{"id":210352,"date":"2026-03-08T13:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210352\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T13:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T13:27:10","slug":"it-was-once-the-most-beautiful-restaurant-in-sf-we-got-a-peek-inside","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210352\/","title":{"rendered":"It was once the \u2018most beautiful restaurant\u2019 in SF. We got a peek inside."},"content":{"rendered":"

A fresh lobster cocktail cost 75 cents. A plate of \u201cimported anchovies with egg\u201d was only 50 cents. Meanwhile, half of an alligator pear \u2014 better known today as an avocado \u2014 set diners back a mere 35 cents.<\/p>\n

These old-timey dishes are listed on a framed historic menu at Jack\u2019s (opens in new tab)<\/a>, once called the most beautiful restaurant<\/a> in San Francisco. It operated downtown from 1864 to 1999, although the 1906 earthquake and fire forced the city\u2019s alligator pear lovers out of the original building and into the current address on Sacramento Street. After brief 21st century stints as a brasserie called Jeanty at Jack\u2019s and later as a co-working space, Jack\u2019s recently underwent an extensive renovation for an undisclosed, six-figure sum under the direction of venue development firm Skylight (opens in new tab)<\/a>, which reopened it in November as an event space that hosts salons and industry summits.<\/p>\n

In its heyday, Jack\u2019s functioned as a shadow City Hall, as Skylight CEO Stephanie Blake puts it. Rather than simply turn back the clock \u2014 there\u2019s minimal demand for a smoke-filled den for men with muttonchops, or for a working bordello upstairs \u2014 her team updated the space, ripping out the dark wood, moving the bar back, and painting the walls in dusty pinks with gold accents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ACaptain, Ship, Crew is a dice game invented at Jack\u2019s that people played to determine who was paying for lunch. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard\"AThe moldings are just some of the jacskrabbit motifs spread throughout. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

The vibe is Barbary Coast, but classy. Skylight commissioned an artist to create three different wallpapers and unearthed historical photos of Jack\u2019s patrons, such as Alfred Hitchcock with Herb Caen, and Ernest Hemingway with Ingrid Bergman. In the restroom, another Hitchcock portrait hangs above the toilet. As a nod to the name and to the critters that once populated the area, Skylight installed jackrabbit coat hooks between the gold sconces. (There\u2019s a bowl of bunny-branded matchbooks at the entrance, too.) Overall, the ground floor and rear mezzanine have a capacity of 80 to 100 people, and Skylight hopes to renovate the upper-floor offices in the next two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chef Rupert Blease of upscale Dogpatch restaurant Wolfsbane<\/a> redesigned the menu, and a calligrapher is tasked with writing the evening\u2019s dishes on the mirrors while a pianist plays on a donated circa-1915 upright. But Jack\u2019s is not a restaurant, nor is it ever likely to be again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Blake believes the traditional restaurant model is broken, and downtown has plenty of conventional eateries already. Rather, she hopes to re-create a kind of cultural salon, where you\u2019re not just there to consume, but to converse. \u201cI want the environment for the type of conversation that used to happen at Jack\u2019s,\u201d she says. \u201cInteractions between patrons and artists \u2014 that\u2019s what we\u2019re developing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TwoVenue-development firm Skylight removed the dark wood and repainted the interior in softer colors. | Source: Jason Henry for The Standard<\/p>\n

Since reopening, Jack\u2019s has hosted architecture and design panels and, Blake says, a phone-free confab of AI leaders discussing \u201cwhat it means to be authentically human.\u201d Keeping mum on attendees\u2019 identities, she adds that Jack\u2019s has hosted real estate moguls, the CEO of a \u201cmajor power company,\u201d and the owners of a major sports franchise.<\/p>\n

But Jack\u2019s won\u2019t be blocked off behind a proverbial velvet rope. Skylight has partnered with tour groups like San Francisco Heritage and the San Francisco Historical Society, plus quarterly open houses will allow the public to take a look. In the meantime, Blake sees the building as a wainscoting-filled component of downtown\u2019s ongoing revitalization, just as it was a place where city machers gathered to hammer out the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and plan the Golden Gate Bridge. \u201cThe energy in San Francisco is so electric,\u201d she says. \u201cJack\u2019s could only happen now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fresh lobster cocktail cost 75 cents. A plate of \u201cimported anchovies with egg\u201d was only 50 cents.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[25424,412,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-210352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-financial-district","tag-restaurants","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210352","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=210352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}