{"id":204692,"date":"2026-03-05T00:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204692\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T00:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:15:21","slug":"can-a-restaurant-throw-a-1986-level-party-in-2026-this-one-is-trying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/204692\/","title":{"rendered":"Can a restaurant throw a 1986-level party in 2026? This one is trying"},"content":{"rendered":"

This column is a part of the Off Menu newsletter, our Wednesday dispatch of restaurant news, gossip, tips, and hot takes. To sign up, visit The Standard\u2019s newsletter page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A couple weeks before the opening for JouJou (opens in new tab)<\/a>, a French brasserie in the Design District debuting on March 6, co-owner Colleen Booth is ready to shoot her shot: \u201cI think San Francisco needs a reason to dress up and get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As someone who is forever complaining about our city\u2019s Patagonified restaurant patronage, I have two gut-level responses: Hell, yes. And good luck.<\/p>\n

If Booth gets her wish, the second restaurant she owns with chef David Barzelay \u2014 they also run two-Michelin-starred Lazy Bear \u2014 will attempt to revive the roaring \u201980s. More specifically, she hopes to channel the gravitational pull of Stars, the Civic Center restaurant owned and run by the great, charismatic chef Jeremiah Tower.<\/p>\n

Open from 1984 to 1999, Stars was where politicians mixed with opera-goers, and Giants fans sat next to servers just off their shift. From one of the city\u2019s first open kitchens, it served a California mash-up of oysters and lamb crepinettes, brioche with bone marrow and poached garlic, and grilled sweetbreads with chile butter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 250-seat dining room was where socialite and philanthropist Denise Hale held court and social columnist Herb Caen scribbled notes. \u201cStars was Stars. There was no other place like it,\u201d says Stanlee Gatti, who for decades has staged the city\u2019s most high-profile galas. It would be fair to compare Stars\u2019 perpetual popularity and timelessness to New York\u2019s Balthazar.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just a place to eat. It was a klieg-lit stage for a city that still believed in spectacle.<\/p>\n

Gallery of 5 photosExpand photoClick arrows to view
the slideshow<\/p>\n

The entrance of the legendary Stars. | Source: Courtesy Caryl Chinn<\/p>\n

Chef Jeremiah Tower, Julia Child, and pastry chef Emily Luchetti in 1994.\u200b | Source: Courtesy Caryl Chinn<\/p>\n

Jeannette Etheredge of Tosca, Stanlee Gatti, and Jeremiah Tower. | Source: Courtesy Caryl Chinn<\/p>\n

Luciano Pavarotti and Maria Manetti Shrem in 1994. | Source: Courtesy Caryl Chinn<\/p>\n

Julianne Moore and Hugh Grant filming \u201cNine Months\u201d in 1994. | Source: Courtesy Caryl Chinn<\/p>\n

With that era long gone, the question isn\u2019t simply whether we want that kind of scene again. It\u2019s whether a city dominated by work-from-homers, an insular tech culture, and people canoodling on dating apps instead of at bars has the public-facing ecosystem \u2014 the gossip columnists<\/a>, the robust arts crowd, the see-and-be-seen-ers \u2014 to generate that kind of social fever.<\/p>\n

If anyone is driven enough to try, it\u2019s Booth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a romantic when it comes to hospitality,\u201d she says. \u201cI know people who worked at places like the Flying Saucer or Aqua. They\u2019d get off just in time to rush over to Stars and get a drink and a thing of fries at the bar and watch everyone else. It was gorgeous, it was loud, it was bustling \u2014 but it was also delicious and executed at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Booth speaks of Stars as if she actually ate there. She didn\u2019t. She was just 15 when it closed, and working at a restaurant in Rhode Island. But according to Emily Luchetti \u2014 who started shucking in Stars\u2019 oyster station in 1987 and became its lauded pastry chef before leaving in 1992 \u2014 Booth\u2019s dramatic reenactment tracks.<\/p>\n

\"AColleen Booth and David Barzelay. | Source: Kelly Puleio<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you opened the door, there was a set of stairs going up. You couldn\u2019t even see the dining room from there,\u201d Luchetti recalls. \u201cBut you could hear it. It was phenomenal. It was like you\u2019d be caught in the energy of it before you even could see it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stars was born of the big-restaurant era. It executed 650 dinners a night. \u201cIf there was an opera, we would get a full dining room \u2014 175 people sitting down to eat at 5:30. And then at 7:45, it was like a tidal wave came and sucked all those people out,\u201d Luchetti says. \u201cThen it filled again with regular diners. And then the theater people would come back for desserts and cocktails.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tower played a huge role in its success. \u201cHe has one of the best palates that I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d says Luchetti. He was also the consummate host. \u201cJeremiah was a draw \u2014 everybody loved him,\u201d says Gatti.<\/p>\n

But despite Tower\u2019s influence, Stars wasn\u2019t simply chef-driven. It was a restaurant built around hospitality in its most democratic form. \u201cEveryone felt welcome,\u201d Luchetti says. \u201cThe guy in a baseball cap didn\u2019t feel intimidated next to the woman in her opera gown.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AJouJou has \u201980s-style brass, marble, and Laura Ashley-leaning florals. | Source: Kelly Puleio<\/p>\n

And this is what Booth, as the front-of-house architect of JouJou, is trying to resurrect.<\/p>\n

The restaurant has the looks. Though much smaller than Stars, the 116-seater is decked out in striped awnings, \u201980s Laura Ashley-leaning florals, brass, an abundance of marble, and graphic cement-tile floors in soft green and gray. There are crescent banquettes for those who want to be on display. There\u2019s a private room and a plant-filled bar encased in glass \u2014 a kind of alcoholic aquarium \u2014 ensuring that passersby can see the crowd. Barzelay\u2019s fine-dining-adjacent menu swings from, yes, french fries to $250 seafood towers topped with lobster and caviar. Booth calls it \u201cchoose your own adventure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The location, on a roundabout in the quiet Design District, might not be where you\u2019d expect the city\u2019s hottest new restaurant to land. \u201cI\u2019m not going to lie and say that I don\u2019t have a little concern about the neighborhood,\u201d Booth admits. But then again, Stars opened on a random alleyway. \u201cJeremiah, in his brilliance, didn\u2019t even make McAllister the entrance. He took Redwood Alley, which was tiny,\u201d Luchetti says.<\/p>\n

\"AThe greenhouse-like bar. | Source: Kelly Puleio<\/p>\n

Booth clearly understands that the key to JouJou\u2019s success will be leaning into true old-school hospitality. She bristles at what she calls \u201chipster-chic service\u201d\u00a0 that makes diners feel as if they should be grateful to be there. At JouJou, she insists, \u201cWe will be there for the guest.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, JouJou has all the parts: looks, location, pedigree. What remains to be seen is who shows up. Stars didn\u2019t become Stars just because Jeremiah Tower wished upon it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luchetti believes there\u2019s room in San Francisco for the Stars of today \u2014 but only if the core values are there. \u201cJouJou will really have to believe in their heart of hearts that food is hospitality and hospitality is food,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you try to run it as two separate lanes, you\u2019re not going to get that magic. But if you get it right, a restaurant can take on a life of its own \u2014 just like Stars did.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m ready for it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This column is a part of the Off Menu newsletter, our Wednesday dispatch of restaurant news, gossip, tips,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[414,2867,412,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-204692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-chefs","9":"tag-off-menu","10":"tag-restaurants","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}