It used to be a clubhouse for S.F.'s literati. Now it's the city's most mysterious restaurant
What is it, indeed, and is it even open? Lillie Coit's website offers this description: 'Before Lillie Coit's makes its grand opening, we're inviting our neighbors, friends, and in-the-know San Franciscans to experience Petite Lil's— a neighborhood preview while we are still building.' According to its Instagram, Petite Lil's launched over two years ago, and the full restaurant, Lillie Coit's, will 'be opened when we're Ready!'
When I visited in May, the French-leaning restaurant seemed to be making incremental progress toward Readiness. The walls were swatched with paint. There was a sawhorse in the back corner, and the workman who had been manning that sawhorse was drinking at the bar. My party of four squeezed into the alcove that will someday become the Willie Brown booth, but which at the time consisted of two mismatched bar tables pushed together.
A restaurant in a vague state of openness with a years-long build-out might not be noteworthy were it not for Lillie Coit's location. It occupies 1707 Powell St., the North Beach building that formerly housed the legendary Washington Square Bar & Grill, known to a generation of Herb Caen readers as the Washbag.
In 2017, the Chronicle reported that Nick Floulis, the owner of Hole in the Wall Coffee (itself located on the site of another historic San Francisco institution, the Paper Doll Club), hoped to have Lillie Coit's up and running by the following year, so it seems unwise to make any firm predictions about when the restaurant may or may not open. But no matter — Petite Lil's is currently receiving guests and is worth a visit in its own right. The somewhat limited menu is plenty enticing and definitely quirky. For an additional $9, you can add a 'green Chartreuse luge' to your $18 order of bone marrow, and when you buy a $99 bone-in tomahawk 'booth steak' and a $18 French omelet, you get a shot of house amaro (it's Montenegro) gratis.
We did just that, and both the omelet and the 32-ounce steak — served with herb or anchovy butter, or, in our case, both — were superb. For dessert, there was a slice of fanciful St. Honoré cake ($12), walked all the way across Columbus from Victoria Pastry Company. It's a classic for a reason.
We departed before 10 p.m., but had we stayed, we surely would have partaken in oyster happy hour, which runs until 1 a.m. The purchase of six oysters ($23) gets you six more free. According to a white board dangling over the bar, someone by the name of Nathan Lane allegedly consumed 120 oysters in a single eve. Nathan, you doing OK, bud?
On a Thursday evening, the majority of the bar seats were occupied, and Floulis, who appeared to be holding down the fort with the help of one other bartender, seemed to know most everyone. Lillie Coit's might be mysterious to most San Franciscans, but to North Beach locals and industry folk, the secret is out.
Petite Lil's at Lillie Coit's. 1707 Powell St., San Francisco. lilliecoits.com
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