If you’re staying on Lombard, the best place to have breakfast is Mel’s Drive-In diner at Cow Hollow. It’s at the bottom end of the street, the marina end, which itself leads on to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, about 3km away. I just know Mel’s is going to be so good that I leave it until my last morning in this impossibly beautiful city.

It does not disappoint.

I swing open the entrance door – all glass and polished chrome – and walk inside. Carlos is there, behind the till. “Hi, and welcome to Mel’s,” he says.

Inside Mel’s Drive-In on Lombard Street in San Francisco. Photograph: Peter Murtagh

I am enveloped immediately in a wonderworld of Americana – stainless steel, chrome and more chrome, and, facing me, right inside the door, a Wurlitzer jukebox, all lit up and banging out period-appropriate music. In front of the bar counter, there’s a row of one-legged bar stools, with the backsides of occupants rippling over the seat edges. All along the counter are little mini-Wurlitzers where patrons can choose their favourite background sounds – Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash and, of course, Elvis. (He lives nearby, I believe.)

The bar counter runs front to back down the centre of the restaurant, which faces on to Lombard. Years ago, waiting staff on roller skates used to serve patrons parked in their cars outside. Not any more, sadly. The other wall, inside the restaurant, is covered in big blow-up, black and white photos from the 1940s and 1950s. The men are all heavy overcoats and fedoras; the women have baggy long trousers and wear shades. The scenes mostly show people arriving or leaving places – nightclubs or political gatherings, maybe – or standing by a car with bulbous fenders, oozing cool.

At the back is the kitchen. The hob hood has sunburst polished steel panels. The chefs busy themselves cranking out plates of pancakes and eggs – “Over easy sir? Comin’ up!” – bacon and toast.

Carlos takes my order. “Two eggs over easy,” I say, “bacon, hash browns and coffee.”

“Toast?” he aks. “You want toast?”

“Yes, please,” I reply.

“White or brown?”

“Brown,” I say.

“You got it!

Carlos Alexander Martinez runs my Mel’s and does a smooth job orchestrating the seating and serving. Photograph: Peter Murtagh

The first Mel’s opened on December 23rd, 1947, at 140 South Van Ness, Carlos tells me. The diner featured in American Graffiti, George Lucas’s 1973 film, whose Burger City was actually Mel’s Drive-In. Mel’s is even on the movie’s promotional poster. Competition in the 1970s drove Mel’s out of business, but Steven Weiss, a son of one of the founders, revived it, and there are now eight outlets, in San Francisco, Hollywood and Los Angeles.

Carlos – who is Carlos Alexander Martinez – runs my Mel’s and does a smooth job orchestrating the seating and serving. The place is buzzing with locals and tourists, but on this Wednesday at 9.15am they’re mostly locals, I think.

Just then, Jessica sits down beside me at the bar. That’s Jessica Quinlan, who is 43. “I’m from Missouri,” she says just after ordering the first of what is to become two large glasses of champagne.

“I’m out here for a bunch of concerts,” she says, and we fall – plunge might be a better description – into conversation. I’m so sucked into the riot that is Jessica’s rock’n’roll life that my over-easys and hash browns get cold and I never even get around to trying the toast.

“I’m here for a bunch of concerts,” she explains. “Last Thursday, we” – her and her boyfriend, Ben, who grows weed – “left Columbus, Missouri and went to Billy Idol in Kansas City and then went to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for the Just Like Heaven festival. Tomorrow we’re gonna see Gary Numan. I dunno if you know him. He sang the song Cars.” I tell her I know the song. “That’s in Petaluma, California. Saturday, we’re at the Cruel World Festival,” which is back at the Rose Bowl. “Wednesday we have The Cure – I can’t wait for that!”

Jessica Quinlan entertains with stories of her rock’n’roll life. Photograph: Peter Murtagh

Jessica used to be a dental assistant and at some stage also had a restaurant and an art gallery.

“But now I’m on disability” – $1,400 a month, she says. “My ex-boyfriend tried to kill me. I had, like, kidney and liver failure and I have vocal-cord damage,” she says, explaining her husky voice.

“Are you going to have breakfast?” I ask.

“Nah, just champagne,” she answers. “I’m gonna take a shower and head to LA.”

She’s staying at the nearby Chelsea Inn, a choice on her part that was preordained by the script.

“You like champagne in the morning?” I ask.

“I do,” she says emphatically. “I like beer too.”

We then have a political conversation. Jessica loathes Trump and all that comes with him and all that he represents about the United States right now and the way he and his supporters are affecting everything.

“They want women pregnant and in the kitchen,” she says. “They don’t want gay people. I live in a country where so many people say, ‘We live in the greatest country.’ I’m sorry. You can pull a duck’s neck as long as you want, but you’re still not gonna have a swan.”

For that phrase alone I will love Jessica forever. She downs what’s left of her second glass and leave for her hotel. I leave to check out of my hostel.

Mel’s? Like I said, best breakfast in San Francisco.

Peter Murtagh is travelling by motorbike from Tierra del Fuego, at the tip of South America, to Alaska, at the top of North America, and writing here regularly. You can also read his blog and follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF / AP) – Thanks to a revamped menu and long opening hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

It is all the more frustrating that she fears that within months her breakfast-themed diner could be ruined by new rules that could make one of her top menu items – bacon – hard to come by in California.

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“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” says Kim, who has been running the SAMS American Eatery on the city’s bustling Market Street for 15 years. “It could be devastating for us.”

Early next year, California will begin implementing Proposition 12, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2018 and needs more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and calves.

National veal and egg producers are optimistic about meeting the new standards, but only 4% of pig farms meet the new regulations.

Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which is from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to reclaim a key market.

Animal welfare organizations have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals for years, but the California rules could be a rare case in which consumers clearly pay a price for their belief.

With little time left to build new facilities, inseminate sows, and process the offspring by January, it’s hard to imagine how the pork industry can adequately supply California, which consumes about 15% of all pork produced in the country.

“We are very concerned about the potential impact on supply and, by extension, cost increases,” said Matt Sutton, public policy director for the California Restaurant Association.

California’s restaurants and grocery stores consume about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms only produce 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to fund retrofitting of pig farms across the country to fill the void. Pig farmers said they failed to comply because of the cost and because California has not yet established formal regulations to administer and enforce the new standards.

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the additional cost to be 15% more per head for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.

If half of California’s pork supply were suddenly lost, bacon prices would rise 60%, bringing a package from $ 6 to about $ 9.60, according to a study by Hatamiya Group, a consultancy hired by opponents of the state proposal. Let dollars rise.

On a typical Iowa pig farm, sows are housed in 14 square feet of open air crates when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger group pens, approximately 20 square feet, with other pigs. Both are less than the 24 square feet that California law requires to give breeding pigs enough room to turn over and stretch their limbs. Other operations keep sows in the boxes almost all the time and therefore would not comply with the regulations.

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The California Department of Food and Agriculture said that while the detailed regulations have not yet been finalized, the main rules for space have been known for years.

“It is important to note that the law itself cannot be changed by regulations and the law has been in force since the proposal to contain farm animals (Prop 12) passed by a large majority in 2018,” the agency said in response to questions from the AP .

The pork industry has filed lawsuits, but so far courts have backed California law. The National Pork Producers Council and a coalition of California restaurants and business groups have asked Governor Gavin Newsom to postpone the new requirements. The council also hopes that meat already in the supply chain could be sold, potentially delaying bottlenecks.

Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, said the pork industry should accept the overwhelming view of Californians who want more humane treatment of animals.

“Why do pig producers keep trying to overturn animal cruelty laws?” Asked Balk. “It says something about the pork industry if it looks like their business is to lose the vote if they try that To defend practices and then, when animal cruelty laws are passed, try to overturn them. “

In Iowa, which raises about a third of the country’s pigs, Farmer Dwight Mogler estimates the changes would cost him $ 3 million and make room for 250 pigs in what is now 300.

To be able to afford the costs, he would have to earn an additional $ 20 per pig, Mogler said, and so far processors have been offering far less.

“The question for us is, if we make these changes, what will be the next change in the rules in two years, three years, five years?” Asked Mogler.

The California rules also pose a challenge to slaughterhouses, which can now send different parts of a single pig to locations across the country and to other countries. Processors need to develop new systems to track California pigs and separate those premium cuts from standard pork that can serve the rest of the country.

At least initially, analysts predict that customers in other parts of the country will hardly notice a difference, even as California pork prices rise. Eventually, California’s new rules could become a national standard because processors can’t afford to ignore the market in such a large state.

Kim, the San Francisco-based restaurant owner, said she survived the pandemic by cutting down her menu, driving hundreds of miles across the Bay Area herself to deliver food and cutting staff.

Kim, who is Korean-American, said she was particularly concerned about small restaurants whose customers can’t afford big price hikes and which specialize in Asian and Hispanic dishes, which usually contain pork.

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“You know, I work and live with many Asian and Hispanic populations in the city and their diet is pork. Pork is huge, ”said Kim. “It’s almost like bread and butter.”

The post Bacon Might Disappear From San Francisco Bay Space Breakfast Menus – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF / AP) – Thanks to a revamped menu and long opening hours, Jeannie Kim managed to keep her San Francisco restaurant alive during the coronavirus pandemic.

It is all the more frustrating that she fears that within months her breakfast-themed diner could be ruined by new rules that could make one of her top menu items – bacon – hard to come by in California.

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“Our number one seller is bacon, eggs and hash browns,” says Kim, who has been running the SAMS American Eatery on the city’s bustling Market Street for 15 years. “It could be devastating for us.”

Early next year, California will begin implementing Proposition 12, which was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2018 and needs more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and calves.

National veal and egg producers are optimistic about meeting the new standards, but only 4% of pig farms meet the new regulations.

Unless the courts intervene or the state temporarily allows non-compliant meat to be sold in the state, California will lose almost all of its pork supply, much of which is from Iowa, and pork producers will face higher costs to reclaim a key market.

Animal welfare organizations have been pushing for more humane treatment of farm animals for years, but the California rules could be a rare case in which consumers clearly pay a price for their belief.

With little time left to build new facilities, inseminate sows, and process the offspring by January, it’s hard to imagine how the pork industry can adequately supply California, which consumes about 15% of all pork produced in the country.

“We are very concerned about the potential impact on supply and, by extension, cost increases,” said Matt Sutton, public policy director for the California Restaurant Association.

California’s restaurants and grocery stores consume about 255 million pounds of pork a month, but its farms only produce 45 million pounds, according to Rabobank, a global food and agriculture financial services company.

The National Pork Producers Council has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture for federal aid to fund retrofitting of pig farms across the country to fill the void. Pig farmers said they failed to comply because of the cost and because California has not yet established formal regulations to administer and enforce the new standards.

Barry Goodwin, an economist at North Carolina State University, estimated the additional cost to be 15% more per head for a farm with 1,000 breeding pigs.

If half of California’s pork supply were suddenly lost, bacon prices would rise 60%, bringing a package from $ 6 to about $ 9.60, according to a study by Hatamiya Group, a consultancy hired by opponents of the state proposal. Let dollars rise.

On a typical Iowa pig farm, sows are housed in 14 square feet of open air crates when they join a herd and then for a week as part of the insemination process before moving to larger group pens, approximately 20 square feet, with other pigs. Both are less than the 24 square feet that California law requires to give breeding pigs enough room to turn over and stretch their limbs. Other operations keep sows in the boxes almost all the time and therefore would not comply with the regulations.

CONTINUE READING: Cyclists fatally injured when driving wrongly on I-580 in Oakland

The California Department of Food and Agriculture said that while the detailed regulations have not yet been finalized, the main rules for space have been known for years.

“It is important to note that the law itself cannot be changed by regulations and the law has been in force since the proposal to contain farm animals (Prop 12) passed by a large majority in 2018,” the agency said in response to questions from the AP .

The pork industry has filed lawsuits, but so far courts have backed California law. The National Pork Producers Council and a coalition of California restaurants and business groups have asked Governor Gavin Newsom to postpone the new requirements. The council also hopes that meat already in the supply chain could be sold, potentially delaying bottlenecks.

Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, said the pork industry should accept the overwhelming view of Californians who want more humane treatment of animals.

“Why do pig producers keep trying to overturn animal cruelty laws?” Asked Balk. “It says something about the pork industry if it looks like their business is to lose the vote if they try that To defend practices and then, when animal cruelty laws are passed, try to overturn them. “

In Iowa, which raises about a third of the country’s pigs, Farmer Dwight Mogler estimates the changes would cost him $ 3 million and make room for 250 pigs in what is now 300.

To be able to afford the costs, he would have to earn an additional $ 20 per pig, Mogler said, and so far processors have been offering far less.

“The question for us is, if we make these changes, what will be the next change in the rules in two years, three years, five years?” Asked Mogler.

The California rules also pose a challenge to slaughterhouses, which can now send different parts of a single pig to locations across the country and to other countries. Processors need to develop new systems to track California pigs and separate those premium cuts from standard pork that can serve the rest of the country.

At least initially, analysts predict that customers in other parts of the country will hardly notice a difference, even as California pork prices rise. Eventually, California’s new rules could become a national standard because processors can’t afford to ignore the market in such a large state.

Kim, the San Francisco-based restaurant owner, said she survived the pandemic by cutting down her menu, driving hundreds of miles across the Bay Area herself to deliver food and cutting staff.

Kim, who is Korean-American, said she was particularly concerned about small restaurants whose customers can’t afford big price hikes and which specialize in Asian and Hispanic dishes, which usually contain pork.

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“You know, I work and live with many Asian and Hispanic populations in the city and their diet is pork. Pork is huge, ”said Kim. “It’s almost like bread and butter.”

The post Bacon Might Disappear From San Francisco Bay Space Breakfast Menus – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

It would be an understatement to say that things have changed a lot in the past year, but today I want to celebrate a consistent resource in our school district for students and families. Ever since we closed school buildings – and before the pandemic started – Student Nutrition Services has been committed to providing nutritious meals for students.

Students do better in school when they have access to healthy meals, and in the San Francisco Unified School District we are committed to ensuring that all the students who need them have this vital nourishment.

Over the past few years, we’ve celebrated National School Breakfast Week in classrooms in March to highlight the importance of starting the day with a healthy meal. When we study in person, we have a program called Breakfast After the Bell, which may include serving breakfast in the classroom, on a hall car, or during morning breaks. Breakfast schools After the Bell programs, more and more students will have breakfast, which has many advantages.

We usually serve our 1 millionth breakfast of the school year in early March, right around the national day, to celebrate the school breakfast. This school year, I am pleased to announce that we have served an additional 600,000 breakfasts, which means we have had up to 1.6 million breakfasts since the school buildings closed in March last year.

And don’t fret – there are plenty of opportunities for families to celebrate National School Breakfast Week with us from home!

Ask your child what their favorite breakfast is and why. My favorite breakfast is oatmeal because it’s delicious and you can add so many good things to it like raisins and cinnamon.

Another way to celebrate is to join our original educational program “SF Loves Learning” on KTVU Plus or the SFUSD YouTube channel to meet some of our employees and find out about their favorite breakfast. You can find the segment on Monday, March 8th show.

As a reminder, SFUSD families can have breakfast for free at 18 Grab & Go locations on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Get five breakfasts on Tuesday plus lunch, dinner, fresh fruits and vegetables worth five days. Get two breakfasts on Thursday, plus lunch, dinner, fresh fruit and vegetables for two days.

Grab & Go’s breakfast menus include a variety of hot and cold breakfasts such as cereal, bars, yogurt, French toast sticks, muffins, bars, oatmeal (my favorite!) And breakfast rolls.

At sfusd.edu/schoolfood you will find current locations, times, schedules and information.

Vincent Matthews is the superintendent of schools in the San Francisco Unified School District. He is a guest columnist.

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The post SFUSD celebrates Nationwide College Breakfast Week – The San Francisco Examiner appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.