at the Cadillac
‘the ground can be very elusive.

There is not one place in Van-_

couver. that comes close to a
mediocre San Francisco bar, if
there is such a thing, for the simple
reason that our bars are not long
enough, we have too many
waitresses, and if we. ever got

enough people standing to get any
kind of atmosphere going, the fire
department would shut the place
down.

The newspapers have stylish
writers like Herb Caen, who was
saying of a Columbia University
professor who thinks it’s all right
to say Frisco: “If he stood facing
north one would be able to watch
the sun rise and set by peering
through his ears.’”

The mornings are magic in San
Francisco. You should get out of
your hotel early and ride the cable
car down to the Buena Vista cafe
for breakfast... There, over
breakfast with a gin fizz, you can
contemplate. the view of Alcatraz
and your day.

Anywhere else you might want
the Gray Line, but San Francisco’s
newest hot spot for enterprising
tour guides is our old friend
Haight/Ashbury, the hangout 20
years ago of the flower children
and the hippies, and the way to get
there is by the city’s excellent bus
system.

The flower children are gone to
typing pools and mortgages, leav-

: ing only a few aging hippies heavi-

ly outnumbered by a racially-
mixed. community and moving
upmarket by the month. © -

Along Haight Street, where the
GAP and other Yuppy businesses
have moved in, some of the stores
offer a suggestion of. times go..e
by. Next to the All You Knead
pizza place is the Forever After
bookstore,: and not far away the
Great Expectations bookstore,
which. sells the best T-shirts in
town. One has a cartoon character
of a woman saying: “AI. the
women moaning about
husbands have obviously never had
one.”’

The Taming of the Shoe has
leather sandals like _somebody’s
mother might have worn, just the
thing for the nature food store
across the street. which has a sign:
“People bare-footed enter at their
own risk.”” ;

Tender stomachs. beware. the

_ Cha Cha Cha ‘restaurant, whose

Caribbean/Cajun food is: famous
and fiery.

‘Another. restaurant. next door
warns: ‘‘Microwave oven in use -——
persons wearing pace makers
should not enter,’’ while above

finding»

Photo sub rm tte

THE SAN FRANUiSCO skyline showing, from left, the Bay Bridge, the financial district, Nob Hill and Rus-

sian Hill with Alcatraz in the foreground.

Uganda Liquors a billboard for

Golden Dragon beer urges: ‘‘Share

the spirit of China, y’all.’’

The Haight Street Hair Shop’s
price goes like this — haircut $14,
beard trim $6, sports talk $2.

You den’t have to do a tour, of
course, All it takes is half an hour
one way and the same going back,
maybe with a stop at the Achilles
Hecl pub. The Pork Store Cafe
seemed to be the most popular
place for breakfast, which is San
Francisco’s . favorite meal and
served practically. all day-

It’s nostalgic, it’s intriguing, but
a little sad too; the missing persons
posters are still there, one of them
looking for Stephanie, 21 years
old, from Nevada.

Back downtown, the lobby of
the Clift is another San Francisco,
of Brooks. Brothers . suits and
women in big, floppy hats. One of
them, with a faraway look in her
eyes, asks the concierge about
visiting Haight/Ashbury.

“Certainly, madam, we have
been informed of a new tour....”’ -

At dinner that night in the
elegant Clift restaurant I see her
across the room, She looks 40 and
radiant. She’s been back 20 years
today and I don’t. think she regrets
a thing. ° .

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