The Society Page

Greenwich Village,
North Beach,
San Bruno...

This guy named Mike has bought the hippest cafe in... well... San Bruno from the previous owner (also named Mike) and he’s looking for artists to display their work on the walls and have receptions where people show up and scarf down food and try to meet potential dates while pretending to be interested in the artwork. This coffee house is on San Mateo Avenue (which is downtown San Bruno) and the name of it is Never Too Latte. Cute, eh? Don’t change that name, Mike. This place was the only location in San Bruno I would leave copies of the Herald at.

San Bruno is a nice town, just really working class. It isn’t exactly Burlingame or Palo Alto. I remember the previous Mike telling me that he would have punk bands play on Sunday afternoons but they wouldn’t draw big enough crowds or when they did nobody bought anything, so he finally quit putting shows on. I hope this new Mike has better luck being the center of San Bruno Bohemian culture. I got San Francisco’s Hottest New Artist Laurie Jacobs a gig there so maybe she’ll be having a reception soon. (Quick note: Bring a copy of the Herald to Laurie at Spring Open Studios at Hunters Point Shipyard, May 1 & 2 from 11am to 6pm and she’ll give you a free glass creation. Visit laurasaura.com for info). I asked Mike (new Mike) if he’s going to start serving beer and wine (maybe that would bring in more of the art crowd) but he said it’s too much of a hassle (“People drink and get into fights.”)

This new Mike guy used to work on aircraft in the navy and then worked as an airline mechanic for United, here at SFO, for 14 years. On his off time he played in Goth bands. I asked him if he wore white pancake face makeup and black eyeliner and he said yes, though I bet he never showed up for work looking like that. Is it just me or is there something disturbing about a guy so into the Goth culture (which is fixated on death) working on airplanes?

I hadn’t been to downtown San Bruno for a while. I used to go there twice a week for my jujitsu class, but I haven’t been doing that since the economy went south and I’ve had to work 14,000 hours a week just to make ends meet. Actually, there’s not much down there: Sam’s Barber Shop, Pet World, A Place 2 Play Fun Fitness, Paper Moon Karaoke Club, Big Joe’s Breakfast, Newell’s Cocktails, San Bruno Liquors, The Rio Saloon. I don’t mean to say that these fine establishments aren’t “much”... it’s just... I don’t know. Actually, there’s a Buddhist Temple down there, I think. Or a Buddhist Center. Something Buddhist. You see guys who look like the Dali Lama walking around. There’s this record store called Ultra Sounz that sells techno music. Or is it trance? Techo? Trance? Trip-hop? I’m such a square now. You know, it’s a place where DJ’s buy vinyl.

There was this taqueria in downtown San Bruno... I don’t know if it’s still there... but their logo was a picture of Jesus being crucified. It was a close-up of his head and upper chest nailed to the cross, blood pouring down from his thorn of crowns. Intense. I remember eating there once and I told them I thought they made a mistake on the bill, but no one there could understand English, so they picked up the phone trying to find someone who could understand me, so I finally just told them it was okay. It was something like they charged me for a super burrito but I wanted a regular. I forget. No big deal.

I remember this cute little Chinese restaurant just off downtown San Bruno (the outskirts of downtown San Bruno) on San Bruno Avenue and El Camino Real called Lucky Pot. This nice guy (I think his name was Andy Chin) and his wife (Krissy Chin? I think that was her name, they both wore name tags) owned it and they made a mean Shrimp with Broccoli. I walked in there (1996, I think) and ordered it as a rice plate lunch special. Delicious. I didn’t eat there again for 2 years but as soon as I walked in Andy looked at me and said, “Shrimp with Broccoli coming up!” Man! I ate there once and go back 2 years later and the guy remembers what I had. And he assumed (correctly) that I wanted it again. I can just imagine a bunch of women in Marin County reading this now, saying to themselves, “Oooh, that’s so spiritual!” I recommend this place (whatever it’s called).

Fresh Choice...
and America

I just got back from San Bruno (though not downtown San Bruno) a couple of hours ago. I ate at the Fresh Choice they have in that shopping center on El Camino. I think it’s called San Bruno Towne Center. Anyway, they have a Fresh Choice there in San Bruno, right on the Colma border (you know it’s on the Colma border because there’s a graveyard right across the street from it). If you’ve never been to Fresh Choice, I say go there. It’s like an upscale version of The Sizzler. I haven’t been eating there much lately as I’ve been into the Indian buffet thang for the past couple of years, but when I lived in Palo Alto 10 years ago, I went to the one they have in the Stanford Mall almost every day. That was a great place to eat in your twenties as it was full of broccoli and other nutritious hangover-busting foods.

I got to the San Bruno one today at 11a.m. and a few people were waiting around for it to open (mostly old people who probably have breakfast at 5a.m., eat there every day for lunch at 11a.m., then eat dinner at 3p.m.). This 30ish Indian tech nerd kind of guy asked the worker who unlocked the doors if they give AAA discounts. What a dork, I thought to myself. But then the worker cheerfully replied, “Yes, sir -- we do.”

As it turns out, they had been taking AAA cards for a 15% discount for years. I just never asked. With the AAA discount my entire meal (I just had water for a drink) was only $6.71 with the tax! And it’s “All You Can Eat”, too.

If you’ve never been to one of these places, you walk in and there’s a smiling young woman (named Maria?) who hands you a tray she’s just polished and says, “Thank you for coming to Fresh Choice!”

Then you push your tray down a salad bar filled with great stuff: Caesar salad. Chinese chicken salad with almonds (or peanuts, I forget). Spinach. Then there’s corn, beets, bell peppers, etc. Anti-oxidant city. You pay the cashier (named Salena?) who processes you on your way so you can get soup, pasta, fruit (more anti-oxidants!), and best of all -- frozen yogurt.

I actually enjoyed eating at the San Bruno Fresh Choice more than the one at the Stanford Mall. The help at the Stanford Mall is great, too (heck, the help at all the Fresh Choices I’ve been to are great; they’re like The Stepford Employees). It’s just that the diners at the Stanford Mall one really get to me sometimes. As I was eating at the San Bruno location today, I had a vision from 10 years ago. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but now that a decade has passed it’s taken on a new meaning for me. Here it is...

I was at the Fresh Choice in the Stanford Mall, located right there in wealthy old New Money Palo Alto -- the heart of Silicon Valley. I walked in, Maria gave me a tray and Salena rang me up. I sat at a table and began eating all those great tasting anti-oxidants. Every one around me were chatting about their start-up Internet companies and how well their stock portfolios were doing. This blond, well-dressed, attractive, WASPy woman, about 40, walked in holding bags from Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom’s. She walked to Salena at the register, bypassing all the food, and asked for a mineral water. Salena politely told her that you can’t just buy drinks; that you had to buy them with an “All You Can Eat” meal, which was about 8 dollars (she didn’t mention the AAA 15% discount).

The blonde smiled and said, “Oh, that’s all right. Charge me the 8 dollars and I’ll just take the water.”

Now, I’m not a Communist, but that little scene just made my stomach turn. You should have seen the look on Salena’s face.

I think Salena asked the manager what she should do and he let the woman just pay for the mineral water. She wasn’t rude, but jeeez. You know what I mean?

So I continue to eat my lunch, I’m looking around at my fellow customers, I notice a table a few feet away from me. There’s a woman -- white woman, late thirties, blandly pretty -- yakking away on her cell phone. She’s got 2 kids; a boy and a girl, both around thirteen or so. Mom puts away the cell phone and tells the kids that they’re seeing daddy 3 weeks from now instead of 2 because... I forget. Whatever. Daddy won’t have weekend custody of them until 3 weeks from now. Then Mom quizzes them about how they’re doing in these classes she’s signed them up for, etc. She radiates nervous, overacheiving energy, probably accentuated by the latte she drank at Starbucks an hour ago. Her and dad both have high paying jobs. They work very hard. They’re not married anymore.

At another table a few feet from them is a Mexican family. Actually, they take up 2 tables because they’ve got a lot of kids. The Zero Population Growth part of me doesn’t dig that but, well, that’s not the point. So there’s a table with this 40-something Mexican guy and his wife. You can tell they’re both immigrants. The kids are conversing nicely, speaking Spanish while mom and dad are talking to their oldest offspring, who looks about 20. He’s a clean-cut guy wearing a U.S. military uniform. He’s eating his meal, talking to his parents, smiling. They’re smiling back at him. It was a nice scene.

Contrast that to the broken home at the other table (the one with mom yakking away on the cell phone). Dad and her probably didn’t get divorced because of domestic violence or anything like that. They just decided it was “time to move on” so they could “fulfill their needs” and... okay, I’ll try not to hurl as I type this... “find their spirituality” or some crap like that.

And now, thanks to the liberation of divorce, mom didn’t have to just endure a husband she didn’t love.

Now she got to endure a husband she didn’t love, a pre-divorce boyfriend she didn’t love, and a current boyfriend she’s starting to think she doesn’t love. Dad’s probably not faring much better. And the kids... I feel sorry for them. Especially the boy. Becoming a man is tough enough, but it’s a lot easier when you’re coached by dad -- not your bitter, divorced, man hating mother.

Divorced mom and divorced dad sure have come a long way from their grandparents, who were probably poor and couldn’t afford to buy a bunch of useless crap at the Stanford Mall. But I’ll bet their grandparents had something their grandkids don’t have: a family like those Mexicans eating at Fresh Choice.###

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