In the latter part of April, 1906, when the fire-swept streets presented
their most forbidding aspect, and when the only moving figures to be
seen after nightfall were armed soldiers guarding the little remaining
of value from depredations of skulking vagabonds, a number of the old
Bohemian spirits gathered at the corner of Montgomery and Commercial
streets, and gazed through the shattered windows into the old dining
room where they had held many a royal feast. On the blackened walls
might still be seen scarred pictures, fringed by a row of black cats
along the ceiling. They turned their steps out toward the Presidio,
hunted among the Italian refugees and there found Coppa--he of the
wonderful black cats, and it took little persuasion to induce him to go
back to his ruined restaurant and prepare a dinner, such as had made his
place famous among artists, writers, and other Bohemians, in the days
when San Francisco was care-free and held her arms wide open in welcome
to all the world.
It was such a dinner as has been accorded to few. Few there are who have
the heart to make merry amid crumbling ruins of all they held dear in
the material world. The favored ones who assembled there will always
hold that dinner in most affectionate memory, and to this day not one
thinks of it without the choking that comes from over-full emotion. It
was more than a tribute to the days of old--it marked the passing of
the old San Francisco and the inauguration of the new.
It was Bohemia's Swan Song, sung by those to whom San Francisco held
more than pleasure--more than sentimentality. It held for them
close-knit ties that nothing less than a worldshaking cataclysm could
sever--and the cataclysm had arrived.
The old Coppa restaurant in Montgomery street became a memory and on its
ashes came the new one, located in Pine street between Montgomery and
Kearny streets, and for a number of years this remained the idol of
Bohemia until changed conditions drove the tide of patronage far up
toward Powell, Ellis, Eddy and O'Farrell streets. At that time there
grew up a mushroom crop of so-called restaurants in Columbus avenue
close to Barbary Coast such as Caesar's, the Follies Cabaret, Jupiter
and El Paradiso, where space was reserved in the middle of the floor for
dancing. Coppa emulated the new idea by fitting out a gorgeous basement
room at the corner of Kearny and Jackson, which he called the Neptune
Palace. It represented a great grotto under the ocean, and here throngs
gathered nightly to dance and eat until the police commissioners closed
all of these resorts, as well as Barbary Coast.
Coppa became financially injured by this venture and was forced to take
a partner in his old restaurant, and finally gave up his share and went
beyond the city limits and opened the Pompeiian Garden, on the San Mateo
road, and there with his heroic little wife tried to rebuild his
shrunken fortunes, leaving the historic restaurant with its string of
black cats and its memorable pictures on the walls to less skilled
hands. He struggled against hard times and at the time of this writing
he, with his wife, their son and his wife, are giving the old-time
dinners and trying to make the venture a success.
In the old days it was considered a feat of gormandizing to go through
one of Coppa's dinners and eat everything set before you for one dollar.
Notwithstanding the delicious dishes he prepared and the wonderful
recipes, the quantity served was so great that one would have to be
possessed of enormous capacity, indeed, to be able to say at the end of
the meal that he had eaten all that was given him.
In his Pompeiian Garden Coppa still maintains his old reputation for
most tasty viands and liberal portions, and if one desire to find the
true Bohemian restaurant of San Francisco today, one that approaches the
old spirit of the days before the fire, he need but go out to Coppa's
and while he will not have his eyes regaled by the quaint drawings with
which the old-time artists decorated the walls, nor the hurrying
footsteps along the ceiling to the famous center table where sat some of
the world's most notable Bohemians on their visits to San Francisco, nor
the frieze of black cats around the cornice, nor the Bohemian verse,
written under inspiration of "Dago red," he will find the same old
cooking, done by Coppa himself.
We asked Coppa what he considered his best dish and he gave us the
Irishman's reply by asking another question:
"What do you think of it?"
There are so many to choose from that our answer was difficult but we
finally stopped at "Chicken Portola." It was then that the old smile
came back to Coppa's face.
"Ah! Chicken Portola. That is my own idea. It is the most delicious way
chicken was ever cooked."
This is the recipe as Coppa gave it to us, his little wife standing at
his side and giving, now and then, a suggestion as Coppa's memory
halted: