Eat, drink, dance ... drink

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August 16, 5:36 PM

by Tony Long, North Beach Examiner

 

 

Well, we can stop baying at the moon now. Lou's at the Square is coming and if there's any justice in the world, this one will stick. "Lou" is Lou Gillespie, who you may know from her lively jazz and blues joint, Lou's Pier 47, down on Jefferson Street. It's a great place to hear some music and dance with your honey but it's smack dab in the tourist buzzsaw that is the Wharf, which has been known to frighten off more than one local. Now she's bringing the spirit of that joint to the very heart of North Beach, so we'll have a place to call our own.

Barring a last-minute glitch, Lou plans to open her Washington Square spot around the end of the month. When I dropped in on Saturday, things were shaping up nicely. "We want it to feel like a 1930s jazz club," Lou said, and even though there's work yet to do, that's the vibe I picked up.

The bar there was always one of my favorites and it looks a lot it always did, but finally -- FINALLY -- someone has blown the cobwebs out one of the dreariest dining rooms in North Beach. Gone is the "my old Italian aunt" staidness; pastel walls of purplish pink, trimmed with black, transform the room, and a small stage is being built in the rear to accommodate what Lou promises will be an eclectic range of music, although jazz and blues will (I hope) predominate.

Lou's will be a music club rather than a restaurant, although Lou says she's planning on offering a simple menu -- tapas and stuff like that.

With restaurants and night spots tanking all over town as the crappy economy finally catches up to San Francisco, we can look at Washington Square and feel pretty good about things. Cafe Divine is a swell spot to hang out, Joe DiMaggio's Chop House seems to be holding its own, Joey and Eddie's has successfully supplanted the iconic Moose's, and the Washington Square Bar & Grill is getting ready to spring back to life. Toss Lou's at the Square into the mix and you can make a pretty nice circuit around the park any night of the week.

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