The dishes arrive like little presents. Plates of mini focaccia showered with grana padano and black pepper. Seaweed-draped brandade fritters dotted with herbed cream. Stuffed and battered gypsy peppers with broccoli flowers, a farmers’ market answer to jalapeño poppers.
In fact, they literally are gifts.
But business was slow much of last year and has been almost nonexistent since Valentine’s Day, said Kayla Abe, who owns the vibrantly decorated restaurant with her partner, David Murphy, Shuggie’s cowboy-hat wearing chef. Even in the face of high inflation, the dip in visitors pushed them to try the happy hour, which they also see as a way to extend hospitality to regulars and newcomers, encouraging them to leave the house and “engage with San Francisco,” Abe said.
“Definitely people are coming out less, and it’s understandable as to why. For us, we’d rather eat a little bit of that margin and have a little bit of business than have zero people coming out,” Abe said. “The barrier to entry is not that much.”
The happy hour runs Tuesday to Friday from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Depending on when customers arrive, they might receive up to four free snacks with the order of one drink — mostly smaller versions of what is already on the menu, such as Funyuns-like onion peel crisps ($9), crunchy tubes that poke out from bowls of maitake dip.
A few happy-hour traditions sputtered back to life after the pandemic, like the decades-long “free oyster Fridays” at El Rio, the Mission District bar and dance club. But as people spend less money on alcohol when they go out to eat, the majority of restaurants and bars only offer discounts on food during happy hour — nothing like Shuggie’s generous parade of small plates.
Abe said the happy hour fits into their generally positive approach toward big challenges like climate change, such as the ways the restaurant incorporates food into its menus that might otherwise go to waste with climate consequences, like invasive boar and salmon collars. “Rather than thinking of climate as a doom-and-gloom situation, let’s turn all this constraint into something beautiful,” she said. “How do we take this s—y economic situation and tendency not to go out and turn that into something worth celebrating as well?”
Abe also cites the happy hour into an aperitivo or tapas tradition in parts of Italy and Spain, where people stop for a drink and small snack offered by the bar. “It’s that idea of being able to enjoy a little bite before dinner,” she said. “Have a drink. Relax.”
At Shuggie’s, so far about half of the customers have stayed on for a full meal, Abe said.
“It remains to be seen how it will shake out,” she said. But there are promising signs. “Whether it’s more food or a second drink, people are hanging out a little longer.”