A historic chophouse with a fishy past
Sam’s is one of the old staples in the financial district, an out-of-the-way “in” joint for brokers, agents, publishers and financiers—primarily men—who have just enough time for a an oyster cocktail, a minute steak, and a tiramisu. The menu claims this is the fifth-oldest restaurant in the country. There’s no sawdust on the floor, but there might as well be; Sam’s is an old-fashioned chophouse with dark wooden booths and waiters in black tie with white napkins hanging from their forearms like fresh laundry. They’re mostly gray-haired men, much like the customers, dashing up and down the floors with Sam’s signature dishes, petrale and rex sole, and sand crabs.
Sam’s is on the corner of Bush Street and Belden Place. It opened in 1867 at the will of an Irish native named Michael Bolan Moraghan, who started a huge oyster farm in the South Bay, in an area the size of San Francisco. In 1900 the farm was giving up more than 2.5 million pounds of oyster meat a year. And that despite the likes of Jack London and other so-called oyster pirates. Now the beds are long gone—largely because of pollution, weather extremes, and—some would add bitterly—government regulation.
Info
Address 374 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA, 94104, samsgrillseafoodrestaurant.com, +1 415.421.0594 | Public Transport Bus: 1 (Clay St & Kearny St stop); 38AX (Bush St & Sansome St stop) | Hours Mon–Fri 11am–9pm| Tip Walk down to Union Square to check out the four painted heart sculptures from the Hearts in San Francisco public art installation, located at each of the four corners of the square.
The restaurant got its name from Sam Zenovich, a restaurateur who bought Moraghan’s in 1922 and filled the place with such sports celebrities as heavyweight boxing champs John L. Sullivan, James J. Corbett, and Jack Dempsey. Sam died in 1937 and the restaurant has been passed from owner to owner ever since. The menu still includes oysters but they have become increasingly harder to farm profitably as land-use battles between those who want to create new marine sanctuaries on public land and those who want to hold on to commercial opportunities have slowed down supply. It’s one more example of how the balance between population and resources is reaching a tipping point throughout the Bay Area.
Back
To the online map