The world is on fire. Let's go to brunch!

For some reason or another, brunch has always been my favorite meal. Maybe it’s the sense of being a French nobleman at a garden party or maybe it’s sucking down the worst champagne ever made in a valiant effort to stave off the Sunday Feeling, I don’t know, but I’ve been a devotee of the art form since I was . . . in college I think? I don’t remember brunch being a thing in high school but that’s probably because I lived with my dumb FAMILY, ugh.

The first San Francisco brunch place I frequented was called Curly’s and was on Powell in North Beach, the very first neighborhood I lived in in SF. That’s too many “ins,” sorry. Curly’s was a Japanese/diner hybrid and I saw Giants pitcher Shaun Estes there once. He lived in North Beach, back when it was very rare for Giants to actually live in SF. They had good Denver omelettes and teriyaki bowls.

Curly’s was fine. I don’t know when it closed down.

Then we lived in the Haight and we went to All You Knead a lot. It was a vaguely hippie-ish place and served absolutely GIGANTIC omelettes, like Kim Deal gigantic. There was always a waitress wearing something batik and the scent of patchouli in the air. I remember a lot of big group brunches there. It’s the first time I started having beer with brunch, which was great if you’re 23.

All You Knead also, predictably, closed down, around 2013. I think it was a vegan burger place and now I think it’s empty. Sad!

For a long time in the early aughts, my sister and I had a standing brunch date on Sundays and we checked out all kinds of places, some good (like Absinthe in Hayes Valley, still pumping out a superior brunch to matinee-goers and cougars) and some not so good.

Later I lived in Cole Valley and my then-girlfriend now-wife and I used to go to Crepes on Cole almost every weekend. Now I know a lot of people love Zazie and you can peep the sidewalk on Cole between Carl and Parnassus if you want to see a huge crowd of Chads and Jens waiting for some eggs but I took one look at that line and said FUCK THAT. So our usual Saturday would be go to CoC, nap, and then play Bar Scrabble at Kezar Restaurant (which, confusingly, is not Kezar Bar & Grill, which is down the hill on Stanyan). (Bar Scrabble is travel Scrabble played in a bar.) Kezar B&R is now Cole Valley Tavern, a much better name.

Later my then-girlfriend now-wife and I moved to another Valley, Noe, and would sometimes go down the hill to the fabled brunch at Boogaloos, but the wait there was so punishing once I decompensated and had to be taken off-site and we never went back. So I would just get brunch to go from Joe’s 24th Street Cafe, a completely unassuming diner-type spot that - you guessed it - has been closed for years and is now something called “Hi-Way Burger” which, ok. Oh and sometimes we went to Savor, an insanely popular brunch spot on 24th which is now, can you even see this coming, closed.

Later we moved to the Inner Richmond, where we still reside, and brunches are now more of a special occasion thing, what with an 11-year-old child and all. We have a soft spot for Perry’s on the Embarcadero and we used to love Presidio Social Club but …. you know the drill. Nopa, no surprise, has a fantastic brunch, but you have to make reservations like a month in advance or sit at the communal table which, ugh.

ONE FINAL NOTE. If you’re looking for the total Suburban White Car Dealer Experience in the City, I cannot recommend Ironwoods Bar & Grill, at the Presidio Gold Course, enough. Not only is the food pretty good, but you can watch Jackson and Taylor slowly get hammered on palomas while dudes in Titleist caps meander through. A+++++ will bring my guillotine when the revo starts.