By the end of Super Bowl 50 week my backpack had at least $50 to $75 in drink tickets, meal vouchers, shirts and Bloody Mary mix. My liver was worn out by several days of drinking margaritas, on the house, of course, because owner Nick Bovis wouldn’t let us pay for a drink. And my computer was full of podcasts recorded from the front of Lefty O’Douls, the legendary San Francisco watering hole/lunch counter that will close around midnight on February 3, according to sad news published today by SFGate.com.
Team BC – myself and radio guys Chris Burns and Anthony Bellino – rolled into San Francisco for Super Bowl 50 Week with zero San Francisco experience. We had a studio to do Bellino’s live show, but I wanted to do a podcast at a bar. I wanted us to be able to grab drinks, talk about the Super Bowl and meet the locals, maybe hear some crazy stories. I didn’t want the Radio Row experience that’s the same exact experience from Indianapolis, to New Orleans, to New York, etc.
We rolled into San Francisco on Sunday and wanted to grab a meal, watch some basketball. Team BC ended up at Lefty’s. We walked in the front door and I immediately noticed the front of the bar had a small lounge seating area around a piano. That was it. I needed that spot to do the BC podcast.
One thing led to another and a bartender was introducing me to Nick Bovis. It took about 15 seconds of explaining what we wanted to do before Nick was insisting that we make Lefty’s our home for the week. The front lounge area was ours. Nick started treating us like family.
From today’s report on the closing:
Bovis said he decided to move after it became clear the property owner wasn’t going to offer him a long-term lease that would allow for the kind of improvements he felt the space needed, which he says are in excess of $5 million.
But while the demise of the current iteration of the hofbrau will be sure to upset fans of San Francisco’s classic dives, Bovis promised the closing would not be the last chapter in the Lefty O’Doul’s story. He said he plans to reopen in a new location by late fall. He is in talks on two spaces, both in the Union Square area and both of a similar size as the current 6,000-square-foot Lefty’s location.
So we showed up Monday, took over the lounge and started recording. I had Lisa, one of the Lefty’s waitresses do an intro for us. And then the drinks started flowing. Nick had provided us with enough drink tickets to stay dehydrated for weeks on all the alcohol we could possibly consume.
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Eventually we had Nick jump on one of the podcasts to tell us crazy Lefty bar stories, including talking about one of the locals that stumbled out of the bar and went face first into the sidewalk outside Lefty’s. To Nick it was just another day at this legendary hole in the wall.
32:00 mark is the start of Nick’s appearance:
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To sum it all up, Lefty O’Doul’s was exactly what I was looking for from San Francisco during Super Bowl week. It was filled with locals eating turkey platters. There were people trashed at 2-3 in the afternoon. It was filled with weirdos. We met some legendary rugby player during Friday’s show. It was a circus. I learned that week that I don’t need the stale Super Bowl week party scene (went to the Playboy party Friday night and left about 45 minutes after getting in) where everyone tries to out-cool the other guy. Give me a zoo like Lefty O’Doul’s. Give me Lisa, the waitress who sounded like she smoked a carton a day.
I’ve officially hit the age where I just want to sit at some bar that holds thousands of stories and soak it all in. Lefty’s was that place.
If there’s one guy who can bring back what Lefty’s was in Union Square, it’s Nick. The guy is the PT Barnum of the San Francisco restaurant/bar scene.
Long live Lefty O’Doul’s.
