Sbrocco: Dig in to classic comfort.

It's a nostalgic look back at old-school eateries on a special edition of "Check, Please!

Bay Area."

♪♪ Knoop: Did you like the mashed potatoes?

Taylor: Mashed potatoes were as smooth as can be.

Avila: They were beaten to within a minute of their lives.

I mean, those things were whipped.

Sbrocco: Hi, I'm Leslie Sbrocco.

Welcome to "Check, Please!

Bay Area."

Since we can't be back at the table with new guests, we're on the road for another special episode.

Now, more than ever, we want to celebrate a few of the most historic "Check, Please!"

restaurants, places where the menu is full of time-tested favorites, the decor is decidedly retro, and the cocktails are generous.

Our guests' picks span over 170 years of Bay Area history, beginning as far back as the Gold Rush.

[ Bell ringing ] ♪♪ Hanna: Tadich Grill, it's the oldest restaurant west of the Mississippi River and the third oldest restaurant in the country.

Server: ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪ Hanna: I'm David Hanna, general manager of the Tadich Grill.

We've been open since 1849.

It's been Croatian owned since day one.

We started off as a tent on the Long Wharf, serving coffee and mesquite-grilled fish to the merchant sailors as they would come in off their boats.

And we've been grilling fish over mesquite charcoal ever since.

Our cioppino is a very unique cioppino.

The recipe is a house secret.

We actually have our cookbook that has been the cioppino recipe in it, except for the one secret ingredient that we use and we're not telling anybody what that is.

Server #2: They bake bread every morning.

We go through about 100, 120 loaves of bread a day.

Old, traditional, homestyle cutting and serving.

That's how we serve the bread and butter at Tadich Grill.

Hanna: Just the whole vibe starts right here at the front door.

You get to sit here at the bar and see the show happen, I like to call it, where it's a bunch of bartenders making people laugh, making people great drinks and having a great time.

People like to come in here and know what they're getting.

They've had it before.

There's no need for us to change it.

And it's old school, good service, great food, a lot of food, stiff drinks.

It's definitely a place to come if you're going to San Francisco.

O'Brien: I have been going to Tadich Grill since I moved to San Francisco probably about 10 years ago.

The first time I went, it was almost like a scene out of a movie.

My husband and I took the cable car down.

We stepped off.

And right there was just this beacon of history.

And from that moment forward, every experience I've had in Tadich Grill has been that exact same scene over and over.

I go for the cioppino there.

You know, cioppino is a dish that was invented in San Francisco.

And Tadich Grill is the oldest restaurant in California.

So when you have it there, you're having a San Francisco invented dish in a historic location.

Sbrocco: We're talking about 1887.

O'Brien: Tadich Grill was started a year before the Civil War.

Isn't that incredible?

And it arrives in this huge bowl with the Tadich Grill emblem on it.

It is this beautiful, deep-red broth, and it has huge pieces of seafood.

It is a cornucopia of the sea.

There is shrimp, there's fish, scallops, mussels.

Slosberg: I must say, I like making cioppino at home, and I think my version is the best, but next to my version, I have to agree, this is the best cioppino I've ever had in a restaurant.

I like the fact that the flavors of the seafood are in the sauce.

It's not a tomato sauce, it's tomato with the unique flavors of all the components in there.

It's the most complex cioppino sauce I've had.

Medina: So Tadich Grill, I know that it's a seafood restaurant.

And I think a true mark of a restaurant is to try food that they might not necessarily be known for.

So I actually had a steak.

I tried the 16-ounce New York strip.

It was aged 21 days.

I mean, that steak was perfectly cooked.

It was char grilled, nice char marks on it, and it was perfectly cooked.

I asked for medium.

It was medium throughout.

And the taste -- it was well-seasoned.

When I bit into it, you can tell it was aged.

A little more complexity.

Slosberg: For us, we had the appetizer, the crab cake.

And the crab cake was the best crab cake we've ever had.

Just chunk full of huge pieces of crab, little crusting on the side.

A wonderful dipping sauce to dip the crab in, but just the physical size of the crab cake.

I couldn't believe how big it was.

O'Brien: It's huge, and, you know, you don't find a crab cake these days that has that much crab meat and also that's not just doused in mayonnaise.

Slosberg: No mayonnaise.

O'Brien: Right.

Slosberg: The menu itself is huge.

O'Brien: It is.

Medina: It is, yeah.

Slosberg: But what you get, the quantity -- We had -- we had leftover food to take home.

It is expensive, but the dishes we had were worth it.

♪♪ ♪♪ Blume: Jack Snow was the original founder of the Casa Orinda restaurant.

He came out in 1932 from Montana to build the Caldecott Tunnel.

He started this place as a place to hang out with his crew, to feed them, to lift their spirits and entertain them.

It's been an institution ever since.

In the late '60s, Jack Snow partnered with Ivan Goyak.

The son, John Goyak, is now the owner, and their energy and vitality has maintained the Casa to make it what it is today.

I think of the Casa as one giant living room, a place that regulars and new people come to discover Western hospitality.

As an employee for 19 years, I've seen kids grow up from toddlers to teenagers to adults, and they bring their children in.

They have their favorite spots to eat, their favorite servers, and their favorite dishes.

I often feel like a curator in a museum that serves fine food.

Sbrocco: Now, Obbe, this place, the name would sort of suggest something Mexican, but really it's not about Mexican food -- Casa Orinda.

Knoop: No, it's all about the old Wild, Wild West when you go inside, actually with a little sophistication.

The best known for their fried chicken.

Fried chicken, I think, is one of the best dishes out there.

I call it upscale comfort food, if you want to call it that.

Avila: I tried not to read anything about it, but I did know that the fried chicken was the big deal there.

And I actually -- I really did enjoy it.

It was really moist.

It was really good.

It was definitely the star.

And I think it was probably the best thing out of all of what we ordered at our table.

But it was huge.

It was this big pile.

I mean, I shared it with the whole group and still had enough to take home.

Knoop: Did they give you a little carafe of honey?

Avila: No, they gave me -- Taylor: They did for me, for my biscuit.

Avila: You got honey?

I didn't get honey.

Taylor: A little bit of honey for my biscuit.

And the biscuit was ridiculously good.

Avila: Yeah, the biscuit was definitely amazing.

Taylor: Thick and kind of like melted in your mouth and it stuck on your tongue, the roof of your mouth.

It was -- it was delicious.

Knoop: Did you like the mashed potatoes, though?

Taylor: Mashed potatoes were as smooth as can be.

Avila: They were beaten to within a minute of their lives.

I mean, those things were whipped.

Taylor: Then I though, "Gosh, this has got to be made from powder."

But my mom who grew up on a ranch, guaranteed, "No, no, no.

This is true to ranch-style food."

You know, very creamy mashed potatoes.

That's what people pride themselves on.

So that's the gist of it.

Knoop: So you took your mom to the restaurant?

Taylor: I sure did.

Yeah.

And she grew up on a ranch in Colorado and thought the food was as authentic as possible in terms of ranching types of food.

Knoop: The funny thing about Casa Orinda is it's not just this.

They also have upscale Dungeness crab salads.

They have great filet mignons.

They've got great Italian dishes like piccata Milanese, all those kind of dishes.

So it's -- it's a strange combination.

And I think you need to know the place before you can really understand what they do there.

Avila: And prime rib.

Taylor: I thought the steak was absolutely delicious.

I had bites of my mother's New York steak, and it was -- it was done to perfection.

I was very pleased with the steak.

Sbrocco: Okay.

Avila: I mean, you walk in, and you get this whole, like, Western saloon kind of a feel.

And so I expected a big, meaty menu, but I opened it up, and it was all these kind of Italian things.

Taylor: Yeah.

Nothing was off the beaten track, I didn't think.

Avila: Right.

My husband had the fried mushrooms, the fried portobello.

That was really good.

I mean, you fry a vegetable and you're totally on it, Sbrocco: And you have your vegetable in for the day.

Avila: That's right.

I'm done.

Check.

Sbrocco: That's right.

Taylor: Yeah.

♪♪ Sbrocco: Let's jump forward now to the mid 20th century with restaurants that have kept their core menus pretty much the same as the day they opened.

Our first stop on the time machine an iconic San Francisco Hofbrau that's been a beacon for hungry travelers since 1947.

♪♪ Martin: Tommy's Joynt was opened by Al Pollack in 1947.

He brought in his cousin Tommy Harris, who was a social-media star at the time with a radio show on KFRC.

So after Tommy Harris' radio show, they'd come and hang out, have good food.

I'm Eddie Martin.

I'm the general manager at Tommy's Joynt in San Francisco, the original Hofbrau.

So Tommy's is the original counter-service restaurant.

You could come in to Tommy's when it's at his busiest, and you could be sitting down having your food in less than 20 minutes.

Tommy's has had the same menu since it opened in the early '50s.

It's a traditional menu with recipes from the original owners.

♪♪ Man: We love a little gravy.

Martin: So our carvers at Tommy's Joynt have been here for -- some of them -- 30 years.

Old-school San Francisco, and they have a very steady hand and they know exactly how much meat goes in a sandwich and they get it perfect to the ounce every time.

Our regular prices beat any restaurant's Happy Hour.

We've been making Irish coffee since the '50s, just as long as the other guys, and we sell them for half the price.

There was a choice to be made two years ago whether to tear down Tommy's Joynt and build up condos, make a lot of money, or invest in Tommy's Joynt and keep it open.

So the current owner used to come here as a kid.

He came here with his family.

So he invested a lot of his money, a lot of his time and effort to keep these doors open and keep the traditions of affordable good food going.

♪♪ Vu: I was just driving down Venice one day and saw a neon sign that said "Hot corned beef and cocktails" and just pumped the brakes, like, cut across three lanes of traffic because I knew I had to have some corned beef.

Sbrocco: And a cocktail.

Vu: And a cocktail, of course.

Right.

So I went in, and I thought I stepped through a wormhole, like a time machine or something, because you're in the '70s and there's, like, tchotchkes all over the wall.

And there's this neon glow that comes from the meat-carving station right there.

You just smell it right when you walk in.

There's a gentleman there waiting to greet you.

You just tell him what you want.

There's the menu right there with all these delicious, juicy, hot, peppery, smoky, tasty meats right in front of you.

Sbrocco: It is a meat palace.

Vu: Yeah.

If not so much for the vegetarians.

But I had a corned beef sandwich the first time, and it was great.

But, you know, I had to come back, and I had the turkey plate.

Their turkey plate is one of the best turkey plates I've ever had in my life.

Sbrocco: Ooh, nice.

Vu: It's beautiful.

It's golden brown.

But when you taste that turkey, it tastes not like Thanksgiving, but, like, more like grandma's cooking or something.

Well, maybe not my grandma, but I presume somebody's grandma.

It's so hearty.

It comes with this beautiful side of mashed potatoes and stuffing, and then they cover it with this beautiful, silky gravy.

One bite and you're in heaven pretty much.

And it paired so well with their beer, Sbrocco: And they have an extensive beer list.

Vu: Oh, yeah.

Trixler: Yeah.

Then the old sign on the outside of the door, Tommy's Joynt with the martini glass.

And you walk in and the walls are just filled with memorabilia.

I had the buffalo stew.

That was actually pretty good.

You could taste the buffalo.

It wasn't overly stewed.

It was really quite delicious.

Their pickles, which are -- I love pickles.

They were very nice.

Parry: I had the corned beef plate.

It came with a side of green beans.

I got it with rice also and some coleslaw, which was good.

The meat was good.

I mean, it wasn't dry.

It wasn't tough.

It was -- it was good.

It was fine.

I had a little of the horseradish, which was on the table and that was really good.

I think actually for the price there, the value was good.

Vu: Oh, the price cannot be beat, for sure.

Sbrocco: You get value there.

Trixler: No question.

Parry: Yeah.

I mean, it's really about expectation.

And I wasn't going to Tommy's Joynt expecting a super fancy meal, but it was a really good meal.

The one thing I was expecting that I was surprised about was that I expected it to be really touristy, and it wasn't.

Man #2: I've been coming here since 1955.

Parry: It was a lot.

Sbrocco: It's very local.

Parry: It was a lot of locals, actually, a lot of people coming in after the game.

And that was kind of nice to see.

So that was a pleasant surprise.

Vu: I think that actually the pastrami is really good.

Pastrami has more of a peppery bark on the outside of it.

And the curing on the pastrami, it's like it's more salty, more seasoned.

They use both part of the brisket, both the flat and the point.

Sbrocco: Did you have any dessert?

Vu: The carrot cake was really good.

But the dessert that I actually really liked was the Tommy's Irish coffee.

The Irish cream sits on the top and kind of sinks down to the coffee.

It's almost kind of like watching a lava lamp.

It was a great way to finish the meal.

Sbrocco: You drank your dessert.

Vu: There you go.

Sbrocco: That's right.

♪♪ ♪♪ Betz: The House of Prime Rib is here now since 1949.

I took over in 1985, and I believe we have a very unique restaurant.

The name says it all -- prime rib, and we make prime beef.

We do one thing, and we do it exceptionally well.

We have served only Midwest corn-fed prime beef.

What makes us different than any other beef house?

The way we prepare our beef.

We prepare it in rock salt.

Actually we bake it in it.

From there, after we break the salt, we roll it to the table, slice it in front of the customer and put it on the plate and serve it.

Man #3: Thank you.

Betz: It's hot and juicy.

When a customer tells you, "I'm so full, I can't eat anymore," that's as good as it gets.

Roberts: House of Prime Rib is my favorite.

I'm a man's man.

I like beef with a side of beef.

And they have the King Henry -- Sbrocco: King Henry VIII.

Roberts: Thank you.

King Henry VIII cut.

They have the house cut, and they have thinner cuts, too.

But I like -- Sometimes I've had the King Henry VIII, but it's like I can't finish it.

And it's great service, great atmosphere.

The food comes out quickly.

They bring the food out on this big tray, and you pick whatever cut you want and they cut it right there for you.

Sbrocco: But it is only prime rib, as the name says.

Roberts: Why would you order seafood at a steak house?

Sbrocco: At the House of Prime Rib.

Alright.

Do you like prime rib?

Because this will give us the clue.

Jones: I do like prime rib.

I'm a beef man as well, to some degree at least.

And I thought the quality of the food was very good.

It was an interesting place.

The service was entertaining.

The food portions were outstanding.

It was definitely rich food.

Lock: Oh, come on.

Yorkshire pudding.

It's not rich.

Roberts: Rich?

Lock: Creamed spinach.

Jones: Yeah, I could feel my cholesterol rising as I walked through the door.

The wine list -- outstanding.

You walk through the door, and you see the display of the wines that are available, and there were some excellent selections there.

So that entices me.

Sbrocco: And quite good pricing, actually.

Jones: Not bad at all.

Sbrocco: And what about you, Jaimie?

Lock: I love the House of Prime Rib.

It was great.

I mean, from just even walking through the front doors, I mean, you feel like you're kind of traveling back to an era where dining out is more of, like, a special occasion than just an everyday event.

If a place has been in business for that long and that's their specialty, I mean, it's hard to go wrong.

Roberts: Did you like the thing with the salad when they spin the bowl?

Lock: I loved it.

Jones: It's the theatrics.

The service were entertaining, for sure.

And then the size of the cut and they promptly served me a beautiful end cut that was delicious.

Roberts: I had the house cut, and I still took it home and ended up eating it the next day.

Lock: Yeah, well, I was wondering what all those red bags were around on all the tables.

There were these cute, little, red shopping bags.

Sbrocco: So I heard that if you can finish your cut -- and I'm not sure which cut it is -- they'll give you another.

Roberts: I'll have to try that.

Jones: Must be the Henry VIII because I had the center cut and I managed to get it all down.

Sbrocco: You managed to get it all down.

Jones: I felt like I was gonna explode.

Lock: Even when they were portioning out the salad, I was like, "Whoa."

And she's like, "No one leaves here hungry."

So I knew I was in for trouble.

Roberts: You're gonna leave there full, you're gonna leave there happy, and you're gonna... You might spend a little bit of money, but you'll feel like every cent was worth it.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Paul: Marin Joe's was started in 1954 by our great-uncle, Adolph Della Santina.

He brought our father along with him.

Ralph: I started here at 12 years old.

Paul: And myself, I've been here 51 years.

I'm Paul Della Santina, owner of Marin Joe's, and this is my brother.

Ralph: I'm Ralph Della Santina, part owner of Marin Joe's.

Ralph: I think the major component of us being around is a good-sized portion at a very fair price.

And that's always been Uncle Adolph's philosophy way back when.

Paul: Put it on the plate.

Ralph: Put good food on a plate, and they'll come back.

Paul: The joy of this place are the customers -- having them come in time and time again, joking with them.

We've always had a piano bar.

And it seems like every time we've even thought about changing anything in there, like lightening it up or -- "No!

Don't put the windows in!"

You know, a lot of people don't like change around here.

Well, basically Joe's Restaurant is a style of cooking.

They always had an open kitchen, a lot of grilled meats and grilled fish.

I mean, the choices could be sometimes a little overwhelming.

You know, you can order your steak.

Okay, now, if you want some pasta with it, okay, what kind of sauce do you want with it?

You want meat sauce?

You want napolitana, you want pesto, you want this, you want that?

Man: Napolitana!

Paul: There's a lot of choices, and they're fun choices.

And us as cooks get to know the people, too.

You come in, we, oh, we know what you like, we know how you want it done.

A lot of us have been known to turn around, put a little something on the plate, and go, "Here, try this."

Any time you saw Uncle Adolph in here, he always had a dice box in his hand.

Cutting the steaks and shaking dice.

He loved it.

Ralph: His famous line was, "Do you have a dollar?"

Paul: "Do you have a dollar?"

Ralph: "Do you have a dollar to shake dice with?"

Both: Bon appetit!

Sbrocco: Alright, Kian, why is this place so special to you?

Kian: The first thing is, the waiters and waitresses make you feel like you're home.

When you walk in, there's a left side where there's, like, the windows and everything, and then the right side, where there's no windows and it's dark.

I like it when it's dark 'cause it's old school.

And the right side of it makes you feel like, "Oh, okay, this is, like, taking it back all the way back to '54."

Sbrocco: You've been going there a long time?

Kian: Well, one of my pictures is, I was on top of the piano, and the piano player, Steve, he has glasses, and he'd always play with the piano.

And I would always go right to sleep.

While I'd be sleeping, my parents would be dining, and they would always get great food.

Sbrocco: What do you have?

Kian: If I'm craving a salad, then I'll go with the Caesar salad 'cause they serve it right in front of the table.

They put all the sauces, like, right in front of you.

Server #3: Alright.

Here we go.

Cole: I also got the Caesar salad, and I thought it was delicious.

And they made it right in front of you.

I'm like, "Whoa!"

Like, watching it.

But it was, like, really, really good.

Kian: And another thing that I would always get is the New York steak.

They cook it on mesquite grill, and that's what changes the flavor for me.

Sbrocco: Absolutely.

Cole: My mom had the spiedini.

Sbrocco: You got to say it like this -- [ Italian accent ] Spiedini!

Cole: [ Italian accent ] Spiedini!

[ Normal voice ] And it was basically a bunch of meat, and the chicken was so juicy.

And my brother and dad shared the prime rib.

Kavika, my brother, he, like, ate it all up and only left a tiny bit for me.

Sbrocco: [ Normal voice ] And this is a specialty, right?

Cole: Yeah, the sauce, like, really brought out, like, the iron-y flavor of the meat.

Maddie: My dad had the tortellini soup.

It was basically tortellini in chicken broth.

Oh, it was so delicious.

They served it, like, very, very hot.

I'm not really sure what the tortellini was stuffed with, but there's a lot of cheese.

Sbrocco: Do you get pasta when you go to this place usually, or is it really known for its meats and its grill?

Kian: Yes, I like the meats.

Sbrocco: Burgers?

Kian: Their burger -- it's just too good.

They use actually sourdough bread, and then they kind of make it into a shape, like a triangle shape.

And then, you got the burger on it, you got the cheese on it if you want it to be melted, and you got the sides on the side that you can add it on.

Sbrocco: And let's talk a little bit of dessert.

Cole: Well, the tiramisu -- I was, like, really excited for it.

Presentation-wise, it was very flat and very, like, deconstructed, but it was still, like, delicious, and I ate it all up.

♪♪ ♪♪ An: Well, my grandmother, she loved to visit the United States and one of her favorite places was San Francisco.

In 1971, she stumbled on to an Italian deli on 46th Avenue and Judah, came in there to pick up her items, found out that the store owner wanted to sell his deli.

That was the perfect opportunity for her to open Thanh Long and come live in the United States and in her favorite city of San Francisco.

She was excited, called up my grandfather back in Vietnam and said, "I just bought a business.

Get on the plane.

We're gonna live here now."

It was my mother who, when she came in 1975, kind of her passion, very innovative.

And she kind of inspired all of us to expand ourselves to other locations such as Beverly Hills and Palo Alto.

Our menu has stayed the same.

There's the roasted crab dish that my grandmother -- secret recipe since 1971, our garlic noodles since 1975, the curry rolls, the mango salad, those are all special dishes that we had on the menus since the 70s.

Soriano: I feel like I've grown up with Thanh Long.

It really is -- I think it's got the best crab in the world.

It's usually one of my answers to what would you eat before you die or something like that.

And so I like to recommend it to friends.

I like to go there when I'm celebrating.

I like to go there when I'm not feeling so well and you want to, you know, pick yourself up.

And the... Sbrocco: The garlic will cure anything.

Soriano: The greatest pleasure, I think It's the crab has embedded flavor and it's got the pepper and the butter and the garlic and you kind of have to -- You know, some people try to eat it with the fork, little forks, but, hey, go for it, use your hands.

Lee: But I will say, it was the most expensive crab I've ever had.

Soriano: Right.

It is.

Lee: But it wasn't that outrageous, and it was really delicious.

Bennett: And I have to say, it was expensive, but it was a large Dungeness crab.

And we only ordered one for five of us.

And I felt like we all had a decent amount of crab, and it was delicious.

The crab really was delicious, and it was prepared differently than I'm used to having crab, but I've never had it roasted hot with all that garlic.

Soriano: Did you try the mango salad?

It's so good.

Sbrocco: Which has shrimp and... Soriano: And yeah, it has shrimp, scallops and it's got -- Unfortunately for you, it does have that combination of sweet and salty and some people don't like that, but I love it.

So it kind of contrasting.

Lee: Yes.

Sbrocco: Did you have anything else?

Lee: So in addition to the crab, crab and crab, the salt and pepper calamari.

Soriano: Oh, yes.

Lee: Oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes.

They are really delicious.

Sbrocco: And the menu -- They do have, you know, the appetizers.

And then they have the menu for the secret kitchen because there truly is a secret kitchen in the back.

That's where the secret spices come in for the crab and for the garlic noodles.

Soriano: And at first I thought it was an urban legend.

But, yeah.

Lee: I thought the quality of the cooking was exquisite.

I had the good fortune to -- or the bad fortune -- to honorably serve our country for a while in Vietnam.

And I've had good Vietnamese food.

The crab was astonishingly good.

And it was -- it was grand.

Bennett: Right.

♪♪ Sbrocco: Hope you enjoyed our trip down memory lane.

We applaud these restaurants for their longevity and contributions to Bay Area culinary history.

Thanks so much for joining us on "Check, Please!

Bay Area" and a hearty thank you to Jordan Winery for providing such a beautiful backdrop as we film these special editions.

Until next time, I'm Leslie Sbrocco.

Cheers.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪