From 1986 to 1992 I had the privilege of researching for my book Some Of My Best Friends Are Naked at the Lusty Lady Theatre in North Beach across the street from San Francisco’s legendary Tomasso’s Ristorante. The theater was known to the IRS as the Church Of Venus where faithful congregates looking for the heavenly connection deposited quarters to raise the peep show windows to commune with the nurturing nude goddess and her sisters.
Throughout those years, Tomasso’s owners Agostino Crotti, his sister Ana and wife Carmen crossed the street to exchange bills for the sacred quarters of change. For decades, Tomasso’s was the San Francisco restaurant of choice for Frank Sinatra and his Hollywood pack. Years later, Francis Coppola sat in the history-bearing booths eating spectacular Italian dishes writing his famous films and continuing Sinatra’s and Tomasso’s tradition of bringing Italian hospitality and intellectual vigor to all who entered.
On a recent sit-down Agostino asked me if I was aware that he was Pope Paul VI’s alter boy from the age of twelve to eighteen!? No, no way! Wow! He said he was in a state of constant amazement living in the Vatican and spending time at the Pope’s side before hundreds of thousands of believers in the piazza below! Suddenly, the veil lifted from the eyes of this Roman Catholic-raised boy and I saw that Agostino and I were both churchmen working on Kearny Street in the old Gold Rush neighborhood known as the Devil’s Acre!
The nurturing of souls and the abundance of classic inspiring Italian dishes continues in North Beach but the women-owned and operated Lusty Lady Theatre has passed into the pages of history. The Crotti Family era at Tomasso’s will end, as all things do, as soon as the Crotti family finds new owners committed to continuing Tomasso’s traditions well into the 21st century.