The Cliff House
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San Francisco's Cliff House is a popular restaurant to both locals and tourists, perched on the headlands on the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach.
- The Cliff House by Adolph Sutro
Cliff House turn of Century
Cliff House today
History
The Cliff House has had five major incarnations since its beginnings in 1858. That year, Samuel Brannan, a prosperous ex-Mormon elder from Maine, bought the lumber (salvaged for $1,500) from a ship that foundered on the basalt cliffs below. With this material, he built the first Cliff House. The second Cliff house was built for Captain Junius G. Foster, but it was a long trek from the city and hosted mostly horseback riders, small game hunters, or picnickers on day outings. With the opening of the Point Lobos toll road a year later, the Cliff House became successful with the Carriage trade for Sunday travel. The builders of the toll road constructed a two-mile speedway beside it where well-to-do San Franciscans raced their horses along the way. On weekends, there was little room at the Cliff House hitching racks for tethering the horses for the thousands of rigs. Soon, omnibus railways and streetcar lines made it to near Lone Mountain where passengers transferred to stagecoach lines to the beach. The growth of Golden Gate Park attracted beach travelers in search of meals and a look at the Sea Lions sunning themselves on Seal Rock, just off the cliffs to visit the area.
In 1877, the toll road, now Geary Boulevard[1], was purchased by the City for around $25,000. In 1883, after a few years of downturn, the Cliff House was bought by Adolph Sutro who had solved the problems of ventilating and draining the mines of the Comstock Lode and became a multimillionaire. After a few years of quiet management by J. M. Wilkens, the Cliff House was severely damaged by an explosion of the schooner, "Parallel", that went aground under the reasons of dynamite. The blast was heard a hundred miles away and demolished the entire north wing of the tavern. Seven years later, on Christmas 1894 the patched and repaired old building burned down. Wilkens was unable to save the guest register, which included the signatures of three Presidents and dozens of illustrious world-famous visitors.
In 1896, Adolph Sutro built a new Cliff House, a seven-story Victorian Chateau, called by some "the Gingerbread Palace", below his estate on the bluffs of Sutro Heights. This was the same year work began on the famous Sutro Baths, which included six of the largest indoor swimming pools north of the Restaurant that included a museum, skating rink and other pleasure grounds. Great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles, carts and horse wagons on Sunday excursions.
The Cliff House and Sutro Baths survived the 1906 earthquake with little damage but burned to the ground on the evening of September 7, 1907. The rebuilding of the restaurant was completed within two years and, with additions and modern restorations, is the one seen today.
The building was acquired by the National Park Service in 1977 and it became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The site overlooks the Seal Rock and the former site of the Sutro Baths. More than thirty ships have been pounded to pieces on the southern shore of the Golden Gate below the Cliff House.
Update / Epitaph
2020
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — The Cliff House restaurant, which first opened 157 years ago, announced Sunday that the restaurant will close permanently on Dec. 31, a victim both of the COVID-19 pandemic and, its owners say, delays by the National Park Service in reaching a long-term operating contract with the restaurant.
The announcement of the permanent closure was posted Sunday by Cliff House’s longtime owners, Dan and Mary Hountalas, on the restaurant’s website. They said 180 employees will lose their jobs.
The Cliff House ended in-house dining in March, owing to the pandemic. After 10 weeks of offering only takeout service, the restaurant shut down to diners as the pandemic struck. The operators said they attempted to try takeout-only service in early June but, after 10 weeks of that, closed down completely in mid-July, saying the restaurant was losing too much money as a takeout-only operation.
The last long-term contract between the Cliff House and the National Park Service expired in June 2018, and the restaurant had been operating since then under a series of short-term contracts, the current one set to expire on Dec. 31.
The owners said Sunday that COVID-19 exacerbated the problems but that they go back to the 2018 expiration of the last 20-year contract.
“The National Park Service should have selected an operator on a long-term basis to ensure the continued operation of this national treasure,” the Hountalases said in their statement Sunday.
© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. and Bay City News. All Rights Reserved.
2024
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A remodeled version of San Francisco’s iconic Cliff House restaurant will reopen in 2024, according to a press release from Sutro Lands Ends Partners. The National Park Service gave a 20-year lease for it to operate. [Source 1]
References
- ↑ The Geary Blvd name pays tribute to John W. Geary, the first mayor of San Francisco after California became a U.S. state.
Sources
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