New looks greet diners all over San Francisco

Nation's Restaurant News, August 22, 1988 by Alan Liddle

New looks greet diners all over San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO--At first glance, Ernie's, the landmark 54-year-old French restaurant with a Victorian decor, seems to have little in common with Route 66, a pastelhued, '50s and '60s-linked "American Eats" emporium.

A second peek, however, reveals that the two share an important characteristic: a new look.

Those two restaurants, along with several others in San Francisco, including the venerable Fleur de Lys and The Blue Fox, recently went under the decor doctor's knife.

Among the things restaurateurs said they hoped remodeling would accomplish: attract new customers or keep regulars interested; draw attention to a new chef, menu, or bar; and correct design problems.

The $400,000-plus Ernie's remodeling required a three-week closure that ended in late July and was overseen by interior designer Barbara Marshall.

Owners Victor and Roland Gotti, brothers, said they were pleased with Ernie's new "brighter" and "more open" look and what it might mean in terms of landing a new generation of customers.

The Gottis admitted, however, that going into the project they had been "concerned" that changing Ernie's might alienate long-time patrons.

After all, they reasoned, the Victorian elegance of the old interior, with its lavish red-silk wall coverings and rich wood paneling, had helped the restaurant win acclaim anda part in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "Vertigo."

"But we look at the 'before' and 'after' pictures now and we can see where it [the old decor] might have been a little heavy," Roland Gotti conceded.

Victor Gotti said the response of veteran customers who have been in since the remodel has been "positive." One such regular, he said, "just looked in and said, 'Wow!'"

Ernie's new "open" feeling is due primarily to the removal of a beam that blocked the view of the foyer, bar, and main dining room as people entered the restaurant.

Achieving the "brighter" look without sacrificing the decor's Victorian underpinnings required a more complex strategy, however.

Marshall's plan called for retaining a majofiry of the existing fixtures and furnishings, while replacing much of the red-silk wall covering as well as darker upholstery fabrics with cream-colored versions.

She also chose to replace a draped-fabric canopy in the main dining room with a cream-colored vaulted ceiling, install marble flooring in the previously carpeted entrance and foyer, and revamp the lighting.

At 20-month-old Route 66 on Broadway, just a block from Ernie's, owner Robert Kleiner said he hoped the treatment prescribed by architect Karen Madigan would result in a healthier bar and dinner business.

Kleiner said the $35,000 remodel required a four-week closure and was prompted by his decision to buy a liquor license.

He said he and his contractors replaced the bar top; installed neon accents and hi-tech-deco hanging light fixtures and wall sconces; applied a '50s-style, speckled-paint-look "zolatone" finish to the bar walls; reupholstered chairs and banquettes; and hung new art.

An awning to "attract attention" will soon go up out front, Kleiner said.

Describing the section of Broadway where Route 66 sits as "tough draw," Kleiner said he bought the liquor license "to bring people in after work."

Once he had a license, he said, a remodel was required because "a bar has to feel like a bar, not like a [lunch] counter."

The dining room improvements were made with the idea that a little more polish might entice bar customers to stay for dinner or sway them and their lunch counterparts to return some other evening, Kleiner said.

"Our style has always been to serve fine food in a casual setting," the Route 66 proprietor explained. "I didn't want to change that, but I did want to bring it [the decor] upscale a bit."

Other San Francisco restaurants remodeled recently:

* The Blue Fox, which reopened this past May following a three-month, $750,00 Larry Masnada-coordinated remodel that included new paint, carpeting, upholstery, chairs, mirrors, and service ware.

New owner John Fassio, whose late father Piero was once a partner in the Merchant Street restaurant, changed the food of The Blue Fox from Continental to Northern Italian. Along with the new food had to come a new image, he said, and "when you change image, you redo everything from fabrics to logo."

The old colors, red, gold, and white, where replaced with peach, bronze, and blue for a "warmer" ambience, Fassio said.

* Fleur de Lys, a 17-year-old French restaurant that owner Maurice Rouas began revitalizing in 1986 when he made chef Hubert Keller a partner. The $60,000 spent in June to makeover the private room next to the bar and to refinish wood surfaces and improve lighting in the dining room was the next step in the revitalization, Rouas said.

* Square One, an award-winning foods-of-the-world restaurant on Pacific Avenue with a dining room described in the past by some critics as "cafeteria-like" and "cold."

Earlier this year, remodelers using banquete booths as center dividers and to direct the attention of customers sitting near the line away from the busy kitchen, transformed Square One's large dining room into what seems like two, more intimate spaces.