Zuni Café is a

restaurant A restaurant is an establishment that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and Delivery (commerce), food delivery services. Restaurants ...

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, named after the Zuni tribe of indigenous Pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico. It occupies a triangular building on Market Street at the corner of Rose Street.

History

Zuni Café was established in 1979 by Billy West. In 1981 he hired Vince Calcagno as the manager, who became a business partner in 1987. From its inception it was a gay gathering place. Originally there was little money or space for cooking equipment: West grilled steaks illegally in the alley on a Weber grill. After a recommendatiion from

Elizabeth David Elizabeth David ( Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer. In the mid-20th century she strongly influenced the revitalisation of home cookery in her native country and beyond with articles and books about Europea ...

, Zuni Café became popular, and in 1984 Patricia Unterman wrote in a ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'' review: "The open kitchen at last has stoves, grills, counters, and refrigeration. ...There's enough money in the bank to support a good wine list." West and Calcagno hired Judy Rodgers (formerly of

Chez Panisse Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of California cuisine and the farm-to-table movement, opened and owned by Alice Waters. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has de ...

) as head chef in 1987. Calcagno and Rodgers became co-owners; West died in July 1994. Originally a Southwest-themed café, Zuni Café expanded in the 1980s into the adjacent space that had been a cactus shop, and under Rodgers came to serve primarily Italian- and French-inspired cuisine. With her at the helm, Zuni Café won the

James Beard Foundation Award The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media awar ...

for "Best Chef: Pacific" in 2000, "Outstanding Restaurant" in 2003, and "Outstanding Chef" in 2004. Rodgers published ''The Zuni Café Cookbook'' in 2002. Gilbert Pilgram, also formerly of Chez Panisse, became the co-owner when Calcagno retired in 2006. Rodgers died on December 2, 2013. Subsequently the head chef was Nate Norris, who was succeeded in October 2022 by Anne Alvero. In 2018, the restaurant received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Service. On reopening in 2021 after the COVID-19 shutdown, Zuni Café replaced tips with a service charge for diners, applied to the pay of back-of-house workers as well as servers. A ''

'' review in 2024 noted that most long-term servers had chosen not to return because of the resulting reduction in their income, and that as a result service was now more uneven. With gay artist George "Bubba" Geiger, West made the original furniture for Zuni Café, using

mesquite Mesquite is a common name for some plants in the genera ''Neltuma'' and '' Strombocarpa'', which contain over 50 species of spiny, deep-rooted leguminous shrubs and small trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas. Until 2022, these ge ...

trunks and slabs of wood. The restaurant has a piano and a changing exhibition of modern art, both instituted by West. West also added a Parisian-inspired copper bar; since there are no bar stools, Rodgers had a metal rod added for people to prop a foot on. Rodgers also designed the brick oven, used for roasting chicken over wood. The building underwent a

seismic retrofit Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

in 1991, when the interior was given exposed ceiling beams. The restaurant has a secret menu.

References

External links

Official Zuni Café website

Open Table.com listing for Zuni Café
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuni Cafe 1979 establishments in California Market Street (San Francisco) Restaurants in San Francisco French-American culture in San Francisco French restaurants in California Italian-American culture in San Francisco Italian restaurants in California Restaurants established in 1979 James Beard Foundation Award winners