Robert W. Brower Old Poodle Dog Restaurant Collection

Title: Robert W. Brower Old Poodle Dog Restaurant Collection

Dates: 1865-1940

Collection Number: SFH 582

Creator/Collector: Brower, Robert W.

Extent: .2 cubic foot

Repository: San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center

Abstract: Contains menus, wine labels, and postcards of the Poodle Dog, Old Poodle Dog and Bergez-Frank's Old Poodle Dog restaurants.

Language of Material: English

The collection is available for use during San Francisco History Center hours.

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscrips must be submitted in writing to the City Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the San Francisco Public Library as the owner of the physical items.

Robert W. Brower Old Poodle Dog Restaurant Collection. San Francisco Public Library. San Francisco History Center

Donated by Robert W. Brower on April 26, 2019.

ADMINISTRATIVE HISTORY: Frenchman François Péguillan opened Le Poulet d'Or at the corner of Washington and Dupont Streets in 1849, catering to miners. It came to be known as the Poodle Dog. In 1868, it moved to the corner of Bush and Dupont streets and the name was officially changed to Old Poodle Dog Restaurant. In the 1890s, owner A. Blanco and his partner Brun built a six-story building at the corner of Eddy and Mason streets, designed by architects William Mooser & Son. The new restaurant was one of San Francisco's celebrated French restaurants, catering to bankers and lawyers, politicians and judges, with an 18-chef staff and wine cellars stocked with over 10,000 bottles of wine from around the world. Destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906, the restaurant was re-opened in mid-1906 by Jean Baptiste Pon and chef Calixte Lalanne, first in temporary quarters on Van Ness Avenue, then to a residential building on Eddy Street. In 1908, Lalanne and Pon joined with Camille Mailhebuau and Louis Coutard of Frank's Rotisserie, and Jean Bergez of the Bergez Restaurant. The new incarnation was known as Bergez-Frank's Old Poodle Dog, now at the corner of Claude Lane. Prohibition came about in 1919, and the restaurant was closed in 1922. Mailhebuau opened Camille's Rotisserie and Restaurant the following year. In subsequent years the Poodle Dog name was revived by descandents of its former owners at several San Francisco locations. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION OF ROBERT W. BROWER: Robert W. Brower is a San Francisco Bay Area trial lawyer of 40 years. He is also a competition cook and independent culinary historian with a focus on Italian American cookbooks. Brower is a contributing author of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, c2013. His Poodle Dog collection began in the antiquarian section of Moe's Bookstore in Berkeley, where he bought his first two menus. One of them was the menu for a dinner honoring a Mr. Hale, as he prepared to leave for military service during World War I. Brower researched the names of the dinner guests, who had autographed the menu, and his collection was hatched.

Contains menus, wine labels, and postcards of the Poodle Dog, Old Poodle Dog and Bergez-Frank's Poodle Dog restaurants. Of particular note is a menu from and postcard depicting the temporary Old Poodle Dog Hotel and Restaurant, at 824 Eddy Street, circa June 1906. Also includes menus of Camille's Rotisserie and Restaurant. A copy of the rare souvenir book, <title render="italic">The Tale of a Poodle,</title> edited and published by Louis Roesch, c1903 (second edition), was separately cataloged under call number 647.9579 R629t 1903. See also the San Francisco Ephemera Collection for Poodle Dog, Old Poodle Dog, Camille's and Frank's Rotisserie menus and restaurant information.