Isadore Gomez (died June 21, 1944, in Alameda, California, at the age of 68) was a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

immigrant, chef and restaurateur in the North Beach neighborhood of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. In 1943, he was recognized by ''LIFE'' magazine as one of San Francisco's more colorful characters. Gomez left his home in Portugal when he was 18 and made his way to San Francisco. According to his obituary, he arrived in the city penniless, and "friends said his unrecorded charities had kept him that way". He landed his first job as a "swamper" in a local gin-joint on the infamous Barbary Coast. He managed to save enough to buy a small bar at 848 Pacific Avenue. During Prohibition, with his Isadore Gomez' Café, he became known as the city's most beloved violator of the

Volstead Act The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...

. In 1933, he served a 30-day jail term for bootlegging. Ten years later, in February 1943, Gomez received a presidential pardon. One of Gomez's great fans was the Armenian-American writer

William Saroyan William Saroyan (; August 31, 1908 – May 18, 1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940, and in 1943 won the Academy Award for Best Story for the film ''T ...

. His famous play ''

The Time of Your Life ''The Time of Your Life'' is a 1939 five-act play by American playwright William Saroyan. The play is the first drama to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play opened on Broadway in 1939. Cha ...

'' is about Gomez and is set at Izzy's saloon. Saroyan wrote in his journals that Gomez's place was downtown, "not far from the old Montgomery block, across from the firehouse at First and Pacific". He went on to write: Izzy's saloon was demolished in 1952. There are currently two steakhouses in the San Francisco Bay Area under the same ownership named after Izzy.

References

Notes

* "San Francisco"; photographic essay. (July 12, 1943). ''

LIFE Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'', p. 78.

External links

*
About Izzy Gomez
on the website of Izzy's Steaks and Chops {{DEFAULTSORT:Gomez, Izzy Chefs from California American restaurateurs Portuguese emigrants to the United States Businesspeople from San Francisco Cuisine of the San Francisco Bay Area History of San Francisco 1870s births 1944 deaths Chefs from San Francisco