When I arrived at the opening party for Steph Curry’s new restaurant in Union Square, the first thing I noticed was a man wearing a cowboy hat and sitting astride an 8-foot-tall, mirror-finished bison.
The man, who I would later learn was the winner of this year’s San Francisco Hunky Jesus contest, was parked in front of the St Francis Hotel, an Edwardian gem dating back to 1904.
And there he sat–on his glittering throne–as all the pomp and fanfare of the evening unfolded around him.
When Steph Curry does anything in San Francisco, it’s a big deal. The long-time Warriors point guard is as close to aristocracy as you get in modern SF.
Opening a restaurant, though, feels like an especially fitting next move for Curry, who at 37 is slowly moving towards the end of his NBA career and doubtless considering what comes next.
It’s also something of a family business. Curry’s wife Ayesha has worked with famed restaurateur Michael Mina on International Smoke, a successful barbeque restaurant in San Francisco’s Millennium Tower, for almost a decade.
Now, the family partnership is expanding. Steph Curry’s new restaurant is also a collaboration with Mina. Steph and Mina are working together to re-launch Mina’s Bourbon Steak restaurant with a new addition–Steph’s new bourbon bar, the Eighth Rule–at the historic St Francis Hotel. It’s a nerdy reference to the 7 rules of making bourbon.
When your reporter arrived, Hunky Jesus was already atop his noble steed, and a selection of San Francisco movers and shakers were milling about in a roped off section of Union Square, drinking champagne and looking resplendent in “Cocktail Attire,” which was required for the event.
The crowd seemed to capture a broadly representative slice of San Francisco power and influence. There were startup CEOs mingling with members of the media.
Former mayor Willy Brown sidled up and hung out near me for a while, looking brilliant in a yellow suit and hat.
San Francisco’s cherished Gay Men’s Chorus performed a series of songs in the Square, including Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked and Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club.
To assuage any concerns about safety, the whole of Union Square was filled to the brim with members of the San Francisco Police Department, who seemed to be in as good spirits as the revelers. I overheard one police officer say to his colleague a bit wistfully “I wish we could have brought a drone!”
The staff of Mina and Curry’s new restaurant stood in the windows overlooking Union Square, packed in and watching the waiting crowds below.
About an hour in, everyone turned their attention to the front of the St Francis. As the SFPD closed down the road, Curry and Mina rode up together in a San Francisco cable car, its bell clanging and its yellow-vested driver clearly enjoying this experience.
The man knows how to make an entrance!
As mayor Lurie cut a ceremonial ribbon in front of the hotel, Mina, Curry and representatives of the Saint Francis spoke about how this new collaboration would elevate the historic hotel and help to revive San Francisco’s Union Square.
Throughout the proceedings, Hunky Jesus towered above them, both a living backdrop and a reminder that–despite all the attempts at uppity pomp and circumstance–this is still San Francisco.
The speeches complete, the crowd then collectively pressed forward into the St Francis. Steph’s new bar, the Eighth Rule, occupies the main lobby of the hotel. With about 40 seats, it’s small and intimate.
The bar showcases Curry’s Gentlemen’s Cut bourbon.
Surrounded by the splendor of the St Francis’ historic interior, the bar has been “updated” with an Art Deco design. Ironically, the Art Deco style is itself over a century old, but–representative of speed and technological progress and thus perfect for San Francisco–it’s coming back into vogue.
Rumor has it that the St Francis originally housed a speak-easy, and the Eighth Rule leans into this history, both with the Art Deco feel and with 1920s inspired bourbon drinks and cocktails.
For the opening, the bar served both a bourbon drink with a small (and tasty!) chocolate square inside, and a very classy cocktail with elderflower, gin and pear.
Up a short flight of stairs, the revived Bourbon Steak serves Mina classics like tuna tartar, steaks, and playful items like a caviar “Twinkie.”
In the name of good journalism, your reporter tried both drinks, pieces of steak, plenty of lobster and several raw items, and more than one caviar Twinkie.
The drinks were excellent, and Eighth Rule’s clearly highly experienced bartenders did an admirable job keeping up with the demands of the massive, building-filling crowd.
They also seemed to be genuinely enjoying their jobs, challenging each other to shake multiple cocktails as vigorously as possible.
These were perhaps the hardest working people in San Francisco last night!
Although the opening featured only previews of Mina’s menu, they were tasty and classic. Raw items like steak tartare, tuna and caviar seem to feature prominently. A chef seared little pieces of steak, which were also delicious and felt like they fit very well into the meat-and-bourbon theme.
A jazz band played as guests jostled for position in line for various pasta stations, a raw bar, and later, tasty and rich desserts, including a chocolate tart and elevated chocolate walnut cookies.
The party looked ready to proceed well into the night–a rarity in sleepy San Francisco. New York may be the “City that Never Sleeps,” but SF is the “City That Goes to Bed at 9 Because There’s Work Tomorrow.”
Your reporter grabbed one (okay, two) last chocolate chip cookies and rode BART back to the East Bay, looking a bit out of place in his snazzy Bonobos suit and tie.
The party felt like a fitting way to welcome Curry and Mina’s new venture to Union Square. It also felt very San Francisco. On the one hand, you had power brokers in fancy attire sipping bourbon and munching on steak in a setting where Jay Gatsby would feel right at home.
But on the other hand, they were being serenaded by showtunes sung by the Gay Men’s Chorus in matching gray shirts, their handlebar mustaches and Elton John glasses perfectly coiffed and polished for the occasion.
The St Francis is a serious and regal place with a storied history. Yet here it was, framed and perhaps a bit overshadowed by Hunky Jesus who–this being a formal occasion–was also wearing cocktail attire.
It felt perfect, in a way. San Francisco is increasingly becoming the locus of modern power and influence, its AI companies singlehandedly holding up the American economy. Yet it’s also a place with such strong, strange bohemian roots that it could never bear to really, truly hold a stuffy, formal affair.
Curry is like that, too. On the one hand, he’s an elite basketball player–among the best in a generation. He sells manly, timeless things like bourbon.
Yet at the same time, he’s clearly also a bit of a goofy, fun family man, playing silly games with his daughters off the court and idly chewing on his mouthguard as he effortlessly sinks free throws on it.
Curry also modeled modern masculinity when he acknowledged that–by opening a restaurant—he was following in the footsteps of his wife, a second-fiddle role he seemed to embrace joyfully rather than downplaying.
This is a classy man, in classy city, that also happens to be kind of weird.
The opening of Bourbon Steak and the Eighth Rule captured that mixture perfectly. It will doubtless be successful. So, too, will San Francisco.
