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August 2006
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Late-night rush
If you’re hot for insider dish, head to the place where restaurant workers wind down after the checks have been paid and the chairs put up.When you’re a worker whose shift ends around midnight, you have only two hours to decompress before the city shuts down. And when you’re after food, drink, and a scene, there’s no time to dillydally. Welcome to the postwork world of the restaurant business. Wired after a night spent catering to our food-obsessed locals’ every whim, the front-of-the-house people (servers, hosts, sommeliers, and maîtres d’) exit the city’s top restaurants with fistfuls of cash burning a hole in their pockets. So they head to SoMa’s slick Oola and grab a cozy booth or a seat at the hoppin’ bar.
A watering hole and refueling station for the service industry since it opened in September 2004, Oola draws them in with equal parts grub and booze. Chef Ola Fendert has a huge industry fan base for his modern take on restaurant classics like burgers and Caesar salad. Watermelon cosmopolitans are shaken, champagne and pinot start flowing, and you can bet when the clock strikes 2, the party isn’t ending—it’s just moving to someone’s living room.
Oola THE CROWD EAVESDROPPING THE LOOK THE SAUCE THE ENABLER Oola: 860 Folsom St., S.F., 415-995-2061 | Elsewhere With a superb burger and a kitchen that’s open until 1 a.m., Nopa is a prime spot for chefs from places like Ame and A16 to refuel postshift. 560 Divisadero St., S.F., 415-864-8643. The Hut—aka the Slut—is chock-full of Rockridge industry folk. They’re a hedonistic bunch, but that doesn’t mean anyone should take the nickname too seriously. 5515 College Ave., Oakland, 510-653-2565. The Black Watch is about the closest thing Los Gatos has to a dive bar, and the crew from the acclaimed, distinctly nondivey restaurant Manresa winds down here. 141 ½ N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos, 408-354-2200. |
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