Michael Patrick O’Brien–
During a recent visit to San Francisco, my wife and I ate at a century-old restaurant that serves good food but also symbolizes the amazing resilience of the city by the bay.
San Francisco traces its origins to June 1776, when New Spain (part of the Spanish empire) built the Presidio fort and Catholic Franciscan missionaries founded the historic (and still standing) Mission Dolores. Like its namesake St. Francis of Assisi, the city has endured more than its share of suffering.
At various times in the mid-1800s, during the California Gold Rush population boom, massive fires leveled whole parts of the city. One blaze devoured the tent and wooden shanty towns built by the 49ers, the often penniless transplants who arrived in 1849 seeking fame and fortune.
A massive earthquake struck the Bay Area early one April morning in 1906, the deadliest in United States history. Fires broke out everywhere and lasted several days because the quake destroyed much of the firefighting infrastructure. More than 3,000 people died and over 80% of the city was destroyed.
Bad as that earthquake and those fires were, some 15,000 to 20,000 people died from the AIDS virus outbreak in San Francisco during the 1980s and early 1990s. The epidemic devastated an entire generation of young men, leaving a deep and profound scar on the city.
In November 1978, city supervisor Dan White stunned San Francisco when he shot and killed Catholic Mayor George Moscone and then assassinated his fellow supervisor Harvey Milk.
Another 11,000 people in the Bay Area died during the COVID-19 pandemic some five years ago. The pandemic also devastated the city economically.
For almost half of that wild 250 year history, John’s Grill has been serving steak and potatoes—along with chops and tomatoes—almost every day at the same three story restaurant just steps from San Francisco’s Union Square.
We finally made it to the grill for the first time in the Summer of 2026. We’d last visited the city about a dozen years earlier.
Back then, we stayed at the famed St. Francis Hotel right on Union Square, which got its name from the pro-Union rallies held there during the American Civil Wars. The square was bustling with shops, eateries, and tourists during our previous visit.
We noticed a big difference, however, in 2026. Although recovering, San Francisco still shows signs of the pandemic blues. Many storefronts are vacant and boarded up. There are “For Lease” signs everywhere.
From what I have read, the pandemic caused about a 50% retail vacancy rate in the Union Square area. A major mall closed and national retailers like Nordstrom and Disney left the area. Empty office buildings due to remote work did not help much with foot traffic either.
But nearby, John’s Grill has marched on.
It first opened in 1908, just after the terrible 1906 earthquake. John Monaco—the original “John” who co-founded the place—died at age 70 soon after the opening.
Monaco, an immigrant from Switzerland, had worked as a maître d’ at a notorious local saloon destroyed by the 1906 fires. Just after he opened the grill, John died a tragic…and quintessential San Francisco…death. A cable car hit him in 1909.
John’s partner kept the place open for several years, but a family has owned and operated the restaurant for the last six decades. They made it a gathering place for politicians and city power brokers.
And for writers. Pinkerton detective agency employee and noir writer Dashiell Hammett liked the place and had his hero Sam Spade eat there in the famous 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon.
Exercise guru Jack LaLanne was a regular patron too, and the grill named a salad for him. Other famous customers have included Ronald Reagan, Bill Gates, George Lucas, Nancy Pelosi, and Johnny Depp.
The restaurant survived a 1983 fire and a nine month closure for restoration. It has persisted through other economic woes too.
During COVID, the grill closed for six months but reopened for indoor dining in September 2020 on the first day the city lifted pandemic-based restrictions. In one of the first victories of its kind, John’s Grill later got a million dollar settlement against an insurance company that had refused to pay its COVID-related claim.
In the Summer of 2026, we ate in the nostalgic second level dining space dedicated to Hammett’s famous detective novel. The Maltese Falcon room is decorated with classic dark wood, vintage photos, and a replica statue of the black bird from the book and movie.
Adding to the mystery of the place, John’s Maltese Falcon was stolen a few years ago and, perhaps because Hammett’s detective Sam Spade was not there to help find it, never recovered. The grill replaced the bird and so we saw a replica of the original replica.
We sat right below vintage photos from the book and movie, and the relevant excerpt from the novel. It reminded us that Spade had “chops, baked potatoes, [and] sliced tomatoes” there.
We ordered steak (I highly recommend the filet mignon), potatoes (baked, of course), salad, and red wine (obviously, from nearby Napa). All of it was delicious and enhanced by tasteful background music provided by a two man jazz band playing the piano and cello.
Eating at places like John’s Grill is fun for writers like me. In 1997, the American Library Association declared the site a literary landmark.
Like its comfort food, however, the restaurant’s persistent and resilient existence is a ray of hope for all of us.
We need a few tangible reminders that in a world that is changing rapidly—and not always for the better—at least a few good things stay the same.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022. Mike’s new holiday novel, tentatively titled “The Merry Matchmaker Monks,” will be published in time for a future fun Christmas read.
